Jackie

Three years ago, following my first intensive dose of trip planning, I made my first trip to Ireland. Seeking advice here, I was told by many that I was planning an overly ambitious itinerary, but I ignored the advice and went ahead as planned, not really believing how much time we would spend driving from town to town. I was sure wrong!

Learning from my mistakes, I planned another trip to Ireland at a more realistic pace. I am recently back and can report that the slower pace allowed us to better appreciate the Country’s beauty and incredible history.

There were 4 of us traveling: me, my sister, her son and his girlfriend (50ish, 40ish, and 2-20 year olds. We flew out of Boston to Shannon and returned via Dublin. Our 10-day trip took us to Dingle, Kinsale, Cashel and Dublin. It was an easy five-hour flight direct to Shannon; getting thru Immigration/Customs was a breeze. Getting the rental car was a nightmare. We rented the car thru Auto Europe, which was having a very bad day. While all other rental companies had no customers, there was a very long line at AE. Many customers were given the wrong car/wrong key/wrong directions. Everyone in front of us came back 2 and 3 times to correct the problem. Once we got thru the line we waited for over an hour for our car and didn’t get on the road until more than 2 hours after arrival.

After following the very long thread on Fodors about the MasterCard rental insurance, I opted to decline the CDW and use the credit card insurance. As luck would have it, we had a mishap. I now has $1,900 hold on my account and a knot in my stomach about whether or not it will get paid. More about that later…

Dingle, first stop and my favorite. I was the navigator and was following directions from AA roadwatch and 2 maps. Didn’t help. Without a stop, it still took us 4 hours from Shannon. Got lost a couple of times.

We stayed at the Milestone House, which was wonderful. We all agreed it was our best B&B experience. Barbara and Michael could not have been better hosts. We were greeted with cookies, tea and coffee. Barbara had a map and outlined all the sites to see as well as the restaurants we should visit. She made our reservations for dinner and the Folk Concert. A full Irish Breakfast was on the menu. We had a gorgeous view of the bay from our front room on the second floor. Rooms were small and plain and I could hear people in the next room, but the hospitality and view made up for the slight imperfections.

After a slight rest, we ventured as far as Ventry Beach, which is at the start of the Slea Head Drive Circle. The weather was perfect for beach walking and getting the cobwebs out after being up for more than 24-straight hours. We picked up a bottle of wine at the village near the beach, and went back to get ready for our first night in town. We went to Murphy’s Pub for dinner. Of the 4 of us, only 1 enjoyed the meal. I had the mussels that I could not eat. It was still early and we learned the music didn’t start till 9:30; none of us would last that long. We went back to the B&B to enjoy a bottle of wine in the back yard and called it a night.

The next day we set out to do the Slea Head Drive. We set out following Rick Steves tour and stopped at the places that the B&B hostess recommended. My favorites were the beehive huts and the beach where Ryans Daughter was filmed. We stopped at a tea and craft shop just before the beach and picked up box lunches to bring to the beach. It was truly gorgeous. There’s a waterfall as you reach the beach, cliffs that jut right out of the ocean and the water is a clear blue. It was a perfect beach! It even reminded my sister of Hawaii. It seemed chilly to me for swimming, but people were in the water, some in wet suits.

We reluctantly left there to see what other sites lie ahead. We went to the Blasket Island Center. I thought the highlight was the building itself and the views (I’m not much of a museum person.) We did purchase the Heritage Cards here and they were quite a bargain, especially for my nephew and friend who got the student card for 7.50E. We also stopped at Mulcahey pottery; I thought the prices were outrageous. We headed to the Gallarus Oratory, but when we got there, I’d run out of steam. We went into the café there and had the BEST apple pie I’d had in my life, ever. From here, we headed back to the B&B. The abbreviated tour took us 5 hours.

We went to Ashe’s for dinner, where we had our best meal of the trip. I had the scallops and my sister the tempura fish. Although my scallops were good, her fish was outstanding. The place is a pub and nothing fancy, but the food is excellent. From here we went to the folk concert at Saint James Church. The concert ended at 9:30; still we were too tired to go into the pubs. It began to look like we might never have the energy to make it past 9:30 pm.

