My wife and I spent three nights at The G earlier this week during our week long stay in Ireland. The G was our clear favorite of three very good hotels (Marriott Druids Glen, The Clarence in Dublin, and The G) - they have style, service, and at least during the off season - a great rate.

First off, and this is fairly important, The G is easy to find. It's easily accessible off the Dublin Road just south of the Ffrench Roundabout. As has been mentioned in earlier reviews, it's location is NOT in the city centre or Salthill - but those are easily reached by relatively inexpensive cab service, a lengthy walk (about 30 minutes to the city centre), or a quick drive in your own car. Having spent an evening in the city center - that may well be an advantage.

Regardless of location, The G is an incredible hotel. It is quite modern / avante garde in appearance - featuring very clean lines in the interior with bold, colorful accents throughout. We found the service to be as gracious as any we've experienced in all but the absolutely finest hotels in the world. The front desk staff, concierge, and housekeeping called us by name throughout our visit - and were quite attentive to both our formal requests and our unspoken needs & wants. Our visit took place in mid-March - the low season for tourism in Ireland. This played out well for us, as the hotel had upgraded our reservation to a luxury suite (for a deluxe rate) - - the luxury suites are very spacious, beautifully appointed, creatively lit, and the sort of room you look forward to returning to at the end of a tiring day of sightseeing and partying. The bathroom was the size of a small family room, lined entirely in marble with heating elements on the wall and, apparently, in the large mirror over the sinks. The shower was a double "rain soaker" type shower with excellent water pressure, and the towels and bed linens were of the highest quality.

There was excellent entertainment in the main lounge (of three - all in a row on the main floor) each night of our stay, and the wait staff were very attentive to our needs as we sat, listened to the band, sipped the excellent drinks from the bar, and chatted the night away. As mentioned in earlier reviews, the drinks are a bit pricey, but excellent.

We had dinner at The G one night - our anniversary night. It was the best meal we had during our stay in Ireland. Unfortunately, that isn't high praise. We had read about a culinary revolution in Ireland over the past decade. I don't doubt this is occuring - we simply missed the restaurants who are participating in it during our relatively short (1 week) stay. The meal at The G was very good - but a step or two below outstanding. My wife had salmon, which was prepared very well, and I decided to try their dry aged strip steak. As usual in Ireland, in order to get a steak prepared "medium rare" by U.S. (or just about anyone else's) standards, you have to order "rare". Even ordering "rare" and having this discussion with the waiter about wanting a steak which was red in the center - not pink, it arrived at what I'd call "medium-well" doneness (barely pink on the inside). This seems to be a country-wide condition - wanting to overcook beef (by at least two levels of doneness).

The concierge service was wonderful, yet not intrusive. They very much helped us structure our days activities - giving us not only recommended itineraries, but - on hearing we are itinerary phobic - a menu of quirky short routes in the areas we'd be exploring (our favorite - the trip to, around, and back from The Burren). As well, they saw to it that our laundry was picked up from a local launderette where we'd earlier in the day dumped our entire load of dirty laundry (I'd been here on business the prior week), once they learned we'd not be back to Galway in time to pick the laundry up before the laundrette closed. Just one of many examples of GREAT service we received at this excellent hotel.