Travelodge Hotel – Dublin City Centre Rathmines

We stayed here in mid-​June 2015. The older reviews on websites had me worried, but I found the hotel to be perfectly decent and clean.
There’s a gym across the street. I paid 6.50 euro there for a one-​day use of the weight and cardio machines. I’m accustomed to exercise and needed it, so that was great.
I dislike that Travelodge charges money for wifi access. Luckily, many other places around (even that gym) offer it for free.
There’s an ATM and good restaurants (I loved Jo’Burger) very close. An Aldi supermarket is next door, and Lidl supermarket very close across the street; we sometimes shopped there to make our own meals.
The bus stops are right outside the front door, perfect for reaching the city’s tourist attractions reasonably quickly. I wish we had bought the Leap Card that Transport For Ireland offers; You pay 5 euro for the card, but it’s worth it because you can top it up with cash. We were always trying to dig up exact change (sometimes overpaying slightly) and worrying about having enough coins, and that was too much hassle.
This hotel is just far enough from the city center to avoid the worst traffic and noise.
I’ve read warnings elsewhere, saying to not drive in Dublin; I agree that there’s no point in getting your rental car until you’re done seeing Dublin and want to drive elsewhere. Vehicle traffic is light enough in this hotel’s area that you can rent a car from a nearby locale instead of the airport, drive it to this hotel, pick up your travel companions and luggage, and drive south to avoid traffic. That would be much faster and more convenient than renting at the airport and trying to drive from the airport to here; it took us a ridiculous amount to time to do that.