Itinerary help!!!

Day Eight- Burren and Cliffs

730-10am drive to bunratty castle (closes at 4pm)
10am-12pm bunratty castle tour (drive to it and see, don't stay long)
12-130 pm lunch somewhere close
130-215pm drive to burren
215-5pm go to burren
530-830 cliffs of moher
drive from doolin to hags head by 5pm and hike the trail to visitors center and back (2 miles I think total?)

stay in doolin? Any other town a good place to stay one night?

Question/Advice – Is this enough time in Burren? I am a little confused on exactly where to go in the burren and how long of a drive between the spots. Is bunratty castle worth it? I wouldn’t mind skipping one to see the other. As far as the cliffs go, I really just wan to hike the trail, not interested in visitor center or anything. I heard going later is nicer, less traffic. But is this doing too much?

Day nine –Aran islands

10-6pm go the ferry to aran islands
ferry gets back at 6. Seems like a huge waste of the day, but I heard it is great.

7pm - Immediately start making our drive towards Northern Ireland-stop halfway in Sligo or Donegal?
3-4 hour drive at night and in morning. We wouldn’t be getting to bed until 11 or later.

Day ten – Northern Ireland

7am-10am drive to dunluce castle
10-11am dunluce castle
11-1145am drive to carrick rope bridge
12-2pm rope bridge
2-230pm drive to giants casueway (eat there)
230-5pm giants casueway
5pm- go to dark hedges
Hang in Belfast or another town? Suggestions?
stay the night in area or belfast

Is the bridge that scary? I heard you will need your child strapped to you, which we would anyway. Can only one person go across at a time? Is two hours enough to walk the bridge and explore?

DAY eleven
hill of tara
trim castle
new grange

Feasible? And then making it to Dublin and having dinner and relaxing before our flight back the next morning?

Day twelve-----extra day to fit anywhere in this trip.

We fly out on day 13

I would do nothing with your extra day. We always plan a completely blank day every four to five days. Use that day to do laundry, catch up on things we may have missed earlier, add something that we did not anticipate, sleep in, etc. No plan goes perfectly, weather does not always cooperate, and 15 month old will slow you down considerably. I personally think you have too much planned.

IMO you are trying to squeeze in too much into short daylight hours, especially with a small child who needs a lot of extra logistics. Plan to do less, slow down, assume you'll return for more. You'll likley get lots of specific comments from others. If not, go back and do a Search on this topic. I will offer one place to economize as an example. The Hill of Tara is really just an unremarkable grassy hill with a small, poor, old church on the side. I have Irish ancestry, but did not feel any special magic, history or interest there.

Wow, I don't think I have ever seen an itinerary that has the times down! IMHO, you are too scheduled. No time to linger and enjoy the magic that is Ireland. You will not have enough time for half of this, but far be it from me to keep you from trying. I would be exhausted after this itinerary!!!

Easy. Your "extra day" will save you from the first mistake you made.

You plan to arrive in Dublin on what you'e calling "Day 1". I assume you are flying there from North America (or someplace else far away). That's not your first day in Ireland. That's your travel day to get to Ireland. I'd call that "Day Zero" because it's not really usable for much.

On your arrival day - no matter what time your flight lands - you (or at least someone in your family, maybe all of you) will be exhausted and jetlagged, wiped out because you got little or no sleep in the past day (or maybe two). So that day you will not have much fun trying to slog through your sightseeing list. You will be struggling to stay awake (at least you should try to stay awake). Your original plan has you using that day as your one and only day in Dublin, then getting up the next morning and driving away. So you won't really get to see Dublin (expect through a fog).

Do yourself a favor. Upon arrival, do your best to stay awake until an early dinner. Eat then go to sleep (bit don't give in to temptation and crash before dinner, or it'll take days to adjust to the time difference). Wake up the next day - which is actually the first usable day of your trip - and spend your "extra" day there in Dublin seeing/doing the things that you had planned for your arrival day.

