Jacobs Inn Hostel Dublin, Dublin

Jacobs Inn Hostel is a modern hostel very well located great for travelllers backpackers and students.

The Location

Location is probably one of the great things about this hostel. Jacobs Inn Hostel is really well located since you can find the train station within 2 minutes walking distance as well as the couch station where you could go to Galway, Cork... And you are just 10 minutes walking from the Spire where there are free walking tours every day.

Rooms and Bathrooms

Last year they implemented their new POD style dorms which is the perfect option if you like to have some more privacy. The beds are really comfortable and sturdy. You also have two different lights and a charger with USB port. It's also nice that the beds are already made and you could also rent a towel if you need one for 2.

The rooms also have a bathroom with shower which is really convenient because you do not have to leave the room in the middle of the night to look for a shared bathroom. However, there are also big shared bathrooms for women and men located in the corridors with several showers, and WCs. In terms of lockers, all rooms have a complimentary locker for each bed/POD that the guest will activate with a 4 digit password.

Common Spaces

There is no separte reception. It's all part of the main common area although they are refurbishing that area. There is where breakfast take place. In fact, guests have to pay 1 for coffe or tea. They have also some touristy information, you could also find some adaptors and they have signs with the different activities they offer and WiFi information (internet was really good at the Jacobs Inn). It also has a luggage storage for an additional cost but the recepction staff would also keep your bags behind the desk for free until check in time (at 15.00) if you show up before.

Reception is 24 hours which is great and if you are planning to get in the hostel past 23 at night you would have to show to a security person a code that would have been given to you in advance.

Summary

Jacobs Inn Hostel is a perfect option to stay in Dublin. Not just in terms of location but also in comfort and security. Staff is very welcoming, friendly and helpful. The hostel itself is very clean (rooms, bathrooms, kitchen...) It has a great atmosphere are you would meet with people from all over the world. And you have everything you need around the hostel: supermarkets, cafs, train and bus station, pubs, restaurants, stores...

Jacobs Inn set the bar for the other hostels we stayed at on our trip to Europe in June. They are by far one of the best hostels around and I have stayed at quite a few during my travels through the years.

We arrived at the hostel around 10-10:30 in the morning on Saturday, June 15th. We were able to check in and put down a deposit for a locker to put our backpacks in until we could come back later and get into the room. Deposits for the locker were 2 Euros per day and you received the deposit back at the end of your stay which is an added bonus to having a locker for your things. Upon check-in, we found out we would have to move rooms on our third day. I had made a reservation for three beds for four days. As you can guess by now, we were going to be staying in one of the 12 bedded dorm rooms. I wish I was informed that we would need to switch rooms on the third day since I had booked the reservation months in advance and should have been given a room for all four nights.

Things happen.. I thought it was going to be a problem having to switch rooms on the third day since I booked a day tour through Paddywagon for Kilkenny and Wicklow. I didnt think we would have time to get all of our stuff packed up and out of the room before we left on the tour. Amazingly, it worked out really well because the staff at the front desk gave us another locker to use (no deposit needed) to put the rest of our stuff in until we could check into the other room. On the third day, we moved all of our stuff into the two lockers we had and let reception know we would be coming back in the evening after our tour to check into the new room.

Breakfast was included in the price of the beds booked for our stay in Dublin. It consisted of milk, orange juice, bread, jams and cereal. What more do you need to start your day? Nothing. The room used for breakfast was off of the reception area and then when breakfast was over, it converted into a place for people staying at the hostel to watch television or sit around and chat since there were couches in the room. There were some tables and chairs off to the side of the room which we used once while we were there to eat dinner that we had bought from the store down the street from us.

I loved that Jacobs Inn was close to where the airport shuttle dropped us off. We found out that the bus station where we would catch the shuttle back to the airport was just around the corner from the hostel.

There are many reasons to stay at Jacobs Inn. The list would be too long for me to name all of them but here are a few of the reasons why I would stay here whenever I go back to Dublin. Cleanliness of the rooms, security (you can only get through the main door from reception if you are staying at the hostel), key card access so that the only people entering your room are the ones sharing the room with you, roof terrace which we used once when we brought our dinner up to the terrace and ate while watching the city of Dublin below us. How could I forget about the guest kitchen that we never got around to using? How about having elevators that would take you up to your floor so that you didnt need to climb stairs to get to your room? But the best reason would be LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION.

