Blarney’s Castle Hotel was built in 1837 near the famous Blarney Stone in Blarney Castle. More people from all over the world line up just to kiss the well-known Blarney Stone, which was housed in this beautiful castle. The stone of Blarney is also known as the Stone of Eloquence, for those who kiss the stone are rumored to be blessed with the “gift of gab”.

Wide-ranging gardens and natural rock structures enclose the castle. To reach the Stone requires climbing a 127-step spiral staircase that, just when you think it can’t get any narrower, it does near the top. Once reaching the top you can afford to see the wonderful views of the surrounding countryside that should not be missed.

If the visitors decide to have some relaxing moment, they can place their reservation and check into Blarney’s Castle Hotel. Checking in is from 12 pm up to 12 pm the next day thru credit cards or on cash basis. The facilities of the hotel include front desks (limited hours), and guestrooms. Minimum check-in age is 18 years of age.

When going to Blarney’s Hotel, frequent buses run all day from Cork City center to the airport. Buses are available approximately every hour between Cork City bus station and Blarney. Taxi fare from the airport to the hotel costs more or less 25 EUR. Approximate distance to the hotel is 14 kilometers from Cork International Airport. From the airport just follow signboards for Cork on N25, go by the loop road around Cork, go along N20 north, leave R617 on the left and then just trail the signs going to Blarney Village. Blarney’s hotel is located on the Village Green.

Customers and visitors must present photo identification or valid identification card when checking in. Credit card is charged at the time they book into Blarney’s Hotel.

Customer reservation is prepaid and is guaranteed for late arrival. Rooms and taxes are included in the total charges, as well as fees for access and booking. Other charges like parking space, room services, and phone calls will be addressed directly by the customer and the property.

The Blarney’s Hotel features smooth dark wood boarding, with beautiful sparkling chandeliers. Brilliant colors and open fires create a warm Irish welcome upon entering the hotel’s lobby. As you go along to the interior of the hotel you will see a signature bar by Johnny, serving Guinness and local brews, with a touch of antique furnishings amidst it. The Lemon Tree Restaurant also serves seasonal and regional specialties and they boast an extensive wine list. Satisfying and complementary Irish style breakfasts are served every morning.

The Hotel also features a unique craft studio that offers local handicrafts to hotel guests at discounted prices. They also have a room overlooking the Village Green, with a fireplace and antique reproduction space.

Their guestrooms have satellite televisions and provide dial-up Internet access for business and personal use. Coffeemakers are also available and they serve bottled water for free. Personal bathrooms feature showers only.

Customer reviews of the Blarney Castle Hotel are very high and they said that they would recommend it to their families, relatives and friends when they come to visit Blarney Castle.

Most of the Blarneys customers who have stayed in it for a couple of days were very happy and satisfied. The hotel’s rooms are very nice and spacious, clean, comfortable and well decorated. They serve delicious breakfast and excellent food. The service is always great, and their staff is friendly, polite, very helpful, attentive, and informative.

Hotels amenities:

* Express check-in
* Conference room(s)
* Meeting room (small groups)
* Restaurant(s)
* Shoe shine
* Fireplace in lobby
* Parking nearby
* Internet public area – surcharge
* Express check-out
* Bar/lounge
* Room service (limited hours)
* Parking (Complimentary)
* Gift shop or newsstand
* Breakfast services – Fees Apply

This isn’t for everyone. If you think you might want to cancel your reservation, don’t bother using these sites as they are non-refundable most of the time. Also, if you want to join your friends or colleagues at a specific hotel, don’t use ‘masked’ hotel booking services. But if you’re somewhat flexible on your location and confident your plans won’t change, then these services are great. I’ve been using these sites for several years and have saved a lot of money in the process.

Travelocity is the latest to offer ‘masked’ hotel reservations with a service they call Top Secret Hotels. Top Secret Hotels has actually been offered on their site for some 3 or 4 months, but I wanted to let them work out the kinks before using it and writing a review.

To find out first hand if Travelocity’s Top Secret Hotels was as good as the competition and could save me up to 45%, I used their service for an upcoming 2-night trip to San Francisco. My approach was simple: I would perform the same hotel search on Priceline, Hotwire and Travelocity (using both regular and Top Secret reservations). My results were quite disappointing:

Selection: First, Top Secret Hotels only has 14 cities to choose from, 10 of which are in the US and 4 from Canada. I was fortunate that San Francisco made the list. When I performed my search, there were only 2 Top Secret Hotels available in all of San Francisco. Hotwire had 25 hotels, Priceline had 158, and Travelocity’s own regular reservation system had 286 hotels available.

Price: The very purpose of using a ‘masked’ reservation system is to save money. Why else would anyone book a hotel that they cannot cancel and not know the hotel name or location? The 2 Top Secret Hotels averaged $240/night. The other sites had equivalent (or better) hotels at 50 percent or less of Travelocity’s Top Secret Prices. So much for saving 45%

Area: Masked hotel reservation systems don’t release the exact hotel location until after you purchase, but they do give you a general area of where the hotel is situated. For example, Hotwire breaks downtown San Francisco into 8 areas and informs you prior to purchase which of these 8 areas your hotel is located. Priceline breaks downtown San Francisco into 7 areas. Travelocity – Just one area that spans from the Golden Gate Bridge to Redwood City. In other words, book a hotel in San Francisco and you could find yourself 25 miles outside of town.

Hotel Information: There was very little information about the 2 Top Secret Hotels available in my test search. Other than the hotel star rating, there were no hotel amenities or other hotel details provided, although one hotel indicated it was non-smoking. Talk about top secret! Compare this to Hotwire, where every hotel amenity is listed. In fact, with Hotwire it’s possible to identify your hotel before you make a reservation by matching up the Hotwire information with HotelDealsRevealed.com’s Hotwire Hotel Lists.

Top Secret Hotels by Travelocity obviously needs a lot of work. To give Travelocity credit, they have publically stated that they are going to grow and expand their offering. I truly hope so. They’ve got a long road ahead of them. In the meantime, I’ll keep using the other guys.

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