I’m still suffering from jet lag and must end this here for now, as it is taking much longer than anticipated. Will continue later.

Melissa5

Jackie, I'm enjoying your trip report, rest up and I'm eager to hear the rest! I'm hoping our 1st trip to Ireland next summer will be relaxed enough. We have 15 nights and will include Dingle and Dublin and Cashel as well as some other stops. We're also planning to fly into shannon, rent a car, fly out of Dublin.

Wow, it sounds like renting the car was more complicated than expected. Wonder if auto europe always has the longer lines?

Jackie

Melissa, I don't think AutoEurope was at fault. I believe they contracted with Europcar. I checked the rates before I left and Dan Dooley had the same price. I think next time, I might give them a try.

Dingle Continued…With the sky looking pretty ominous, we set out for Connors Pass and roads beyond. This was probably the most challenging driving day. (Have I said I didn’t drive at all?) There were many bicyclers on the road, cars coming in the opposite direction, cars passing, and some sheep to boot; all on a very narrow road.

We made it to the top and walked to the peak. The wind was very strong; lighter weight people would have run the risk being blown over. From here we started down the other side which is even more narrow. We pulled over at the waterfall; some of us walked to the lake, others hiked into the mountains. Again, this was spectacular scenary.

From here, we headed out to Brandon point and once again got lost in spite of having two maps in front of me. I think I must be studying the maps and missing the road signs, which are few and far between. Barbara, the B&B host, recommended this drive with lunch at O’Sheas pub. Lunch was excellent, but the drive was hellish. After lunch we headed out to where the road dead-ended. This was truly a one-lane road. It was pretty, but not worth the drive, especially since we had an accident.

Returning from Brandon Point, we pulled over to let an oncoming car pass. The car passed with an inch to spare, but not without us hitting a hidden rock which dented the lower part of the two passenger doors. We did not buy the insurance and used the Master Card rental coverage. A whopping $2,000 charge is now sitting on my credit card and I am going through the claims process. At the time, I convinced myself that we would be fully covered. I am now beginning to have my doubts.

After the mishap, we headed back. Had a pleasant dinner that night at Moriarty’s and was able to manage about 30 minutes of music before calling it a night.

Next morning, we packed and headed out in the rain for some shopping in Dingle and our trek to Kinsale. It was a good thing we stopped for shopping because my sister left her purse at the the B&B. As we are parking the car, we see Barbara from Milestone speeding up the street to catch us and return the bag. It was an act that was truly above and beyond and saved the day for us.

Next Kisale…

Jackie

Kinsale. As usual, our drive takes us longer than planned due to missing the road signs. Don’t know if we got on the wrong road or not, but once again we were on one lane roads for some long stretches. The traffic into Kinsale was very heavy, many of the streets were one way and, of course, we had trouble finding our way around. It was a bad introduction to the area.

My sister and I booked the Kilcaw House and the “kids” booked the Guardwell hostel. My gut told me they would not be happy staying in a hostel so we all checked it out. The large walk-in area to registration had an open atrium kind of ceiling and the heavy rain was falling on us as we were waiting to see the room. The room itself wasn’t so bad, but the atmosphere in the building itself was depressisng, bleak, dreary…get the picture? We couldn’t leave them there. We called the Kilkcaw House for another room, but they were booked. They did find us another room nearby at the Sunset for the night.

On first impression the B&B was wonderful and we were wishing we’d stayed there instead. It was a huge room, nicely decorated with a gorgeous view. The hostess was very friendly and extremely helpful with recommendations for dinner. She only had a vacancy for one night, so she got a room for the next night at her daughter’s place (a B&B without a name). This was all too good to be true. We learned the next morning after moving on, the heat had been turned off for the “summer” (the weather did justify the need for heat) and no towels had been provided. At the daughter’s house we were told the room would be ensuite, yet the bathroom was outside the room and had neither shower nor bath.; they were also locked out of the lounge area. The kids didn’t complain, but I would have left. Don’t really think adults would have been treated the same way. Moral of the story, make sure that the lodgings are approved by some group, like the Irish Tourist Board (neither of the 2 B*Bs had an official rating that I could tell).

