Ireland is Booked !!!

No activity on my blog for 2 weeks but ...
We have finally set dates for the Ireland trip!. Airfare is booked. I was VERY disappointed to find that airfare had gone up considerably from the time I first started looking into traveling to Ireland. I will just have to be more frugal in my other arrangements. I'm not one to usually set a budget but in the future I think this would be a good starting point for planning a vacation. I'm hoping to keep this trip within $3000 per person for everything including food, souvenirs and admissions. 

Priorities for flying to Ireland included shortest flight duration and departing/arrival times. When we flew to Scotland we had so many layovers it was exhausting. It seems we spent all of one day in the airports in the US before boarding an overseas flight. We arrived in Scotland in the early morning. We did NOT sleep great on the flight but I must have napped enough that jet lag was not an issue for me. I don't recall TM complaining about it either. Maybe it's due more to age and never sleeping well. I feel jet lagged every day!

Our flights are on United Airlines and there is only one layover in Toronto, Canada. We will arrive in Ireland at 8:15 a.m. This seemed to work for us last time so I'll try this timing again. My sister and I talked about this recently. She was told that it's good to schedule your arrival late in the evening so you can just go to bed as soon as you get to your destination to sleep off the jet lag and wake feeling refreshed. Something to keep in mind if you have experienced jet lag in the past. I'll bet there's a You Tube video about that!

TM and I talked about upgrading our seats because the economy seats were not comfortable for trying to sleep. Unfortunately with the recent price increase it will be out of the question on this trip. We did opt for  "economy" vs "basic economy" in order to get free checked bags and seat selection. While I am planning to carry-on all my luggage I would like to have the option, especially on the return trip when I may be bringing home souvenirs. 

Next step was planning the 10 days in Ireland. As I mentioned on a previous post I have made a 10 day itinerary. In fact I've made about 6 of them. I can't seem to decide if I want to pack up and move to another B&B almost every night. Which is a bigger waste of time: driving a little farther to sites or packing and loading the car every day? In the end I opted for packing and loading the car because I thought we'd have less car time that way. 

I also looked at  a website that provided arrangements of lodging and car rental. Some attraction discounts were also provided. Initially this sounded like a good deal but when I started checking on prices it wasn't as good as I thought. So I've been internet searching and emailing and finally have all the dates covered. 

Here's my planned itinerary: 
2 nights in Dublin
1 night at Cashel
1 night at Kinsale
1 night at Killarney
2 nights at Dingle
1 night at Doolin
1 night at Galway 
final night close to the airport in Dublin to catch a morning flight

It really wasn't difficult to make these arrangements. Most B&B owners contacted me back within 24 hours. I used recommendations from Rick Steve's guidebook for many of the reservations but also used online searching for Dublin, Galway and Killarney. Rick did not recommend staying in Killarney because it was touristy but the B&B is outside of town and hopefully will not be a problem. I also checked about cancellation policies at each reservation. Next up is car rental and pre-booking some attractions. 

In the meantime I'm still You-Tubing travel tips. I found another great site to recommend: Travel Tips by Laurie on You Tube. She has good tips and presents it like she's talking to her best friend. 

Well the trip is very real at this point and I am WAY too excited about it already. I almost forget I have other plans for the year too. I promise I'll get into those soon. Planning this trip has been priority recently though. I've also thought about adding a health feature once a week since that's what I've done for the last 40 years. So watch for "Wellness Wednesday" in the future!