Should I make advance (online) reservations for a ferry from Wales to Dublin, or from Belfast to Scotland? Or would I be able to just buy a ticket when I get there? My trip is in mid-May and I will be a taking a car across w/2 passengers.
- Thanks

Are you taking a RENTED car? If so you will have a very hard time finding one you can take to Ireland from the UK.

Give us more info about your itinerary and we can give you suggestions to make it work easier. Flying from the UK to Ireland is pretty inexpensive and you could pick up a car there (but not take it to Scotland - you'd need a different car there)

Actually, you can take a rental car from England/Scotland to Northern Ireland, or at least you could a few years ago. We rented through National and were able to do this but we couldn't go to Ireland (south).

camlec: that's true -- but that isn't what adrahil is asking about. He wants to take a car from Wales to Ireland.

(The way he worded his post I assumed he means to go from Wales to Ireland to N. Ireland to Scotland.)

But he hasn't come back to tell us whether he is renting a car . . . . . . .

Ah, I was refering to his Belfast to Scotland comment. We took the car from Stranrear (sp?) over to N. I.

Adrahil? Are you still there?

First, you can take hired cars between Britain and Ireland. But not every hire company allows this, so you should double-check before committing a specific company. You may have to do a bit of shopping around.

In mid-May you probably can just buy when you turn up (though it can be chancy at weekends). Don't try it the weekends of May 1 or May 29. But you'll pay the full rack price. Given the extraordinarily high cost of Irish Sea ferries, it's worth checking the suggested websites to see whether there are deals you can get buying in advance. There are rarely last-minute deals. You'll probably get the best deals by buying return trips on the same route.