The room at the Kilkaw house was larger and quieter than the Milestone and we had heat. The hospitality was no way close to what we had received in Dingle. The Kilcaw House is out of town a bit, but easy to get to via backroads that lead right to a parking lot so we didn’t have to deal with the town traffic.

Kinsale had a very different feel from Dingle. It seemed more compact and thus more crowded. The people even seemed different—more hurried and less friendly. The stores closed early and I didn’t find any good shopping.

I did the walking history tour—it’s only a little bit of walking and mostly sitting. Although it was very interesting, I did not find it as humorous as stated in the Guides. We went to Desmond Castle and the Charles Fort. Seeing the fort was the highlight of the trip. It wasn’t crowded and had some very nice views.

Per recommendations from the B*Bs, we ate in the White House, Fishy Fishy, and Jim Edwards. I was expecting excellent meals, especially from Fishy Fishy. But I would give them a rating them from good to very good.

On to Cashel…

Poohgirl

Sounds like a fun trip so far.
Could you please tell us what experience you had, if any, with the dynamic currency conversion using credit cards? I will be traveling to Ireland next month and I'm curious to hear your or anyone else's experience with this, since you've been there so recently. Thanks!
I'm looking forward to hearing about the rest of your trip.

Jackie

Poohgirl, I had read about the DC thing before I left, so decided to use most of the time.

I did use an MBNA credit card for the car rental and for the hotel in Dublin. The hotel charged me in Euros. It appears that it was a straight coversion at 20.9% and then MBNA added a 3% fee. (474euros, converted to $573 and then a $17.20 fee). On the car rental, I haven't seen any details on that yet except for MBNA's 3% fee.

I got a capital one card just before leaving and did a little shopping with it. These receipts are all in euros and show exchange rates of 1.25-1.29. I have not yet seen the statement to know how I was charged for these items. I will try to figure out how to view on-line and let you know.

In other money matters:
1. I opened a new bank account before I left to avoid the ATM fees. My cash withdrawels were at a rate of 1.21-1.22. I only had one fee of $2.07, which I think occurred at a grocery store. If anyone who reads this is from Boston, Wainwright bank does not add a fee to convert the money.

2. The first B&B asked to be paid in cash. I knew this before I left, so was prepared for it. At the Kilcaw House, they posted a notice that they would add 3% to the room rate if you used a charge card. I'd never seen this in a B&B before.

3. We had to stop for gas once and paid cash. The surprise for me was that we owed twice the amount that showed on the pump. Never figured that one out. So, beware when you fill the tank.

Hope this helps

Limey1945

Don't lose to much sleep on the rental accident. We had a fender bender in Ireland a year ago and after submitting all the paperwork through Master Rental or Assist or whatever it is called, the total bill was paid minus the VAT. Not bad considering the bill was 1,600.00. Have always declined the CDW in Ireland when paying with the Platinum. We will be returning in November for our 8 trip in 5 years. Sleep tight.

Poohgirl

Thanks for the info, Jackie.

Jackie

Limey, thanks for sharing your experience; makes me a little more optimistic.

Poohgirl, I looked into my Capital One charges and am not sure whether the shops did the DC thing. I distinctly remember signing for items thinking they were not converting the amounts on me. But all my receipts show charges after the exchange rate--it is this amount that appears on my credit card. What's most interesting about this is that while MBNA clearly adds a 3% fee on the charge amounts, Capital One shows no added fees.

bucky

My visa bill from our trip in June shows charges in euros for the most part on the left hand side and then the dollar amount is listed on the right with all of our US charges. There were a few places in Ireland that converted it into dollars and we accidentally signed those bills so we were charged at a higher conversion rate. Our visa bill didn't actually show the rate, but you could see it was higher by checking receipts from comparable purchase amounts. A very sneaky practice which really rubs me the wrong way.

You really have to watch your receipts or ask them to charge it in euros before they present the bill. We didn't usually think of it. It happened at about 6 places, all restaurants or shops, no b and bs, although we did remember to ask about it at the B and Bs, since those were large bills. One of them had a machine that tried to convert it to dollars, but she overrode it at our request.