I didnt realize how close they would be to everything we wanted to see. They were right around the corner from where the busses dropped you off from the airport and picked you up to take you back. They were a few blocks away from where we needed to be to take our tour with Paddywagon, they were so close to OConnell Street which is one of the main streets and the shopping area of Grafton Street and Trinity College were not much farther to walk to from OConnell Street. We did a lot of walking in Dublin and everything was within walking distance from the hostel.

My favorite word is location when talking about one of my favorite hostels because of how close they ended up being to Phoenix Park. You make a right out of the hostel, go around the corner and stay towards the right (not turning left at all) and you will get to the park, on foot, in less than 30 minutes. Well, it depends on how fast or slow you walk since the park is about 2 miles away from the hostel. I went to the park a couple of times I was there and loved how close it was to Jacobs Inn since I wanted to continue with my walking and jogging while traveling on this trip. Phoenix Park helped me do this a couple days while we were in Dublin.

Great place to stay in Dublin!

Jacob's Inn was a great place to stay for a night in Dublin. The rooms were clean with sheets included, and the front desk was very helpful with any questions we had. Big lockers were cheap to rent (2 euros per day) and we could keep our bags there before check in and after check out. Breakfast wasn't anything special, just toast, cereal, musli, and coffee/tea. The downstairs common area has comfy couches and a flatscreen TV, but is the only place you can get wifi (which is also a bit temperamental). It is about a 10-15 minute walk to the Trinity College or Temple bar areas and 30 minutes from the Guinness Factory, but just a couple minutes from great local Irish pubs and a pedestrian shopping area. The bus transfer from the airport is 30 seconds away which was super convenient. I would definitely stay here again and recommend it to my friends as well!

Awesome

Great place to meet different people, make different friends -- if you dont mind stayin in a room with 9 other people who might snore (which i frankly dont care because im a heavy sleeper) it is pretty awesome. the internet needs a bit of work -- very temperamental and only available on the ground floor. the staff there are all pretty awesome. It does get pretty rowdy at night. but thats what makes great atmosphere isnt it?

Great location, good accommodations, friendly staff

Spent two nights in August, 2008. It's a busy place with lots of younger people there to enjoy the attractions of the city, yet it was very quiet. The building was clean and well maintained. The included mini-breakfast was adequate, but more toasters and a rearrangement of the serving table would make things move quicker. The desk staff were friendly and helpful.

Meh.

I've seen better hostels but this one seemed to be decently clean. I just really didn't appreciate checking in at 2 a.m. and having the guy receptionist ask me if I was traveling alone, and when I said yes, he said "Isn't that dangerous?" Why would he say that? It didn't make me feel comfortable as a young woman at his hostel at all. To boot, I was in a mixed dorm with all guys, no other girls in the room. Oh well.

Clean and pretty nice. Staff were very nice also, and helpful. Lent me a converter so that I could charge my cell phone, and even let me cancel a reservation last minute. The breakfast was pretty disgusting, though. Another bad thing was that the locks all stopped working so we couldn't get into our rooms for a long period of time, which was inconvenient. Oh and also, they open check in at 4, and EVERYONE is there, waiting, at once. Kind of a pain, with everyone pushing and shoving to be next. But not a bad hostel. Cheap and works.

I stayed there for two weeks (searching for job and room), and, especially in the end, it was like a nightmare. We reserved two beds in a mixed room with my boyfriend, but they put us in different rooms, and didn't even try to help. The rooms are far too small for so many people, there's no air to breath in at night. There's neither place to put your clothes, there was one tiny shelf for twelve people. The kitchen is the worst, it's dirty, nothing works, and it's always stinking of a really horrible lemon-like-scented detergeant (strangely enough, in the end, the smell in the kitchen turned into something like the smell of human sh*t). But it's cheap, has a good location, and nothing was stolen from us during the two weeks.