mandate123

Going to Ireland in Aug 2004 with four family members. How drucial is it to reserve B&B's or hostels in advance? I love to be flexible and end up each day at wherever especially in the country or small towns. Will there be easy availability to find accomodations each night on the fly?

bob_brown

I don't think the better places are that free in August. Last September the places we stayed were full.
I know the B and B in Sligo was full well into September.
Hotels in Dublin were full as well.

CalgirlSusan

I think you have two choices. You can do a lot of study and prep work and know pretty much the areas you want to see and how much time you'll need in each and book ahead. Or you can waste your time when you get places having to run around looking for a place to stay. With four people you'll usually need two rooms which makes it even a little more difficult. If you don't care about the places you stay, you can usually find 'something', but they certainly won't be the really wonderful places which will all be booked ahead by the smart people who planned ahead.

janis

Any other time of the year traveling w/o advance bookings is fine. Even in June and early July it would be fine. But from the end of July through the first week in Sept is the absolutely most crowded time in Ireland (and all over Europe for that matter)

High season is pretty short since most European kids have a much shorter summer vacation, so in August you will be competing for rooms with all the Irish, British, and mainland European visitors plus N Americans.

You really should book ahead for most areas in August . . . . . .

mandate123

Yep, I misspelled "crucial" with "drucial". Thanks for knowing what I meant.
So... it doesn't really matter even in the small towns and countryside and out-of-the-way places, we could look long and hard to find a B&B or hostel. How bad is a "just something" kind of place??
For my ten day August 2004 (arriving and leaving Shannon) trip can I do a perimeter loop of the the Republic of Ireland comfortably especially with the long days and little interest in shopping?

bigtyke

i would look at the town and country homes website - townandcountry.ie and make some selections and then go ahead and reserve them. I believe that all the b&b's in them are adequate unless you have very high standards.

3 of the places we stayed were outstanding quality, two were very good, all were very resonably priced.

Ann41

Definitely reserve if you're in Dublin. Otherwise, wing it.

SiobhanP

Definately reserve. August is high season. We ourselves were stuck one night for a room and ended up with a dreadful B&B in Spiddal. This was in August as well and nobody had rooms free

mercy

The "Town & Country" website is very helpful--even if you don't decide to book in advance, because it gives you an idea of the types of homes and the prices.

We've visited Ireland many times, due to having relatives there, and have booked ahead in some places, and wingged it in others. We never knew exactly where we'd be if my husband had played golf during the day and we were going to drive on to our next stop. So, we tried to get to a stopping point early enough to go to the Tourist Info office and let them find us a place. Otherwise, we'd drive along a road on the way in to the town and check out the B&B signs, choosing a place that looked acceptable. We weren't wasting time, as it was "on" our way. This isn't possible in the larger cities, but should be in the smaller towns.

We've been there in Sept. too, and didn't have too much difficulty, except in Ballybunion, as it was Race Week. Checking out what the various activities might be in your selected stops might be a good idea--lots of info comes from the Irish Tourist Board, in NYC. mhm