Ireland Wrap Up

Places Visited

Our trip to Ireland came to an end on June 14^th with our flight back to Virginia.  The trip overall wasn’t bad but it wasn’t great either.  It was a variety of things from the accommodations, activities, and us dealing with sinus infections that really put a damper on the overall trip.

The flight out was good.  I will be booking 1^st class lay flat seats again for international travel.  It was very much worth the price in my opinion. It would have been even better if there wasn’t heavy turbulence for the first couple hours of the flight, but that is always unpredictable.  On the way back we did regular economy since it was a daytime flight, which wasn’t too bad for being a 3x3. The other unique thing was they did all the US customs and immigrations stuff in Ireland so when we landed back in the US it was like we just arriving from an in country flight, allowing us to get home quicker. 

In general, I think I should have done a little more planning and a bit more research before choosing the tour company we did. I should have walked away when they were having trouble booking us a hotel Dublin.  I ended up booking the Dublin hotel myself.   The two out of the three B&Bs they booked us weren’t bad, we didn’t stay in the one just because it was an unwelcoming environment.  No one wants to take their shoes off entering a B&B before going to their room and having only one breakfast time at 9:30AM when you want to be out the door already is not great.   The 5-star hotel we stayed in for one night was great, including the two-course meal on the train car.  The last hotel outside the airport was miserable since the air conditioning in our room was broke and they couldn’t move our room.  They gave us a desk fan that was no real help.  So, from an accommodation standpoint the trip was not wonderful.

Next the car we had was an Audi A5 which we upgraded to from the original booked car.  The ride overall was nice but a bit large for the Irish roads.  Also, we ran into trouble with its Android Auto loosing connection to the phone.  We think the port in the car or the cable might have been bad. Also, the car randomly decided it had low tire pressure, but was fine. I found a YouTube video on how to fix the problem and make the error go away.  So ok car, but I wasn’t the one driving, thus my opinion has a low weight.

As for sightseeing we did the basic tourist things, but I was hoping for a bit more from the tour company when it came to tour recommendations.  I usually have a general idea of what I want to see, but suggestions for unique things or special tours were never really made.  They offered to book us the standard stuff, I don’t want standard, I want unique things that I just can’t normally book.   I basically did a google search for spots in Ireland and we visited a lot of random places.  It also didn’t help that my husband ended up with either a cold or sinus infection at the very beginning of the trip which just doesn’t make traveling fun.  Especially if you aren’t sleeping well. Then I caught whatever it was near the end, mixed with my allergies didn’t make the last few days any fun.   And as for photos, I feel they are mediocre at best.  Just typical vacation photos.   You can see all the photos here: Ireland 2023.

Overall, not the best and not the worst vacation we have had.  It was nice to get away but I don’t feel rejuvenated like I usually do after vacation.  So, I learned some lessons and I’ll apply those to the next trip.  Maybe we will do a safari or Antarctica.