monicakw

We're planning our first trip to Ireland (myself, my husband and my sister) and this is our tentative itinerary. Suggestions are welcome!

Day 1: Arrive in Dublin 2 p.m., see Guinness Brewery, drive to Limerick, check into hotel in Limerick (have yet to find one)

Day 2: Drive to see Beara Penninsula/Ring of Beara (rather than Ring of Kerry), spend rest of day on Dingle Penninsula, drive back to hotel in Limerick

Day 3: Drive to Doolin, 10 a.m. Aran Islands ferry -rent bikes, 3 p.m. Cliffs of Moher tour, spend night in either Doolin or Ennis (would like to visit Jam shop, open 9-5 daily so if we don't have time we can visit first thing in the morning)

Day 4: Drive to Limerick, see King John's castle, drive to Dublin, hang out, see places in Dublin, stay in hotel - probably near airport

Day 5: Arrive at airport 9 a.m., fly out

tarmor1

You're going to spread yourself a bit thin. Rather than stay in Limerick, I'd stay in Dingle - (or the first night - get to kilkenny at least and do some sightseeing there). Doing the beara penninsula and the Dingle peninsula in one day is just too much. I recommend staying in Dingle - try james g. asche b&b. It's lovely and in a good spot in Dingle. That way, you can take your time and do dingle peninsula right - see slea head, drive conor's pass - or even see fungi the dolphin. I was just telling someone else that there is a car ferry that goes from Tarber to killimer. It's only 20 minutes (gets you from Kerry to Clare - look on the map) - it cuts out 87 MILES of driving and you won't have to waste time going back to Limerick - not worth the trip anyway.

You'll get to Doolin faster and be able to catch the aran ferry - I think you're going to love the Arans - Inis Mor is it?

Spend the night in Doolin!

I think that if you're going to Limerick on Day 4 - you definitely do not want to go there on day 1 -

monicakw

tarmor- How long should I allot for the Beara Penninsula? Based on your suggestions I rearranged the itinerary, but going to Doolin first so our 4th day we can do Beara & King John's in Limerick before heading back to Dublin.

Is this a better organized trip?

Day 1: fly into Dublin, leave airport 2 p.m., see Guiness tour, drive to Doolin, spend night in Doolin.
Day 2: Jam, Aran Islands (Inis Mor), Cliffs of Moher, take ferry to Dingle, (WONDERFUL tip by the way) spend night
Day 3: Dingle Penninsula, spend night
Day 4: Beara Penninsula, King John's Castle in Limerick, drive to Dublin, spend night
Day 5: Be at airport 9 a.m.

jent103

First off, where are you arriving from? If you're arriving in Dublin from North America, you'll be jet lagged. If you're not arriving from the same or a very close time zone, I would very strongly suggest touring Dublin your first day and staying there that night.

Second, I agree that staying in Limerick probably isn't what you want to do. I haven't been, but I haven't been because everything I've read suggests that Limerick isn't of much interest to tourists. I would either choose Dingle or Kenmare instead, so you can drive either the Ring of Beara or the Slea Head loop on Dingle. Either town would be a great choice.

Honestly, with only 3.5 days which must include time in Dublin, I'd just pick one area on the western side of the country. A rule of thumb that worked well for me is that you can average about 35 miles per hour when driving - Ireland is small, but it takes longer to get from place to place than many first-timers believe.

tarmor1

I agree with Day 1 - if you will be jet lagged, oftentimes you don't realize, but when you land- you need to sleep. If you can stay up, more power to you, b/c you can get back on track easily enough. But - day 1 would just be a driving day to you anyway. Maybe do the guinness store (it'll take you a couple hours to get in and out) on the last day. If you get right in your car and bang out the drive to Doolin on day 1, you can go to a pub, eat, and get a good night sleep - and be where you want to be...

In one day, I once did drive to slea head and then the beara peninsula - big mistake... it was January and it was dark before we made it all the way through Beara - and we still had to drive on to Kinsale.. what a nightmare.

You want at least a half day for dingle and a half day for Beara.

