Nice that your company is picking up a big part of the bill!

Trying to do the SW from Dromoland Castle is rather a stretch. You will be in the car all day. Killarney is about 2 hours away. Add another 1-1/2 hours to Dingle town. Slea Head drive will take another few hours from Dingle town. The ROK is usually a whole day of driving from Killarney! When you add in an additional 4 hours round trip it turns into a monster day trip. You  do not want to drive from Dromoland to Killarney to Dublin just to see the Cherry Tree Walk. Your route will be Limerick to Dublin. You definitely need to look at a map to see what is possible. 

Rethink what you want to accomplish from Dromoland. Use the AA Route planner, get miles and divide by 35 to get approximate driving times.

I don't see Blarney (your wife's must see) on the list for the SW. 

You have only 2 full days to do day trips from Dromoland. What would I do? DT#1: Blarney. DT#2: Killarney & Kenmare. 

No time for ROK or Dingle. 

After taking a better look at the maps I do see your point about drive times from Drommoland Michelle. Im not afraid of the long drives and will deal with the rat race pace if it gets me to where I want to be, but I am going to have to take a closer look at things.

At quick glance an option might be to only stay two nights at Drommoland and head over to Killarney to stay one night before heading to back to Dublin the last night. If we get up very early we can do some of Dingle during the day and just rest our heads in Killarney. Then get up early again take a drive down to Blarney for a quick stop for my girlfriend Chrissy (not my wife ) to get her picture kissing the blarney stone before heading to Dublin. Still looking at a long drive that day but if it lets Chrissy cross the stone off her bucket list then its worth it to me. I know you dont recommend that much driving and more time to enjoy the sites. I have read warning from you to other head strong travelers like me who want it all. Please dont take it as not appreciating your advice but more as my dream big attitude.  

We do plan to be flexible and when I told Chrissy last night about my miscalculation on time she said Sometimes you just cant do it all. Im ok with whatever we do. Now that is a great travel partner!

Ill have to look into loop head a little more Tony. Thanks for the suggestion. Dolphins are not the main attraction but always night to see. Had hoped to do the horse ride on the beach in Dingle. Might have to see if we can find that someplace else. Maybe in Antrim or Galway areas. Need to look more into it.

With it not being high season yet when we go Im hoping that we can find places to stay on the fly with a call ahead on the day we want to stay. Is that an unreasonable expectation?

Thanks again to both of you for all your input.

I'll be ready to report back and share everything we liked, didn't like and any unexpected "oh crap we should have known better" moments with everyone here. I have found this site very helpful and I always believe in passing it on.

Hi Bob,

We are getting very excited. Only 9 days to go. Thanks for asking. A good portion of the above moving target itinerary stays unchanged. We are very much a go where the wind blows us kind of couple, so who knows what will be added or what will be cut. But thats the fun of it all.

The one monkey wrench in our plans so far is that Gordon Ramsay at Powerscourt is closed for a private function on Tuesday April 23rd. We had to move that to Saturday April 20th.

The hard part is that we rented the car a day early to use to drive down so now we have to either take the Dart to Bray and explore Bray for the afternoon before the hotel would be able to arrange Network Taxi to bring us to the hotel for a flat rate of 16 Euro or the other option would be Dublin Bus number 44 to Enniskerry and a complimentary hotel vehicle would be able to pick us up in the village. I would like to explore the grounds/waterfall around powerscourt so this is the option I am leaning to at the moment unless someone has a reason to talk me out of it.

I am also toying with the idea of seeing if the apartment at Largy Coastal Apartments we rented would be available a day early and leaving Dublin Tuesday night to head up north. The apartment is very reasonable so even if we got our fill of the Antrim coast and wanted to move on a day early so that I could add in the Slieve League if we felt like it and get to Sligo or Galway a bit quicker that would work for us.

While in Dublin I was thinking of doing the Irish Folklore and Storytelling diner at the Brazen Pub, but with us already locked in to two company diners plus Gordon Ramsey and King Sitric diners Im not sure I want to over book ourselves.

Also we have decided to do the boat tour of the Cliffs of Moher in Doolin on our way from Galway to Dromoland. Plan to catch the first boat and if we have time we may or may not then go to see them from the land.

So much still in the air and so much to wish list for, but love that bitter sweetness of it all!

Joe

The Cliff Walk, from Bray down to Greystones is Highly Photogenic. It's about 5 miles each way, but you can opt to ride the Dart, which runs parallel to the walking trail, instead.

video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yr0tRUSAoUE

 Blog:     http://wanderlustmarriage.com/best-day-trip-from-dublin-bray-and-the-cliff-walk/

The Powerscourt Waterfall is a bit of a hike from the Gardens and Manor House.  Would think that you would need a car for that.

Bob