May is a popular month for travel because of the weather. If you can travel earlier in the Spring, or in the Fall, prices may be cheaper, and things will be less crowded. But, May is nice, so if that’s when you can go, so be it. :)

As far as travel reviews, I take them with a grain of salt, depending on the complaint. If a hotel has 30 positive reviews but 2 bad ones, I tend to think it’ll be a good place to stay, especially if the two bad ones run along the lines of, “The hotel wouldn’t cater to my every need and let me check in early and check out late, and wouldn’t give me a bigger suite for free, woe is me.”

I almost always disregard complaints about the size of room, since most hotel/motel rooms outside of the U.S. are “cozy,” if not comically small (in the single I stayed in in London, I could lay in bed, stretch out my arms, and just about touch each wall of my room). I also disregard complaints about things that don’t bother me but may be dealbreakers for others, i.e. lack of room service, lack of valet, lack of free breakfast etc. I pay attention to words like “clean,” “quiet,” “convenient,” and “safe.” Also, look at the dates of when reviews were written to see if the hotel is being worked on currently, since that’s almost a guaranteed way to have a bad stay.

I like TripAdvisor because they let you check prices & availability through more than one website (hotels.com & expedia.com tend to be cheaper than travelocity in my experience). Pictures of the rooms are useful on TripAdvisor, and often a requirement for me to consider staying somewhere.

Also check for other discounts like AAA. Every little bit you save on one thing is another pint of beer you can buy in Dublin!

But you may know all that stuff already. I just happen to have spent all day yesterday online booking hotels, so it was on the brain. ;) Good luck!