Edited to add: Others have a point - you have waaaaay over-scheduled things. Hint: when your day plans includes more than 2 or 3 things, that's a sign you're probably overdoing it. When you start scheduling things down to 15 minute increments, hoo-boy, look out.

I think you need to start with a clean sheet of paper...

I believe we have too much as well! The day in Trim area weren't even on my itinerary to begin with. And I do not plan on this being my only trip to Ireland. YES I am nuts, I put times down just to see if it was doable, then once I put down all the times I realized that was crazy...when am I eating or going to the bathroom....?

My top places to go were:

Castles - Kilkenny, ROC, Cahir, Blarney. My husband loves castles, old architecture and history in general.
Cliffs and Burren- just because haha. I heard Slieve League was way better but I couldn't seem to fit it in. And it is generally out of the way. Worth it? Isn't it hard to hike though, I would be scared to take my daughter.

ROK and Dingle Peninsula
Killarney National park - just to be outdoors and we will be in that area
Northern Ireland - Giants causeway area
Aran islands- I could take it or leave it on this trip
Dublin - only interested in one day though

Have you travelled with your daughter before for this long ? Only you will know how your child will respond to new places, new foods, unfamiliar surroundings. Your detailed timetable looks to me like a blueprint for disappointment -- stuff happens, and travel takes longer than you expect. You may decide to skip certain sights and just veg out some days.

To each their own but I couldn't take a vacation this way. This is making an itinerary the goal and master rather than the experience. What happens when you are delayed half an hour by a herd of sheep ? When it inevitably is rainy and heavy fog and you can't see much of anything ? And what if everything flows smoothly but you feel compelled to leave a spot by a certain time to stay on schedule .....missing out on what makes a trip really magical which is the unexpected, unplanned moments ? Even if you are open to some itinerary flux the constant readjustment, again for us, would be exhausting and utterly counterproductive. Seeing everything possible isn't the goal, experiencing Ireland is.

We plan one thing a day - at most .....with a couple other possible options if we feel like it. We linger, take the time to interact with the incredible people of Ireland and let things happen. If we had been wedded to an itinerary to such a degree we honestly would have missed all the best moments from our trips......spending an afternoon w a farmer helping to feed his sheep and horses followed by tea and biscuits, having tea and scones w an older lady and her "fine excuse for a dog", being shown an amazing hike in the Wicklow Mountains, my wife being pulled into a small bakeries kitchen to trade recipes and speak Irish or just wander driving and "finding" an amazingly haunted field with an Ogham stone set in a field of wild gorse. That and many many more treasures. None of that would have happened with an itinerary being so predominant.

Nothing wrong with planning and to each their own, what works for one might not work for another but consider dropping the daily scripted times and multiple stops every day and leave plenty of time to explore, talk to folks, wander and discover Ireland and its generous, funny, self deprecating people. There is magic all over but rarely found running between so called must see tourist spots.

Anyway Just one take. Hope you have a fantastic trip.....Ireland is beyond description !

I agree that you have too much especially for someone travelling with a toddler.

I would add a day to Dublin as your day 1 will most likely be a wash.. between the overnight flight and jet lag, you will most like be a zombie. I would cut out Northern Ireland all together and add days to your other stops so you are not doing single night stops all the time.

We had a much slower itinerary with kids who were 11 and 8.

....when am I eating or going to the bathroom....?..... That is a self solving problem. If you don't eat or drink that solves the problem of finding restrooms. Second, not eating and drinking, especially beer in Ireland, saves a lot of time and money. So I think you that area well covered with your schedule.

Thanks for all of the info. I just wanted to see how much I could fit in if we exhausted ourselves. HA.

Possible fixes:

Added another day in dublin.
Take out northern ireland (sad face)
Add another day to Kerry (split ROK into two days)
Take out Trim area completely
Add in Connemarra day trip for some hiking and Abbey

Sound reasonable?

Thanks for the repsonses