Gold standard – Three Irish hotels are named among world’s best
THREE Irish five-star hotels have made the highly influential list of ‘the best hotels in the world’ for 2018 in ‘Condé Nast Traveler’.
Dromoland Castle, Co Clare, Dublin’s Merrion Hotel and Ballyfin in Co Laois all feature on the travel bible’s
2018 Gold List.
“This is our list of the best hotels in the world, the ones we keep coming back to time and again,” the US publication said.
“It’s our love letter to the hotels that make us feel sexier, smarter, flirtier... that make us walk with a little more swagger and remind us who we want to be and how we want to live.”
Dromoland Castle recently upgraded after a €20m investment and guests staying there can expect to be treated like ‘royalty’.
Condé Nast describe the
16th-century fortified castle on a 410-acre estate with gardens and a lake as “outrageously beautiful”.
Ballyfin, which in 2016 was named the world’s number one hotel by the magazine, also features on the Gold List of over 200 global hotels.
“If you’ve ever dreamed of summering at a country house, you couldn’t do much better than this stately, 20-room Georgian home,” Condé Nast says.
Meanwhile, the Merrion Hotel is described as retaining “the refinement of its past while maintaining a sleekly stylish edge” in Dublin.
“From the grand marble lobby to the manicured garden, the hotel is a calming, peaceful sanctuary in the middle of the city,” Condé Nast wrote.
Ballyfin and Dromoland also make its list of the Top 10 Estate and Castle Hotels for 2018.
Other hotels to feature on the list include Four Seasons Private Island at Voavah, Baa Atoll in the Maldives, the Ritz Paris, The Connaught in London and the St Regis in Florence.
The magazine also published characteristics of the world’s worst traveller which include the line-cutter, the sign-ignorer and the “I’ll complain to anyone who listens” kind of tourist.