To be fair, the choice to stay at the Clare Country Club was made for me. I needed to find…read moreaccommodation for 2 adults (my mother and I) and 1 child (my daughter), within a week and it was also the weekend of the Annual Clare Show. With everything else booked out solid, Clare Country Club came to the rescue with a few rooms available. For that, I am very grateful, otherwise I can imagine it would have been difficult to pin something down.
At the beginningt, I could not fault the Country Club. The staff gave me a courtesy call before our trip, and advised me that unfortunately the restaurant would not be available on the night we were staying. I later found it was due to a wedding. And when we arrived check-in was easy, with the offer of a FRESH carton of milk for tea & coffee at no extra charge. (Impressive, in this day and age of thimble-size containers of whitener!) However, from here much really didn't live up to the 4-star rating afforded to the Country Club.
We were staying in a 1-bedroom kitchenette appartment which size wise was quite generous. There was a queen-size bed in the bedroom, a single in the living area, and there was also a double sofabed. The bathroom was of monumental proportions and in fact surpassed my bathroom at home! However the decor was starting to show some real signs of age and wear & tear. It looked like the cleaning staff weren't always as merticulous as you would expect in such a place. Marks on the walls (repaint in order) and skirtings, bathroom door badly swollen from water damage, venetian blind above the kitchenette sink wouldn't go up and down, or open at all for that matter! The shower rose was caked in lime-scale and a big fat dirty handprint on the wall above the toilet made me gag just that little bit. Surely housekeeping couldn't have missed THAT! I also found a little stash of stale lollies in the drawer of the bedside unit next to the single bed. Handy for those midnight munchie attacks perhaps? The beds were also made up strangely, with a thin quilt on the main bed, and just a coverlet, single blanket and sheet on the single. There are electric blankets if you're feeling the chill at night (and believe me in Clare you will!), but I've never been a fan of them.
Nice tip of an evening though is to wander down to the viewing platform over Inchiquin Lake. You can watch the sun set which we thought was just stunning. Pity though that the gutters of the pergola area behind us seemed to be sprouting a family of weeds - again, maintenance!
The wedding at the Country Club unfortunately had a few undesirables making a noisy retreat to their own rooms/apartments at the end of the night. We even had a loud knock at the door by somewhat inebriated guests - obviously trying to find their room. Not nice.
In the morning, we decided to partake in the breakfast buffet, and I'm sad to say that the problems continued. The dining room itself is nice enough, with that 'country club-ish' feel (funny that!). However, the wedding party had been placed right next to the buffet so that you had to SQUEEZE past the multitudes of people who hung around to talk to the bride, groom etc. There was the lovely view of Inchiquin Lake from the dining room.... unfortunately it was marred by the plethora of smokers who crowded on to the balcony to have their pre/mid/post-breakky fag. Disappointing. The food was average, and they did offer alternatives to the somewhat rubbery looking bain-marie scrambled eggs if you so wished. The bacon and sausages on offer were somewhat cool and old-boot tough looking, so I stuck with a vegan option - mushrooms (couldn't fault these!), half a grilled tomato and a few hash-browns (fresh from the freezer). Coffee was a percolator affair which is fine, however from recent experience in 4 star+ hotels the trend seems to be to charge a few bucks more and offer a fresh made option. Might be something for Clare Country Club to consider in future. The breakfast was mighty steep though at $65 for 2 cooked and 1 continental!! Maybe I should've braved the bouncy-castle eggs!
Check out was smooth, and we didn't have any problems there. However no one asked how our stay went. I was in a hurry to go, so I decided not to launch into my list of 'how you could improve'. Instead, I'll save that for the feedback form I purloined from the room's compendium.
I'm going to be generous here and give the Clare Country Club 3 stars. The late-night disturbance of the wedding was not their fault, the size of the rooms is ample, the staff are on the whole very friendly and the location is picturesque. However someone needs to implement a maintenance plan here, and they need to do an audit of their rooms... It would certainly make for a more pleasant stay, and justify charging $220 per night!
