"Front of house exceptional staff - from the doorman to the checking in experience. Our suite was exceptional with exquisite touches and all authentically Irish. Our first time but we will definitely visit again - one of our most exceptional breaks and we travel a lot."

"Last year I came up with an idea that, when I did it for real, turned out to be a great idea. I'm a single man - never got married and have been used all my adult life to travelling alone to many different countries, where I have stayed in many hotels. Since my father and mother both died I have visited various relations for dinner on Christmas Day in the last few years. In 2025 I decided in about October that, instead of that, I would book a hotel. It would be the first time in my entire life that I would spend Christmas Day in a hotel, so I wanted to make sure I picked a good one. In fact, I booked the whole of Christmas week, so I would be there for 5 nights and 4 days - from Monday 22nd December to Saturday 27th December. Powerscourt Hotel was somewhere I had heard of but never been to. I think everyone's heard of the original Powerscourt House and its famous gardens and probably seen the famous photo of the lake, fountain, steps and House which is often used on Ireland-themed calendars and so on. The House goes back to the 1700s and is surrounded by a 1,000 acres estate. By contrast, the Hotel is very new, only built in 2007. That must have been unfortunate at the time for it was just before the Wall Street Crash of September 2008 and the subsequent economic & financial crisis which hit very hard over the next few years. I wonder how Powerscourt Hotel managed during its early years when the Republic of Ireland's banks literally had to be bailed out with tens of billions of euros. Be that as it may, Powerscourt Hotel today, despite being in existence for less than 20 years, is now rated as one of the Top Ten hotels in the whole of Ireland. I was about to put that to the test! I live in Belfast, Northern Ireland and I travelled down to Dublin on the train. At Connolly Station I got a DART train to Bray and from there I got a taxi to Powerscourt. At check-in I was given Room 218 and it was really a suite. It had 5 rooms: a living-room, a bedroom, a kitchen and 2 bathrooms, plus a balcony which gave me a view out to the lawn and fountains. The suite was superb - the main living room was a home away from home, the huge bed was brilliant for a comfortable night's sleep and the main bathroom was so modern. I loved the terrace balcony through the French windows. The hotel itself was highly decorated for Christmas with many trees and lights everywhere, so I soon got into the Christmas spirit at the beginning of my week. The place is huge but a big crowd of Christmas guests were there, so I never felt lonely! The main area on the same level as the hotel reception desk is called the Sugar Loaf Lounge. Here you can get a wonderful afternoon tea and I got mine on Christmas Eve, rose champagne included - I highly recommend! Their brasserie restaurant is called the Sally Gap brasserie and their fine dining restaurant is called Sika restaurant - it is also where you will get your breakfast every morning. The food in these two restaurants is superb - I guarantee that you will never go hungry at Powerscourt. Sika was our venue for Christmas Day dinner - of course I had to have the turkey & ham and it didn't disappoint! Outside the hotel, Powerscourt House and Gardens is a short walk and I loved my tour around it. There is also a Garden Pavilion and a Distillery to explore. Powerscourt Golf Club is also right beside you with 2 eighteen hole courses. I didn't bring my clubs with me, but I'm sure either course would be fun. About 4 miles away is Powerscourt Waterfall and it's a fair walk - if you have your car with you you'll be there much sooner than me! I loved the walk through the Wicklow countryside all the same. The waterfall itself is 400 feet high and is very well worth going to see. The best thing about my whole experience last Christmas was the staff at the hotel. Everyone I met was so welcoming and friendly and that's more important than any physical luxury. I include everyone in this - the reception desk staff, the footman at the front door, the waiters, waitresses and bar staff at the restaurants and bars, the room cleaners - they were all so friendly and kind. If you ever go there, I am certain you will find that they as well as the hotel's beauty and the quality of the food and drinks will make your stay a memorable one. Of course, it's very expensive. As one of the 10 best 5-star hotels in Ireland you can't expect it to be cheap and I was there during Christmas Week! It was a lot of money but, as the old saying goes, you get what you pay for and at Powerscourt Hotel you definitely do! One more thing to say. On the day I visited Powerscourt Gardens I slipped and fell on the wet grass and got lots of brown dirt on my trousers and jacket. I left them in the the hotel's laundry service. The very next morning I went back to my room after breakfast and found them there beautifully cleaned - you would never have known they had been dirty at all. That summed up the service of the hotel to me. To sum up - I totally recommend this fabulous hotel. It's only a few miles to the south of the city of Dublin, so it's easy to get to even though it's in the middle of beautiful countryside and you would never imagine that Dublin is so near. You couldn't go there every week unless you were properly rich but for a one-off experience you can do it and it won't let you down. Even if I'm never there a second time, I won't ever forget my week in Powerscourt. If you ever get the chance to spend Christmas there don't miss it - it'll be one of your best Christmases ever if you do! Clive Morrow."

