So the D4 Hotels cheap room deal is great but…

I’m staying in D4 Hotels Ballsbridge Inn (Formerly Jurys in Ballsbridge). I’m taking advantage of their cheap rooms that they’re running at the moment as I’m in Dublin for meetings regarding putting together an exciting event that should really help startups at a practical business level. Coming to you at the end of February but more about that later.

So I’m staying here and they have free internet which is great except there’s no cable in the room. I call reception and no one answers so I head on down to reception and find a very swamped but very hard working receptionist working very hard. I tell her my problem and she asks do I have a cable, I say I don’t and she explains to me that the cables they have are all out with guests in their rooms but that they have free WiFi in the lobby and Bar though. A bit bemused I head over to sit in the bar where the Wifi doesn’t work. I then go to the lobby and to different D$ networks don’t work there either.

I notice a young slim chap huddled over a mac in the full draft of the front doors and I obviously ask. It appears he has found the drip of WiFi that’s working and eyes me suspiciously as though I’m as though I’ll interfere with his precious supply (or perhaps slow his downloading of porn which he’ll bring back to his room later). Either way I haven’t the least intention of sitting in the freezing draft.

I decide to check with the overworked receptionist who very kindly offered me the use of a meeting room to work in which she assures me has it’s own wifi. I am thrilled but of course the wifi doesn’t work. I return to her and she is so downtrodden that I offer that to help fix it if she can find me the node. She shows me to another conferenc room where low the hallowed supplier of wifi is to be found. I unplug the cable form the back to check it’s ethernet supply is working. You guessed it no internet to the node…

I moved it to another node and the problem was solved which has allowed me to work for the evening and now tell you my sorry tale.

I know this place is run on a shoestring and I appreciate a cheap room but there’s a few very simple and cheap/free things they could have done to help me and 15 or so people who were wandering around the lobby with laptops trying to catch wifi signal like it was some kind of magic pixie dust.

1. Have the cable in the rooms – ALL of the rooms
2. Make sure your wifi node is plugged into an internet socket that works (This is the free one)
3. Give that poor bloody receptionist a raise. I’m amazed she’s still sane
4. Fire the bar staff they’re all ignorant as hell and the service is slow and bloody awful even when you get it. (This is a cost saver because you never get served anyway and at least this way your expectations aren’t raised)

P.S. Don’t worry I told the lad in the lobby he could get a better connection and avoid the cold if he moved over to near the meeting rooms. That way he’d be back up in his room in no time.