George
Unregistered User
(6/5/03 10:17 pm)

Twenty five days in Ireland

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We recently returned from a wonderful first trip to Ireland. We planned it with the advantage of many ideas we found posted by previous travelers. Perhaps we can repay by sharing our successes and flops with some future traveler;

A) We flew into/out of Shannon, and since we were driving, this allowed us to begin (read practice) in a less hectic location traffic wise.

B) We stayed at twelve b&bs at an average of 119 Euros per night for two. They were all good. Most were excellent.

C) Highlights of our trip were Dingle, the Antrim Coast, Newgrange, and the Burren.

D) We suggest that you purchase the zero liability collision-damage waiver. As it turned out, we didn't need it but it was worth it ($194.)for the peace of mind.

E) Purchase the Irish Heritage Pass-ours paid for itself several times over.

F) Don't prepay your rental car. Even though we had paid for our car several months in advance, Hertz still didn't have a car ready for us. Having prepaid our options were limited so we had to wait for one to arrive.

G) We reserved our trip far in advance and were able to book each of the locations and rooms that we wanted.

H) We confirmed our reservations with a Visa card number and the b&bs would have accepted that for payment but there was no doubt that they preferred payment in cash.

I) We had travelers checks as a back-up but didn't use any.

J) The easiest and the cheapest way to go was the ATM machines for cash. They were less expensive than the Visa charge when converting the Euro to dollars.

K) Allow more time between destinations than you would at home because the Irish roads require it.

L) We had downloaded and copied route plans for our travel from the Michelin and AA websites. This was helpful.

M) The Michelin map was good because it included many of the place names in Irish as well as English-useful if you are going to less touristy areas.

N) We stayed in very small b&bs. The owners are very helpful with local information that we needed. They were happy to help us find they best of their locality.

O) We are sensitive to smoke so we ate in restaurants rather than pubs. This worked very well AND we had many excellent meals. We thought the food was very good, better than we expected. That said, skip the beef. Select from the other fine options.

We hope that this is helpful. Enjoy Ireland and the wonderful Irish people, we know you will.

George.

Michele Erdvig
ezOP
Posts: 1529
(6/5/03 10:19 pm)

Re: Twenty five days in Ireland

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Hi George,

Thank you so much for taking the time to post your tips for traveling in Ireland. I'm sure they will be of help to those going for the first time. If you have any great B&Bs or restaurants you would care to share we would enjoy hearing of them.

Michele