Three friends and I are going to Dublin March 16-19, 2007 for a bachelorette weekend. (Yes, I know, it is St. Patrick's Day weekend. It wasn't my first choice for dates, but I'm not the bride, so it wasn't my call.) The Dublin portion of our trip is set; however, one other friend and I are planning on staying and traveling to the UK. We've talked about taking the ferry from Dublin to Holyhead and then rail from there on the 19th. (We both want to avoid air travel as much as possible w/in the UK.) I realize both the 19th and the 23rd will need to be travel days to and from Dublin (as our return flight to the US from Dublin departs at 10:30 a.m. on the 24th.) Any suggestions on how best to do a day or two in Scotland (and best cities to see while there) and a day in or around London?

Even though you want to avoid flying, you have too little time to waste it all on the train/ferry. And flights are dirt cheap if you buy ahead.

Fly to London (for 3/19, as low as ~31EUR all-in on Ryanair to Stansted or Luton).

Train to Edinburgh. GNER, 14.5GBP, Advanced 1.

Fly back to Dublin. (Ryanair, as low as ~25GBP all-in).

I agree you don't have time to mess around w/ ferries, but don't mess about flying into London and taking the train either. You can simply fly directly from Dublin to either Edinburgh or Glasgow (EDinburgh would be my choice). Check out Aer Lingus and RyanAir. Both will have cheap fares and you will save almost a full day each way. This will actually give you some time IN Scotland instead of just enroute . . . .

That's definitely not enough time to hit both London and Edinburgh, along with Dublin, if you're taking ferries. It's still not much time if you're flying. But go ahead and fly. The low-cost airlines in Ireland and the UK make it very cheap to fly internally if you book your tickets far enough ahead.

One word of advice in Dublin: don't make it obvious that you are on a bacherlorette weekend: a lot of pubs and hotels don't allow bachelor or bachelorette (hen and stag nights to them) parties any more because of all of the trouble they've caused. The English have spoiled the party!

You can not do what your trying to achieve in the short time you have if you choose not to fly. janisj has given you some good advise just stick to flying into Edinburgh you do not have enough time to do anything else.

Thanks to all for the advice. We are coming around to flying and are now trying to decide whether to fly to Edinburgh or Glasgow. Janisj indicated Edinburgh but is that due to flight costs or because Edinburgh is the best city to visit from a tourist perspective? Any thoughts? And calling what we're doing a "bachelorette weekend" is probably overstating it. Wild and crazy is not generally our speed, but the advice about not advertising our purpose is certainly well-taken.

Edinburgh is much more interesting place to visit than Glasgow.

because -- Edinburgh is the best city to visit from a tourist perspective