In my opinion, Dublin is great, but it's like any other city, like Boston or somewhere - If you're looking for what you picture Ireland to be, don't worry about missing it on this trip.

monicakw

We'll be flying in from Poland, so close to the same time zone. My only concern with Dublin on the last day is do we have time to do the Beara, St. John's Castle, get to Dublin and see the Guiness brewary before it closes at 7 (I beleive)?

jent103

I really don't think so. Even doing just the Beara and the castle in a day would be very tight. It will probably take about three hours to get just from Kenmare to Limerick, then another three hours to Dublin - after you've been in the car all morning for the Beara peninsula. (One tip I picked up on Fodors was to use viamichelin.com and add half to the time it tells you. That ended up being quite accurate for us.)

I'm curious - what's the attraction of King John's Castle? I've just not heard anything about it before. If you're just looking for a castle and not interested in that particular one, you could probably see Ross Castle after the Slea Head drive on your day 3, staying in Kenmare to be between Dingle and Beara. (You'd still be putting a LOT into your itinerary, but it would save the drive to Limerick, at least.)

tarmor1

I agree with Ross Castle instead...

monicakw

One of the directions I looked up had us going through Limerick from Dublin to Killarney so I added King John's as "a castle to see in Ireland". But if the Ross Castle is right there then I don't see why we can't substitute Ross Castle, thanks.

tarmor1

Out of curiosity - what is Jam?

jent103

tarmor1, I wondered that too - I googled and found a Clare jam outlet in Doolin (tourclare.com/doolin.html). Not sure if that's what the OP meant, but either way - who knew? Not me!

tarmor1

Thoughts:

Day 1: fly into Dublin, leave airport 2 p.m., drive to Kenmare. Overnight in Kenmare (4.5 hrs approx)
Day 2: Ross Castle, Lakes of Killarney or Killarney National Park, or Beara Peninsula
Day 3: Dingle Penninsula, Slea head, conor's pass - ferry over from Kerry to Clare
Day 4: JAM (?) and Aran Islands (i would take out the cliffs b/c dun aengeas is a nicer view (if you go to inis mor) and less touristy and you'll like it better and have more time) - perhaps take a flight back from the arans to dublin if you can drop your car off at another location in Clare....
Day 5: Be at airport 9 a.m.

tarmor1

Jent103 - had no clue - thanks for filling me in!

monicakw

yes, Jam is a jam place in doolin I've heard about and "have to" visit, it's open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily.

Tarmor- we were going to do the Cliffs cruise (about an hour boat ride) rather than see the cliffs from the top. The package to do the Aran Islands and the Cliffs makes it a full day trip (10 a.m. to Aran, 3 p.m. cruise). Unfortuantely I am unable to take a flight from the Arans to Dublin.

jent103

The Cliffs cruise we took was great. We saw them from the top and from the cruise, and ideally I'd say do both. But if you need to pick one (and given your time frame, you do), I definitely recommend the cruise. So, good choice there. The one thing to remember about that day, though, is that the weather could play a big part in whether you actually get to do all of that.

Assuming you're still working off the itinerary in your second post: Normally I would say to spend as much time in Dingle as you can. But with such limited time, and if you're determined to see part of the Killarney/Kenmare/Beara area, I'd say to do the Slea Head loop on the morning/early afternoon of day 3 and then head on over to Kenmare. That would let you get an early start in the morning to a) see Ross Castle and maybe part of the Park, or b) drive the Beara before spending your afternoon/evening driving back to Dublin. In your case, I'd probably choose option A, since you'll have just done a driving day the day before.

Still a very rushed, packed trip (and I'm not one to travel very slowly), but it could be doable if that's how you like it.

monicakw

Jent, thanks for the tips. I think that plan will work for us, we are well known for coming back early from vacations. We are always rushing to get someplace so have a tendency to finish earlier than expected. We're also early risers, especially while on vacation, so that might be part of it. Anyway, thanks, now I'm off to find accomodations!

janisj

If you land at 2PM (or even leave the airport at 2PM - you definitely don't want to be driving into central Dublin for the Guinness tour and then try to drive all the way across the country.

"<i>We are always rushing to get someplace so have a tendency to finish earlier than expected</i>" Rushing really isn't an option when you are traveling around Ireland. You will be lucky to average 35 MPH over much of your route.

monicakw

We've decided to cut the Beara Penninsula out of our plans and head back to Dublin earlier on our last day to see the brewery tour and just relax a bit before our flight in the morning. We figured we'll be seeing quite a few beautiful sights, including the Dingle Penninsula, and that it would be redundant to squeeze the Beara in. Thanks!