Downings Bay Hotel

Lovely meal in the restaurant, staff lovely. After dinner had drinks next door in the bar, some of the staff lovely but one person so rude, will never be back, we are often in the Downings with family. To find out he was affiliated with the hotel, appalled.

Nice hotel but not worth the prices. At €185 a night in April, this hotel is dearer than many in top destinations like Dublin, London, Madrid etc. But where it really falls down is in the charges for its J.C.’s bar food. A range of starters costing around €10 a go, fish and chips at €20 and a sirloin steak at €30. With a burger priced at €19 with a side of chips costing another €5, these prices are ridiculous. With our one night stay and meal, without a starter, and a bottle of house wine, costing us €310, we won’t be back.

Stayed a few times here, can say very clean and well kept hotel. Breakfast was included in the stay but every time we get it even when we are down first thing before it goes out it's never warm and if you dont like something they don't offer to give you anything as a replace, I ended up with one sausage, bacon, hash brown and egg cup full of beans.

We had two family events recently in Downings and stayed here. The staff and management could not have done more for us- they really pulled out all the stops. If you want to experience ‘the Donegal Welcome’ this is the place to stay. And don’t forget the sea swim nearby!

Excellent value in center of small town of Downings-a few steps to the beach-friendly staff-good food-room clean and tidy-stayed on 2nd floor on west side-easy walk to everything in town-note there is a nightclub on east side of building connected to hotel that is open a couple of nights per week-only downside was noise outside late at night with young people congregating in main street so if you are a light sleeper beware-they need gardai to be around at late hours in the street; the dinner special on Thursday nights is a tremendous value-the sirloin steak was excellent-as you can get in Ireland-

Usually dine in this hotel and acknowledge food is great. However, when attending the Downings festival, spent time in this hotel and observed the poorest customer service of my life. When asked to replenish toilet roll, the member of staff covering reception declined advising 'the queue is too long, we're not putting out anymore'. Whilst I myself was fine, a lady was in a cubicle with her disabled child, dealing with an incident. I approached customer services along with her daughter, with a view to explaining the situation and the staff member closed themselves in a room at the back of reception, avoiding interaction with patrons. Thinking on my feet, I asked a young waiter for some blue roll to clean up a spill and declined his offer to do it for us. One mother of a disabled child and many other ladies were very grateful for the blue roll. Absolutely appalled at the customer service this evening. I acknowledge a lot of visitors to the hotel may not have been dining or staying there, however they are friends and family of Downings and surrounding areas and most likely staying in local caravan parks many of whom are owned by the proprietors of this hotel and weekend after weekend they spend their money locally and in businesses connected with this hotel. This festival is sponsored by this hotel, basic support should not be in question.