- Comprehensive, all-inclusive guide to Dublin with all information one might want.
- Layout is straightforward and makes this guide very user-friendly.
- Especially good on off-the-beaten-track and budget information.
- Often geared towards "young" audience - might miss the target with older or conservative tourists.
- Update was not successful - better editing is needed.
- Up to Date? The current guide was published in 2008 - but updates from 2006 edition were not always made.
- Images and Illustrations - Just twelve color pages, but the images are good.
- Maps - Good and up to date, with details of attractions, restaurants and pubs.
- Typeface - Several in use, all are clear (except on grey or blue background), tend to be small.
- General Layout - Very clear, readable in adverse conditions, again with exception of colored backgrounds.
- "Completeness" - Everything (and more) you will probably need.
- Binding and Paper Quality - A normal paperback, but with thin paper.
- Size and Weight - 260 pages plus covers, 5.25 by 7.75 inches, 350 grams.
- Would I Feel Comfortable Using this Book? I have my reservations, but generally one should be OK.
This 2008 guide occasionally suffers from information that was out of date in 2007 - a problem with printed guidebooks generally. But, and this is BUT, several mistakes would have been avoidable if research had been better. Take Dublin Zoo, where "depression ... afflicts the polar bears" - said bears have left Dublin years ago for Budapest, their former enclosure is now occupied by Siberian tigers. The Natural History Museum receives a fairly glowing review ... but has been closed for some time now (presumably before the deadline). In the National Museum (Kildare Street) the exhibition "Road to Independence" is still mentioned with a snide comment included - it has been gone years now, the "Kingship & Sacrifice" exhibit thst replaced it gets no mention at all. Curiously enough the authors mention the 1916 exhibition in Collins Barracks, the reincarnation of the Kildare Street exhibition. In the GPO the "communist noble-worker-style paintings" went with the renovation before the 2006 anniversary. And, just by the way, Cuchullain never "lay dead", the statue in the GPO correctly shows him standing dead, tied to a tree.
You might have gathered by now that I was disappointed. Not totally, but updating older information seems to have become a rush job. If this continues, the trustworthyness of Lonely Planet guides will suffer.
