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Itinerary Thoughts, Public Transport and Cliffs of Moher Weather Question

Posted by (Albany, NY) on

My friend and I are traveling in mid-August, using public transportation and the occasional taxi. I initially wanted to rent a car in Galway but since my friend does not drive, decided not to. I have planned/timed out everything with regard to buses, trains, airport links etc.

As weird as this sounds, we are not interested in historical sites or museums. We like beautiful vistas, great music and enjoying local culture/crafts. We are both major "foodies" although my companion does not eat fish.

I am looking for is thoughts about anything we need to be concerned about with regard to timing or enjoying our planned experiences, especially with regard to public transport.

Basic Itinerary:

Day 1: Buy 24 hour Leap Card at airport. Around Noon, Take Dublin bus 102 to hotel in Malahide. Toots tour, Castle, village, dinner.

Day 2: Take DART into Tara Street Station. Drop luggage at our hotel near College Green. At about 11am get on HoHo bus to Guinness Storehouse. Get back on bus, enjoy tour and get off at St. Stephens Green. Live music/dinner in a Temple Bar pub.

Day 3: 6:45 am CityLink to Galway to meet our tour to the Burren and Cliffs of Moher. We will depart the tour 3pm (we will miss Doolin) to get the Bus 350 to Lahinch Beach to stay the night soak in some of the local beach culture. *I am former "California surfer girl."

Day 4: Relaxing morning on Lahinch Beach. Bus 350 to Kinvara for the Festival of Boats. Enjoy some local culture there. Later that night, Dinner and music at Dunguire Castle (walk to castle and get taxi back).

Day 5: Bus 350 to Galway. Galway "road train" tour, spend some time at Latin Quarter, enjoy shopping/eating in Galway.

Day 6: CityLink back to Dublin Airport. Use another 24 hour Leap Card to take Bus 102 to Malahide again. After checking into hotel, take DART to Howth for shopping and dinner. DART back to Malahide.

Day 7: Back to Airport for trip home.

RE: Cliffs of Moher

I have read sad stories about people going to Cliffs of Moher and not seeing anything due to the fog. We are taking a 1 day tour there and it has a 48 hour cancel window. Thoughts on this? Should we be looking for something in the forecast 3 days prior or is this fog a totally unpredictable thing?

Thank you in advance for reading this long post.

Posted by
98 posts

Hi, lisawe. 😀 You are going to get much better advice from more seasoned travelers here, but I admired the candor of your post and, thus, I wanted to reply. (I actually continue to visit this forum primarily because of all the great advice I got while I was planning our recent trip ....)

1) Love your thoroughness.

2) HoHo Bus: The "live" narrated tours were so much more fun and engaging. IF you have the time to spare and there's sufficient wait time between a recorded tour and a live one, wait and take the live one. (Regardless, the HoHo was/is a wonderful service.)

3) Let me begin with a disclaimer. We had partly cloudy weather on our visit to the Cliffs of Moher, so I don't know how much of a disappointment it might be if you are entirely fogged in. However, IF your tour is going to allow you to do a little roaming on the Burren, you might find the landscape to be hauntingly beautiful and something to see/experience. Walking across a bit of the Burren was quite a bit different than watching it zoom past.

Best wishes to you on your trip. 🇮🇪

Posted by
1172 posts

The weather in Ireland, you will find, changes on a dime. 3 days out, heck 30minutes out, will tell you nothing.
I would go ahead with your planned tour and hope for the best.

The day we went, we had rain on our way there, fog and then the skies opened up and we had the most clear blue sky we saw the whole time we were in Ireland. Had we based it on the forecast, we wold not have ventured out.

Enjoy your trip!

Posted by
5257 posts

The weather at the Cliffs of Moher is very erratic and there isn't anyway to accurately predict what it will be when you will be there. When we were there in June a few years ago it was raining with a little fog. Twenty minutes later it was beautiful. My suggest is just go and hope for the best -- but take good rain gear just in case.

Posted by
238 posts

Thank you for your thoughts. I am the type that just "goes with the weather" and I even carry a couple of those disposable rain ponchos.

Posted by
1172 posts

Layers will be your best friend. We often started with t-shirts, then a sweater and a rain/wind jacket. Took the jacket off, then the sweater then put it all back on lol

Rain never stopped us :)

Posted by
409 posts

Wow! Your trip seems very "planned out!" Don't forget to leave time for unexpected fun. I was in Fethard last weekend and walking up the street met a lady. She turned out to be a nun from the convent up the road. She said "Would you like a tour of the convent?" and hours later we had gotten a tour, enjoyed the most amazing giant roses in their garden, gotten a recommendation for scones that were stunningly good, and ...... hadn't made dinner reservations so all was ok with our changed schedule.....

Have you made plans for where you're staying at Lahinch? I've stayed at the hostel twice and a B&B once. The hostel is quite nice! (I know americans don't always consider "hostel" when most in ireland have private rooms if you want that!).

Have your researched the Burren Food Trail for that part of your visit? Sounds like you would enjoy some of those extras....

Susan

Posted by
238 posts

Thank you for your suggestions! We have to use public transport so that is why I have to plan things out. The Burren food thing sounds very interesting. We will be on a tour when in the Burren but I will do some research on it as I think we can cancel the tour or go with a different plan.

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