The whole VAT tax thing is also confusing, because there were a few places that did not charge us the VAT but did charge us in dollars instead of euros. We didn't realize there were more than one VAT office at the airport (different companies) and some of our VAT receipts were not properly stamped so we did not get credit for them.

Jackie

From Kinsale to Cashel in less than lightening speed.... To break up our drive to Dublin, we opt to spend one night in Cashel. Of course we get lost a couple of times! My sister stayed cool and never got overly frustrated with me trying to navigate. I’m usually very good at getting from place to place, but in retrospect, it seems we just saw all the signs too late and was never too sure which direction we were traveling in as the roads aren’t marked with a direction (ie N,S,E,W)

In Cashel, we stayed at O’Briens Holiday Lodge which is on the backside of the Cashel Castle and across from the Hoar Abbey, but still walkable to town. I was really worried about what the place would be like since it was only 25euros per night per person. They have private rooms, hostel beds and a camping area. It was quite okay for the money. Rooms were on the small side and we could hear everything between our two rooms as well as the room on the 1st floor. No breakfast was provided tho. But, for 25e, can’t complain.

It was Sunday of the bank holiday weekend and the two ATMs in town were out of cash as was I-- which was more than a little alarming. So, I’d advise if the weekend is coming around, make sure you get plenty of cash to get through it.

Our first trek out was to walk over to the Hoar Abbey. That was pretty neat. From there we walked up to the Castle. We hung out there for a couple of hours for what was a most peaceful escape from the crowds of Dingle and Kinsale. Between the many gravestones, the quietness and the serene views over the valley, both the Abbey and the Castle had a very calming effect and a very special feel. It was a stop well worth the time.

The town, itself, was pretty much closed down for the weekend. We actually even had trouble finding places to eat. We let the kids select the restaurants—we did ethnic food this day. For lunch it was Chinese. Chinese in Ireland would not have been my first choice. It was okay, but not great—had worse meals. For dinner we went to Pasta Milano and that was the worst meal of the trip. It was recommended in Rick Steves book and his only miss that we came upon. It was doubly bad in that the bill was more than 90e with 3 of us sharing a pizza (we did have appetizers, wine/beer, dessert).

We had breakfast at the bakeshop on Main Street (jelly donut was out of this world) and headed onto Dublin with a stop at Glendalough. At this point we were thinking the best thing about Dublin was that we would get to drop the car off. Hurray!

I thought Glendalough was overrated, but that could be because of the crowds. They were the worst I’d seen any place we’d been during this trip. Even the woman at the check-in desk commented that the place had “gone mad”. We walked down into the monastery area and left pretty quickly because there were just too many people. We walked up to the upper lake and still too many people to contend with. By the time we got to the Lake it just felt like a park with lots of families and friends picknicking and a couple of games going on (hurling/soccer?). We walked as far as the waterfall (at least there were fewer people here) and returned in search of a late lunch_. There’s only one restaurant and that was too crowded, so we found an icecream cart that sufficed for lunch. From here, we set off to Dublin and I was sorry that we had taken one of our Dublin days to make a stop here.

Jackie

I just posted my pictures in Worldisround.com. If you would like to see them you can put my name in the search bar: jackiebost and then click on Ireland

And, finally the last segment of my trip report...Dublin. We drove to the Mont Clare Hotel to check-in and drop off the luggage prior to returning the car to the airport. The Hotel was very nice, clean, comfortable, quiet and within easy walking distance to all the sights (it was near Trinity College). For all 79euros a night for the room, it was our best bargain of the trip.

Our time in Dublin seemed to fly and didn’t get to do half the things we wanted. Our first night, we walked up to Grafton Street and learned stores close early and went to the Temple Bar area to listen to music. Next day we planned on doing the Cliff Walk from Greystones so only had the morning to do “touring”. We all took the bus out to the jail and did the tour. It was excellent. From there we went separate ways, some to shop and I went on to the Trinity College tour and the Book of Kells. Not much of a crowd fortunately. I enjoyed the old library upstairs—was pretty fascinating to see all the old books, especially Darwin’s Origin of the Species.

