Nico's in Schull

05/05/2026: I don’t usually leave reviews, but got an email post my stay requesting one if possible. I stayed at the Schull Harbour hotel recently in their self catering apartments (2 x 6 bedroom apartments) with a group. Overall we had a very nice experience. The location is fab, right in the centre of Schull and easily accessible to many west cork towns. It was a great base for our group. The receptionist was really nice in any dealings we had with her and the apartments are a good size and are well equipped. One of the 6 bed apartments has a far bigger living space than the other, so maybe bear that in mind when booking if you anticipate spending a considerable amount of time in the property. We added on breakfast each morning which was a great standard and had a really good à la carte selection. We also had a dinner on one of the evenings from the set menu in the bar. We were there for an occasion and the management team had kindly allowed me to make substitutions to the menu. The food was very good and the portions were generous. I would say the bar staff did struggle with the service and honestly seemed pretty overwhelmed at times even though it really wasn’t that busy. At first it was quite stressful to be honest, but we adjusted our plans for after the meal and once we weren’t under time pressure we were able to relax and just embrace the chaos! I do want to be clear - the issues were not due to lack of effort or attention, it was clear that the team were really trying and working hard which is all that can be asked! I would say that more training might help the team and the customer experience. I imagine as it’s early in the peak season there might have been a lot of new team members still finding their feet. There was live music which was really nice! My one real true negative note from our stay is that the pool and leisure facilities were out of service due to an equipment issue with the HVAC system. I understand these things can happen and are outside the managements control - but I was disappointed that the hotel continued to insist that the facilities are “complimentary”. I disagree with this, I booked this accommodation specifically to have access to the use of these facilities for the group - so I was disappointed that they seemed to think these were not part of the base rate for our stay. They didn’t see the need to offer even a token of compensation / gesture of good will in response to the issue (even a bottle of wine for the apartments or something small). I had specifically booked this location for these facilities and paid more than alternative options so that we would have access to them. We were lucky, we had nice weather so were able to pivot to other activities. but if the weather had been bad this would have hugely negatively impacted our stay. Overall we still really enjoyed our stay and I would definitely come back again. The staff were nice and were clearly working very hard, so a big shout out to the team.

11/04/2026: We came down from Dunboyne and we were looking forward to the swimming pool sauna and the other facilities. I got an email on the day we left telling us that the swimming pool and all the facilities were closed. As this was part of the package provided we thought that we might get a reduction in the price as the pool and facilities were still out of order 5 days after we left. The main TV just has the terrestrial stations which was disappointing as we wanted to watch the Masters golf. The manager said it was too expensive? Is that why the swimming pool was closed? Makes you wonder.