"Powercourt Hotel certainly has the wow factor from the moment you are greeted so eloquently at the front door. Service is outstanding throughout .We dined in the Sally Gap Bar where there was a lovely warm atmosphere and good food, beautifully presented . We stayed in a mountain view suite and are very grateful for the upgrade which made for a very special experience...Sitting out on the balcony overlooking the garden below and Sugarloaf in the distance ,a memory to treasure. The suite is pure luxury and one of the best we've ever had the pleasure to enjoy. Renewed thanks for a wonderful stay"

"We had been here a number of years ago and still talked about it so we were really looking forward to it. As soon as you enter the hotel a sense of calm envelops you. The welcome at reception was warm and inviting and continued during the remainder of our stay. The room (533) was fantastic and the facilities (pool, sauna, walks) are first class. We had dinner on the second night in the Sally Gap, the food and service was excellent. We would recommend a long weekend and we won't be leaving it as long again to revisit."

"My wife and I booked two nights at Powerscourt as apart of our week-long babymoon in Ireland. I intended it to be a peaceful and relaxing stop with a spa day planned for her. I am Titanium Elite with Marriott for the second year in a row now and have logged more than 200 nights over the course of the past 2.5 years. I have not been treated so poorly at any other Marriott property in the world. We arrived a little bit before check-in time so the room wasn’t quite ready but this wasn’t a big deal. We weren’t told when the room would be ready but were told that we would be contacted via phone once it was. We went to grab a bite at a pub about fifteen minutes from the property and after about two hours of killing time without a call we decided to head back to the hotel to check if the room was ready. Fortunately it was and we were able to check-in. I wasn’t offered the option to choose points or breakfast upon check-in but again this something I can look past. As for the room, I utilized two of my Nightly Upgrade awards to upgrade our room to a suite. Upon entering the suite, we were greeted with a dark stain on the carpet that spanned nearly half the room. We overlooked this as the room itself was very nice and we didn’t want to run the risk of having the room downsized after using the Nightly Upgrade award for the suite. Once we dropped our bags and got changed out of our travel clothes, we went to the lobby to sit by the fireplace with our books and share a pot of tea. Unfortunately, we ended up watching ten to fifteen other groups of guests be waited on and served over the course of an hour without even a greeting from a member of the staff. I am not exactly sure why this happened but my wife and I can only assume it was because we were in casual clothes (t-shirts and athleisure pants) and didn’t appear to be as “high class” as the other guests in the lobby. Regardless of the reason, I eventually spoke to the front desk to inquire about why we hadn’t been served for over an hour. No explanation or apology was given, I was only told that one of their colleagues would be with us shortly. This experience set the tone for the remainder of our stay and really detracted from what should have been an amazing and relaxing stay. I am not the kind of person who expects the red-carpet to be rolled out because of my status but it would have been really nice to at least be treated as an equal to the fellow guests. Don’t waste your time on the drive from Dublin and spend less at a much nicer property that will treat you well."