We met up in the afternoon to take the Dart down to Greystones/Bray. We did the cliffwalk between the two towns. My niece had lived in Dalky while spending a semester in Dublin; she said the walk reminded her of the Cinque Terre, so we had to do it. The views were pretty stunning and in some places the water was crystal blue. We passed only a few people, so in that respect it wasn’t like Cinque Terre at all. It was a pleasant two hour hike. At the end of it we caught the train to Dalky and had dinner at the Queens. It was one of my better meals. Better yet, was that it was Tuesday night and all wines were 50% off. Followed up with a drink in Kings Pub and then set off for the hotel. Learned that we should have paid more attention to the train schedule. After one very long wait, we caught the last train back to Dublin.

Next morning, we had planned our trip to New Grange with Mary Gibbons tours. The tour bus picked us up at the hotel at 9:50 and we winded our way around Dublin to pick up other passengers. I knew it was an all day tour, but didn’t give enough thought to why it took so long. Mary gave a narrated tour much of the way. It had to be about 11:30 when we finally left the City. We make a quick stop at Trim, but there wasn’t much to see there. We then learned we had 1:30 reservations to get into the chambers at NewGrange. Had a pretty bad lunch in the tourist center there while waiting for the tour to begin. Up at the site, they take groups of 20 people into a very tiny area and each group gets 10-15 minutes in the chamber before they turn the lights off for everyone to leave. It was so crowded, it wasn’t even possible to see into the 3 chambers. I was a bit disappointed that we’d taken a whole Dublin day to be in there for 15 minutes. When we got back town to the Tourist Center, I discovered the exhibition area and that was pretty fascinating, but by that point, it was time to load back into the busses to head back to Dublin. I was awed by the history of New Grange—its from 3200 BC!

By the time we got back, it was 4:40 pm, too late to go to the museum so I went shopping. It was Thurs and stores were open till 7.00. Thought I’d hit a couple of them before they closed. Nope, never made it out of the Kilkenny Shop on Nassau Street. Everything in there was wonderful!. But, beware. I think they did the dynamic current conversion here and I was not aware of it at the time.

The salesperson recommended the Roundhouse Pub and it was excellent (for pub food). It was my first meal where I didn’t eat fish and had the Guiness Stew instead. They brew their own beer and that was excellent also.

Next morning it was off to the airport to head back home. And, that is my tale of 10 days in Ireland.

ceezee

Jackie, your trip report has been very interesting to read. My husband and I leave in a little under 4 weeks for a 11-day trip in the West and Southwest of Ireland and I'm hoping that I didn't plan an overly ambitious itinerary. (I have the first night fairly close to arrival airport, 3 nights at another place not too far away, 3 nights each day on the road, 3 nights at yet another place, and then a final night close to the airport.) Sometimes it's hard to tell that you've gone a litte overboard until you're in the middle of it. I'm sure that no matter what, it's going to be a wonderful experience.

I took a look at your photos and they were fabulous ... some of the best I've seen. I really liked their composition. What camera did you use? Great job.

Jackie

Ceezee,

thanks for the comments on my pictures. They were all taken with a Canon A80.

Three nights in each sounds like it should give you enough time to see all the highlights plus some. Have a great trip.

waffle18

Jackie,

Thanks for the report. I thoroughly enjoyed it!

Quick question: you wrote "By the time we got to the Lake it just felt like a park with lots of families and friends picknicking and a couple of games going on (hurling/soccer?)"
I was wondering if you couldn't tell the difference between hurling and soccer or if you only thought they were playing soccer or some other game? Thanks in advance for taking time to clarify that for me!

Thanks again for the great report! I'm off to have a peek at your photos.

Cheers,

Wendy

Jackie

Wendy,

Sorry for my lack of clarity. My question mark was due more to my poor memory than not knowing what they were playing. Not a fan of either sport, I know that hurling has a stick and soccer doesn't. So, had I paid more attention I would have known the difference. At the time, I was more struck by how many people were hanging around there and how they were engaged in different activities.