With just slightly more than 24 hours in Dublin, I would be spending time exploring the city rather than in a hotel room. As such, I opted for a hostel for this stay, reminiscent of my previous budget backpacking trip from London back to Singapore. A quick research on agoda shows that the hostel prices are around the same around the city, but the quality was quite differing as you got nearer to the city centre.
After a quick deliberation, it wasn’t difficult to choose Generator Dublin Hostel, a hostel brand that I had wanted to try on my previous trip 4 years ago but found it a little bit expensive as I haven’t started working then.
The hostel was just about a minute away from Smithfield Luas stop, making it very convenient to travel around Dublin.
Check-in was almost seamless as I had done an online check-in prior to arrival, so most of my personal details were already on the registration card.
As I got to the room, I found my bed messed up. I wonder why. Bed 7 looks fine to me.
After checking around that no other personal items are around, I’m pretty safe to say that no one took this bed, and it was well and truly mine. Oh well.
The bed was nice and springy, and the blanket was thick and warm. Perfect for Dublin’s single-digit temperature. The bed comes with a little recess to put small belongings such as my phone and wallet, and comes with a power socket, side basket similar to coaches, and a privacy panel by the pillow so light wouldn’t shine directly into your eyes while sleeping.
The toilet and shower were located in an en-suite cubicle. Wasn’t very clean, but I guess it’s the result of the users rather than the hostel. Towels and toiletries aren’t provided, so bring your own or buy/rent from them.
Pro-tip: Find a Dealz or EuroGiant to buy your towels and toiletries for cheap.
In the morning, I opted for the hostel’s buffet breakfast to start the day since most places around seem to open after 9 or 10am. Generator Dublin offers a surprisingly good cold breakfast buffet for €5, but with the GenFriends App, you can activate a 20% F&B voucher on it (which doesn’t seem to expire – you can activate it again every time it expires every 18 hours), which makes the buffet only €4 (~S$6.16) instead.
You will be issued with a plate and cereal bowl upon payment. The buffet breakfast opens from 7.00am to 10.30am.
The main part of the buffet consisting of breads, cheeses, pork ham, yoghurt and a fruit cocktail.
Nutella, butter and strawberry jam were available for spreads.
Everything I needed to start the day.
What I picked from the cold buffet line.
Coffee, tea, orange juice and filtered water is also available at the buffet.
Sacks of cereal to start the day.
My coffee and orange juice.
The Generator Dublin restaurant also offers a cooked a la carte breakfast menu which I didn’t opt for. I was very happy with an unlimited supply of ham, cheese and coffee anyway.
Check-out was seamless with a simple return of the key card since I didn’t rent anything from them.
A slight hiccup after check-out though, Generator Dublin charged my credit card again despite having already pre-paid during booking through agoda. But an email to them about a week after being charged (when I got back to Singapore) had a very fast response of just 4.5 hours apologising for the mistake, stating how the mistake was made, which I thought was excellent rather than a simple sorry, and an immediate refund action. I lost about S$2 from the credit card conversion rate from this issue, but no big deal. Great to know that they took the mistake seriously anyway.
Overall, a simple and pleasant stay at Generator Dublin. Should I be back for a short trip again, I think I would stay here again for the convenience of its location and quality of the beds.