Kind regards

Jon

Our story of “Ferndale the new adventure” continues with finishing the bathroom of the roman suite. It came out brilliantly, but it took nearly 5 weeks to complete and way over budget. The result but is stunning. With a size triple to what it was before.

God thanks we finally got the planning permission for our extension. I have to say – not a moment to soon – as we have a tide schedule ahead of us. With themed bedrooms as the ones before. One to be a Venetian Suite. I changed the concept and just seen this stunning bed on a website i could visualize how the finishing suite will look like.

Work starts on Monday and of cause we still have a few surprises in store. I definitely will not tell everything about the suite as i would love to experience the magic it does to our friends far and near and to see their faces when they first will see the finishing product by the end of June – exactly on the 16 of June.

Word of advise: Be very cautious with planning your extension and keep within the boundary of what buildings exist around you. Money in Ireland is still very tide and will remain so for a long time. You can feel it in how the planning authority are reacting and how banks are still behaving. They’ve got this billions of bail out money the next thing they do is raising interest rates to cripple people more. My trust in banks certainly have been compromised and this will remain as long as i live.

But it didn’t lower the excitement to build a fantastic guesthouse not to be seen anywhere in this country. To sort out material and finishing touches as well as to talk about it it feels like explorers in earlier times.

An Adventure to say the least but i keep in touch.

Jon

On this Page we are introducing all exciting news in relation to Ferndale.

This Year 2011 is a mile stone in our history from when we first started our adventure to become one of the most unusual Guesthouses and restaurants in Ireland.

As many of you know about 2 years back we redesigned our guesthouse and themed it to appeal the market with fun and exciting extras. This approach was a great success. It made us thinking of a new adventure to make Ferndale a destination you like to travel to.

And so it begins

for the next couple of months i like to inform you about our Adventure to redesign and extend our Guesthouse to bring it to the next Level.

We already started on the roman room to extend the Bathroom it will be a sanctuary of indulging yourself in the brand new double whirlpool Bath or just relax in this new jewel of a Bathroom.

Hopefully everything will be finished by the 10th of march incl. new lowered bay windows to give you the most of our stunning seaview and air and light into our historically themed Bedrooms.

As from the 10th of march we can hopefully start the brand new extension with sumptuous bedrooms consisting of fabulous views and top of the range interior all designed by myself but that is as soon as we get the approval of the county council or with other words if we get planning permission.

So fingers crossed and with gods help we are on our way to write the next chapter of Ferndale the adventure.

Kind regards

Jon

Hotels are commercial places to stay, with as many different amenities as standard. Hotels are given one to five stars. The stars are awarded – (and this is the basic of properly categorising a place) – for certain acceptable standards.

• One star is for excellency of food.
• Two stars are for an extraordinary wine cellar, in addition to the excellent food.
• Three stars add the feature “house with a view”.
• Four stars are awarded, if there is a leisure centre connected to the hotel.
• Five stars are for overall excellency and luxury rooms.

Sometimes it appears that a hotel should only be a three star hotel, as it has, for example, no leisure centre. In some cases there is the possibility to be awarded a star for a hotel even without a leisure centre, if the place otherwise reflects a four star standard.

The rates for hotel rooms are not bound to the category the hotel is in, but for to what it actually offers. So the rates can go from €5 for a two star hotel somewhere in the pampa of South America to thousands of euros per night, in somewhere like Dubai.

This is the category The Ferndale Guest House & Restaurant is in. In this category the accommodation usually reflect the restaurants standard, if the restaurant is high class the rooms are as well. It comes in one package.

Those premises are normally not categorised, unless there is Michelin stars given to it. The Michelin star is a private award, given to reflect extraordinary culinary food. The maximum stars a restaurant can get is three. But of course there are plenty of restaurants in Ireland, which serve delicious food without having any Michelin star.

Prices for Rooms in this category can vary between €35 and €200 per night, depending on the quality of the place.

A guest house is basically a small hotel or a hotel with limited services in catering. Guest houses do not need a bar or a fully licensed premises and normally needs to have six or more bedrooms to be in accordance with Bord Failte regulations.

Rating

Guest Houses have ratings from one to four stars, depending on the comfort and services they provide. One star means standard simple accommodation. Bathrooms can sometimes be on the floor, or a certain amount of rooms would be non en-suite. The more stars a guest house has, the more comfortable the rooms are. A four star guest house usually has the standard of a four star hotel, but the surroundings would be much more intimate.

Guest houses do not have all the amenities of a hotel and do not need to have a restaurant or bar. The rates for guesthouses vary between €35 and €100 and are up to €200 per night for outstanding places.

Here is a little guide to help you answer these questions:

Bed and Breakfast

Bed and Breakfasts are first and foremost private family houses which offer a room/rooms in their home. They are normally comfortable places for a reasonable price. At the moment you pay around €35 per night per person sharing. Breakfast is normally a more or less full Irish with individual specialities.

Most of the B&Bs now offer en-suite bedrooms, but you might find shared bathrooms in older houses. The original idea is that you are, for a short time, a guest of the family and welcomed into their private space. Families are allowed to open their house as a B&B without any licensing.

As B&Bs in Ireland have no rating, you will have to decide for yourself if you like it or not.

Bord Failte, the Irish Tourist Board has introduced some standards for B&Bs, which take the approved B&B away from the original concept, where you are guest of the family. Approved B&Bs are often run as proper (summer time) businesses, in which you will have your own breakfast room, your own lounge and so on. Usually Approved B&Bs are slightly more expensive, as getting the approval costs quite an amount of money per year, not mentioning the fire, safety and building regulations they have to comply with.

This service will be available for guests of Ferndale Guesthouse & Restaurant and Bleanaskill Lodge for a special introductory rate. Treatment can be held at the Ferndale (for guests only) or at Achill’s Secret Garden (near Bleanaskilll Lodge).

If you are resident in Achill or staying somewhere else, you can also avail of this service at the normal rate. Treatment will then be held at your home.

The treatments are for the purpose of stress relief, improved blood circulation, relief of sore and stiff muscles. I highly recommend Niall’s Therapy and hope many of you like to experience the relaxation and stress relief it provides.

For further information give us a call at +353 (0)98 43908 or come back here in the next days for more information and prices.