ireland folks!!

[sweethot143 2]

Hi, we want to visit Dublin, we have a long weekend in February for presidents day, we can fly their Ryan air for the whole family for $150 euro, so that is very affordable.

Does anyone have any advice?

questions

Is February even a good month to come?

Should we rent a car or is Public trans. good?

any ideas on where to stay?

we want to see Bunratty Castle, and O'briens Tower, and much more

[Dani-X 0]

Hi there,

I went to visit some family in Ireland over Martin Luther King weekend in January, 2003. The weather was AMAZING! It was in the mid- to high fifties and even climbed into the 60's a few days. I imagine it would be even warmer in February. Also, I was on the northern coast and only stayed 2 days in Dublin.

Here's a link to the Monthly Temp and Precipitation Averages:

http://tinyurl.com/y623h7

Have fun!

[sweethot143 2]

thanks dani, anyone else?

[DevilMayKare 1]

Do NOT rent a car!!!

My oldest son spent his college Jr year at University College DUblin and my other son & I went to visit him for a couple weeks. OMIGOSH the roads are soooooo small and the signage is soooo bad and driving on the wrong side is a horror! And getting directions from the Irish is like reading a poem--and about as hard to figure out.

There's a lot to see in Dublin--there's some kind of bus tour that you can buy to take about 7 different tours over a 3 day period (or something like that). The jail tour is a tear-jerker and the Guinness plant is downright AMAZING. You get to experience a lot of different bus drivers on that tour and they are a riot. Some sing!

Be prepared--Ireland is really expensive.

For side trips Galway and Kerry were my favs. Cliffs of Mohar impressive, but not worth the drive on a tight schedule. The book of Kells at Trinity not worth the $ at all, nor was James Joyce's house. I loved all the statues in Dublin. I'm really not all that into tours normally, but the Irish are such wonderful storytellers, the tourguide is really part of the experience. As far as where to stay... we stayed in a different bed & Breakfast every night and 90% of them were great. Having at least breakfast paid for (it's included) saved some $, but I did get a little sick of the high-fat fare. The B&Bs in Dublin are much more than the towns. We got all our recommendations out of one of the travel books. I doubt Feb is a busy month--they may be open to coming down on the room price a bit.

Have fun! (Hope you aren't a coffee drinker tho... the Irish coffee is terrible.)

[sweethot143 2]

Devil, thanks for the great advice. Thankfully neither of us drink coffee.

If we go to Dublin, other than the bus tours how do we get around? Taxi or what.

[DevilMayKare 1]

The city buses are good. If you buy that city bus tour package there are buses going all day long (like every 2 hours or so) to absolutely every tourist destination in Dublin (& there are a LOT) you could possibly want to go to. It's really a great deal and you can choose how many places you want to see in a day... shop nearby and hop back on the next bus.

Downtown you just walk around to the different spots. We never took a taxi anywhere, but remember we had a college student showing us around and he had the city buses totally figured out. We used those to get to and from the airport. Probably wouldn't have been so easy without him.

The Irish are really friendly and helpful--just too lyrical on directions to understand sometimes. We did rent a car to go outside the city and I would NEVER do that again. Even tho he wasn't insured to drive (only 20 yrs old--& the rental co's are strict on the driving age) I ended up having John drive because he was used to the left side driving and I was going to get us killed. Seriously, the roads are NARROW! If I had it to do over I would either look into a 2-3 day tour for out of the city or hire a driver for a day.