PAWS4U

My husband and I are going April 15 to Ireland. Overnight flight (7 hours) lands at 8:40 a.m. Following is our plan, but I am unsure about the first two nights. So here goes!
Land in Dublin 8:40 a.m., rent car and drive to Galway.
Stay in Galway two nights.
Waterford Castle two nights.
Then Drive back to Dublin and stay three nights and fly back.

We are flying on American points which is why we are doing round trip through Dublin. Galway & Dublin are Marriott hotels on points. BUT I am thinking we should find somewhere else to stay other than Galway and pay. Primarily because now my husband wants to do the Ring of Kerry and I can't see now why would we stay in Galway.

We are okay with sleeping on the plane and driving somewhere for a few hours. We are doing Dublin on the back end because we have an early flight out.

On a side note my husband is not afraid of heights, but he has a tough time driving in terrain where you are driving basically on the edge of a cliff - will he have a problem with the ROK?

So any help you can give on the first couple of nights in Ireland would be greatly appreciated.

Padraig

What's the Waterford bit about?

PAWS4U

I wanted to stay in a Castle and picked Waterford for two nights. It looked like that was a decent jumping off point to other places as well.

Padraig

Cart, horse.

Marycang

We took the train from Dublin to Galway and then picked up a car. I love trains and my husband wasn't ready to start driving yet (he slept on the train). I think the scenery would be much better on the train. I loved the scenery on the train and watching and hearing the mostly Irish passengers. I am a people watcher when I am in a foreign country.

janisj

I personally think you need to get back to the drawing board.

Getting off an over night flight and driving all the way across the country is not a great idea and could be very dangerous.

And then you are driving all the way across the country again from Galway to Waterford.

There are plenty of castle hotels in Ireland -- no reason to go to Waterford

PAWS4U

Waterford Castle looked nice which is why we picked it. I see that Dromoland gets great reviews as well. I am not opposed to switching our reservation (we'd only lose about $50) if that makes better sense.

PAWS4U

So it looks like the comments so far are that Waterford Castle isn't the castle to pick. I want to end up in Dublin for the last three nights of our trip. Which Castle would you recommend for two nights either nights 1&2 or 3&4?

littlejane

From the touring perspective, it makes a lot more sense to pick a castle in the West near Galway and spend 4 nights relatively relaxed rather than trekking across the country to fit in Waterford.

My favourite is Ballinahinch, less than an hour from Galway, good base for touring Connemara. Might be too close to Galway for your liking. Alternatives are Ashford and Dromoland, but you'll need deep pockets!

tod

Hello PAWS4U, Take a read through my report of Ireland from last May. We drove around the entire Ring of Kerry - apart from all the other stuff: http://tinyurl.com/mmm492
If you get out a good road map you can follow the route easily as I have mentioned all the Road Route numbers and where and why we stopped.