Planning our first trip

SteveA · Newbie

Planning our first trip

tony2phones · Guru

Welcome.

Arriving Sail and Rail @ 5.30 is Irish ferries. Personally I always use Stena Line but you have to book the ticket to Dublin Port Stena gets in just after 5 and has a couple of coaches with baggage holds waiting for the leg into the centre rather than 1 double deck bus for everything. If you do use Irish ferries I recommend a taxi from the port.

Sorry can't recommend a special meal option for Dublin.

Rental car? You have not had a car for anywhere else so why a one day rental for the Cliffs? an expensive complication that has little benefit as you seem happy with the tours option.

Personally I would aim for Limerick or more personally Ennis for the Friday and Saturday night. You can take a tour of the Cliffs and Burren from either location on the Saturday and be handy to get into Shannon for your Sunday departure. Either Limerick or Ennis would be a good last night in Ireland option. I only recommend Bunratty for those wanting to do the Castle banquet then get an early night.

You might notice a lot of personally comments. Its not my trip its yours, the above is just what I would do which will be different to the opinions of others.

Michele Erdvig · Host

Congratulations on celebrating your 25th anniversary in Ireland and welcome to the forum.

You will want to check with car rental companies to see if they will do a short term rental. Yours would be for 2 days, if returning on departure day at Shannon Airport. You need to be at the airport 3 hours in advance for a transatlantic flight.

What kind of food do you like? That will help us recommend a restaurant. You can also look at http://www.menupages.ie/

I would try to include as much Dublin sightseeing as possible on Monday since the tour to Newgrange will take most of the day. Unless you are a huge Guinness fan, you might consider skipping the Guinness Storehouse.

Geno · Guru

Agree about the Guinness Storehouse. It's not actually a tour at all, so you are spending way too much to have one beer at the Gravity Bar. If the weather is not clear, even that view is not good. So much to do in Dublin, but this is a waste of an expense to me.

Kilmainham is something you should try to do for sure. Fascinating tour.

Geno

-- Edited by Geno on Tuesday 17th of February 2015 10:20:52 AM

SteveA · Newbie

Busy job took me away from the forum and trip planning for a while. Thanks for the ideas everyone.

The thought on the car was 1) we're not sure how comfortable we'd be driving, having never been out of the US before, but 2) the bus or train options to get to the cliffs looked like they could take much longer than us driving. We're still giving it some thought. We've had several people tell us the driving isn't as tough as we're thinking it could be, as long as we pay attention and try to drive safely.

Tony, we like your suggestion of Ennis; that would probably mean 2 nights in Killarney instead of 3, but I guess that means we'd have to go back at some point!

Michelle, for food, nothing too fancy, but how about seafood? Not a big enough Guinness fan to want to miss other things, so we'll probably reconsider. I got the impression that the Newgrange tour takes 6-7 hours all total. Is that accurate?

Geno · Guru

Was at Newgrange last week. The tour takes 90 minutes. You might have to wait 45 minutes for another tour if you get there during a busy time (try not to go on weekends), but the tour lasts right at an hour and a half, and is well worth it on a good weather day. If it is raining, I would tell you to not do it -- a lot of outside walking with no shelter once you get off the bus that takes you to the site from the visitor's center. On a good day however, an incredible place to explore.

Geno

-- Edited by Geno on Wednesday 25th of March 2015 03:49:53 PM