Okie

8 of us (including 2 children) will be traveling to Ireland and N Ireland in June/July. What would be the best mode of transportation for traveling around the countries for 2 weeks?

Have you had any experiences hiring a driver? Recommendations for one if it was a good experience?

Rubicund

Unless money is no object to you, hiring a driver for two weeks will be very expensive. The easiest way is to hire your own car, allow a bit more time to get around from place to place and enjoy. You may have a problem hiring a car in NI and returning it in ROI or vice versa.

At the best you'll get an extra fee for drop off, but it depends on where you're staring and where you finish.

Rubicund

That should be "starting". BTW, you should get a people carrier over there fairly easily to take your party and luggage.

Okie

Thank you. What is a 'people carrier'? Is that the same thing as a taxi or bus?

Gordon_R

Are you American? A "people carrier" is British English for what you call a "mini-van". Basically just a rental car specifically designed to carry a larger number of people than an ordinary car. Most go up to 7, so 8 passengers will be more tricky to find. And also bear in mind that there is usually not enough room for 8 suitcases as well as their owners. You probably really need 2 family-sized saloon cars (i.e. sedans)

I fully agree with Rubicund that hiring a driver with vehicle will cost an eye-watering amount for two weeks, especially taking into account the size of your group.

Okie

Yes...American. Thank you for the clarification and advice. I am learning.

janisj

It would be much cheaper and you'd have much more flexibility if you rented two cars. You could all travel en masse . . . or sometimes a few could hit a beach or castle while the other want to shop. or any combo. two mid sized cars will be better than a people mover IMO.

Luv2travel15

There are some ways you can do it.

1) Rent a car - would have to be large enough for 8 of you but probably expensive as well. Who wants to drive? That person will have to pay attention to where he/she is driving, and be on alert. You could check out some rental car companies and get rates. Also as someone else noted above, you would have to see if you can pickup and return the vehicle to 2 different locations. Ireland could be the west coast, Dublin, etc., covers a lot of territory.

West Coast - we visited Galway City, Killarney, Aran Isles on our 10 days in Ireland. We used taxi drivers for a lot of our destinations and they do have vans for larger groups. We found this to be cheaper than hiring a limo driver. JMO....

2) Here is the name of a company I found googling:

http://www.discovernorthernireland.com/Taxi-Tours-A2016

If you can give us more information it would be easier to give you some ideas. Do you have an itinerary formed yet? Where are you planning to go - you mentioned Ireland and Northern Ireland but where? Two weeks is not a long time to visit both areas and with 8 of you needs to be coordinated.

I have a nice company in Belfast that I used a couple of years ago when we were docked off a cruise ship. They set up a nice itinerary for the day and we traveled in a large bus because we had 27 signed up for the tour. This company has all types of vehicles to accommodate the different numbers.


So give us some more detailed information so we can advise.

nytraveler

How old are the kids. Small ones that require child seats (that you need to organize and allow room for) or older?

I agree that 2 sedans is the way to go - so that everyone doesn;t have to be joined at the hip every moment. Depending on the ages of the kids you might want/need to be different places - esp some of the evenings.