We were off early (10am checkout deadline) from Killarney on our way to Cork. We originally were staying at a different hotel in Cork, however I noticed when searching when in Washington DC to see if there was a Marriott Hotel at the Dublin Airport we could stay at, that there were two new Marriott Hotels in Cork! So I moved from the hotel that we were staying at (where we had to pay about $200 CDN a night) to the Moxy Hotel, which was one of the two Marriotts that had rooms available for point bookings for the 4 nights that we needed. When we arrived in Killarney, I decided to take a peek to see if the other Marriott – a Residence Inn, had point booking space yet and it did! I much prefer Residence Inn hotels as they have either a kitchenette (fridge and stovetop) or a full kitchen (bigger fridge and stove with oven) so I moved us from the Moxy to the Residence Inn at that time. So today we are off to the Residence Inn in Cork!
If you use the Marriott App, it gives you the ability to check in in advance and then once checked in, you can message the hotel. Most hotels in Ireland have a pretty firm 3pm check in time. However as I am a frequent stayer at Marriott Hotels, I decided to message the hotel to see if we can check in early. They were more than happy to accommodate us! I did that as Andrew was again driving not feeling too well and while the drive was only just over an hour, I did not want to prolong his agony any longer than needed.
We found the Residence Inn pretty easily – it was interesting – it actually shares the block with the Moxy Hotel! When checking in, it seemed they were a bit dis-organized and we got to chatting and I found out both hotels had only been open for 3 weeks. So that is why both Marriott Hotels suddenly showed up in the hotel search for Ireland only a month ago – when I was originally looking for and booking hotels back in April or May, they were not taking reservations! What a luxury to be able to stay in such a brand new hotel. In fact we were the first people to stay in the Queen Accessible room which is pictured below. The Residence Inn has 50 rooms (Moxy has 200) however not all the Residence Inn rooms were able to be occupied – when I had requested the Accessible Room type, they had gotten it ready for us. Pretty nice!
So we then relaxed the rest of the day after we parked the car and moved in. I also decided to go through our suitcases and empty out some of the extra papers we had accumulated during our various stops – I had kept some so that I could write some of these blog posts accurately and some for research for the 2 weeks that Andrew and I were going to be on our own. I ended up recycling a lot of paper – mainly brochures and old medication blister packs! We stayed in for dinner – Andrew was a bit gun shy to eat anything and I had a variety of snack type foods such as yogurt and crackers with turkey and cheese.
Here is the route we took from Killarney to Cork – no idea why also on this map it had us go to the left going into Cork – Andrew was NOT impressed as it lead us into some small roads in a winding backroads way to enter the city! The light blue route is what we should have taken… much easier!
Tomorrow we are thinking of getting out and exploring the city of Cork! It is the 2nd biggest city in the Republic of Ireland.