Car and Hotel: Dublin Ireland

As far as the car, I would take the bus (Aircoach) or a taxi back to the airport and pick up the car there, that way you won't have to worry about triving in the actual city. You could then just take the motorway out of the city and be on your way. The airport will probably have a better selection of cars (especially important if you are reserving an automatic) and you can practice driving around the big parking lot to get oriented to the car. Do you have Rick's Ireland 2012 book (we planned our trip w/the 2011 book bc our trip was supposed to happen in 2011, but that's OK...we leave in 3 weeks!) Rick breaks up the hotels by area in the city, so if you look at a map and look at attractions you are interested in, pick one close by and centrally located. Check on trip advisor for reviews. Happy planning! :)

Somewhat by accident my sister, mother and I stumbled on a great way to drive in Dublin: arrive really early on Sunday morning. My first few hours of learning to drive on the left side of the road and look right first at intersection were virtually free of traffic. While you can see Dublin pretty easily without a car, it really did help us to have one to see the rest of Ireland. We found drivers to be very courteous and although the roads were narrow the traffic seemed to move a little slower. If you don't know standard, learn it - automatics are much more expensive to rent. I would also recommend bring a GPS as plugging in coordinates of where you want to go - then choose road that go in that direction. Even the good maps we got were confusing for my sister who was navigating. As far as arrangements, my sister used online sites to book our B&B's and they all turned out great (I guess you could go wrong, but it seems hard).

When hubby and I were in Dublin in '08 we took the train to Galway and rented a car there at a place on Eyre Square which we used to tour the West and dropped it off at the end at Shannon Airport. We are in Ireland again right now and today we took a train from Dublin to Cork. We stayed at the very nice but relatively inexpensive ($81) Holiday Inn Express which has a free airport shuttle. Took it back to the airport, then the Airlink bus to Heuston rail station to get the train to Cork. We will rent a car here to see southeast. It definitely would behoove anyone who wants to rent a car over here to learn to drive a manual shift. (I actually had to take a friend to the emergency room once and the only available car was a stick shift, and thank heaven I can do it, so you never know when it might come in handy!)

Thank you so much for all your thoughtful, kind responses. I really appreciate it...can't wait to see Ireland!

Driving in Ireland is fun. We've arrived in Dublin hopped on a bus to Galway once and to Kerry another time picked up a car there either place is smaller than Dublin. We have never driven in Dublin. We stayed at the Brooks Hotel our last time in Dublin...it was a good choice close to everything we wanted to see and many places to eat. The bus can be caught right at the airport just a short walk and we were on board. You will love Ireland have wonderful. Time.

The Hertz station in Dublin is just outside the city center. Last year we did Dublin by foot, bus, tram and taxi all from the Radisson hotel just across St. Patrick's cathedral. The taxi from there to the Hertz station was €10 and it was just very convenient. The Hertz station will provide you with driving instructions as to how to get to the freeway from there. That's actually quite easy - obviously you'll have to cope with the left-hand-side driving/right-hand-side steering in these first couple of minutes...