Renting a Car in Ireland

I would not want to try and fit 6 people in a 5 person European car for anything on earth! That would make for a very uncomfortable trip.
We had an SUV for our 2 week treck and we did fine. Unless you drive standard at home, you definitely want to splurge and get the automatic. Driving on the left side is enough of an adjustment on its own in my opinion.

We used Sixt and had a great experience. We picked up and dropped off at Dublin airport so cannot comment on picking up and dropping off at different locations. Given that you are in the same city though, I wouldn't think it would be too bad.

We booked about 4 months out. I kept checking rates and they never seemed to budge too much.

We rented through Sixt, and did the reverse—we picked up at the airport and dropped off in the Dublin city center. There were 5 of us, and we opted for a mini van style, though it was much smaller than what you’d find in the U.S. It was the perfect size for us, was great even on narrow roads, and we had no issues with Sixt.

What is the car model (or equivalent)? Stating it seats five covers a wide range of vehicles, many compacts claim to seat five but in reality......

I rent vans regularly from my local Enterprise and never had an issue, they even refunded me the cost of the rental on my last one because the van wasn't ready when I went to collect it.

I've also used Sixt extensively although I've noticed their rates have moved more towards the Hertz/Avis range.

$725 for 8 days does seem expensive and an automatic will cost substantially more. I've used Ryanair Car Hire recently and had no problems whatsoever, they act as the intermediary rather than hire out cars themselves and I've got excellent rates with Hertz through them. I've just done a search for 8 days in August next year and found an automatic VW Passat for US$539 via Sixt and for the price you've been quoted from Enterprise you could splurge out on a Mercedes E Class https://car-ire.ryanair.com/en#/searchcars. The passat will easily fit your family as described as will the Ford Mondeo, Hyundai i40 and Skoda Octavia that regularly come up in searches. Those cars are typically used as taxis so are well suited to carry several adults and a reasonable boot space.

There are no hidden extras, you may be prompted to buy extra insurance coverage but I have a separate insurance policy that covers me for all my car rentals throughout the year all for less than the extra coverage on one rental.

Unless your driver is already familiar with driving on the left I suggest collecting the vehicle at the airport rather than in central Dublin. The relative convenience of starting your journey downtown will be more than offset by the stress of having to negotiate the busy, and confusing, city streets immediately upon getting behind the wheel. Starting from the airport will mean that your first experience will be on the motorway, allowing the driver to achieve a basic level of comfort in a more forgiving environment before having to tackle the narrow rural (or city) roads.
Wherever you decide to begin, take a look at the street view feature on Google Maps to get a driver's eye preview of road layouts, signage, etc. before doing it for real. Always helps me - might work for you too.

We are adventurous travelers who have been to multiple countries. We will NEVER drive in Ireland again. The cars are tiny, most are stick shifts, you're on the opposite side of the road, giant trucks come barreling down at you, there are rock walls on both sides of the road which you are apt to scrape to avoid said trucks, street signs are confusing, etc. It really added a lot of stress to our trip driving there.

Thanks for all the good info.

Sounds like Sixt is worth looking into for Ireland. I will try and forget a Munich experience we had with them.

Just as an fyi for those who follow the post later...the Enterprise quote was about $550, but then I added SCDW to that for about $23 a day. That was a quote for an automatic.

I am still curious about when to book a car, but maybe booking early is better.

We booked 12 days through Easirent out of Shannon (they have offices all over). With complete coverage (and addded windshield and tire coverage !) We had an automatic Alhambra diesel SUV for $620 for 12 days. We booked about 1 1/2 months in advance.. It was great on the roads. I was worried about driving in Ireland but thought it was fun and nowhere near as dangerous or scary as people said and the SUV size was roomy and fine on roads. Easirent was easy, helpful, responsive and hassle free. Be sure and get tire coverage - driving isn't bad there but scraping a tire on something is SUPER easy and a fix costs hundreds !!! Renting an SUV on Irish roads sounds like a bad idea but the wheelbase is barely larger in many cases than a tiny compact...ask the service rep and they can guide you....but SUV's are not necessarily a problem....it wasn't at all for us. Definitely go for an automatic though !

I second the advice not to pick up the car in Dublin city center (unless, of course, you are experienced at driving on the left, which might be the case since you referred to "the boot" rather than "the trunk"). We made that mistake and managed to take out the passenger side mirror on the drive from the rental agency. In all of our driving time over two trips to Ireland that short drive in town was the most terrifying experience we had!

I actually called Hertz directly and got a much better price than online and they were able to add all the insurance on for me so there will be no surprises

Recently rented a car in Dublin city center through Hertz with a family of four. We picked it up on a Sunday morning and traffic was very minimal and easily made it on the highway to Galway. The only time we have an issue was driving from Galway to the Cliffs of Mohr which is extremely narrow and tight. We had a Land Rover discovery and there were certain times I thought for sure I was going to lose my passenger side mirror on a stonewall. Very stressful drive. The rest of the drive from Dublin to Galway and then Galway to Shannon was very easy. As far as cost I declined insurance because my credit card covered all of it which saved a ton of money. Check with your credit card company before you finalize.

I would definitely get the Super CDW. Like others said, it may be easier to drive from the airport rather than the city center.

Enterprise is my go to rental company in Ireland. If you are getting an automatic, make sure that is the reservation you made, or call and make your reservation over the phone (if it isn't listed as an automatic on the reservation, you may be out of luck). From my experience with them and others, if you are renting an automatic, I would recommend calling the Enterprise location where you will be picking up before you arrive to remind them of your requirements so they can plan to bring in an automatic if they need to (a day or two before should be fine). There aren't a lot of automatics so the selection can be slim.

Make sure you are allowing for luggage. Six back packs take up a lot of space in a small car, not counting small carry on type bags.

Last time to Ireland I rented a stick shift. Killed the engine twice in two weeks, my grandson had a laugh at that. Shifting with the other hand I thought that was good. :)

I always rent months in advance but that probably isn't necessary, just me wanting things lined up ahead of time.

Europcar is my go-to rental car company. Budget used to be but they don't always let me cross in to Northern Ireland. Believe it or not, I've been told by BOTH companies on occassion that they're sold out. Book early if you're going in the summer! They really DO run out of cars during peak times!!

The comment above about driving in Ireland is a bit.....off. The cars are small? A few months ago was a quiet week, I had rented a fwe weeks before, and they said "ah take a bigger car!" and i had a huge Volvo. It was fantastic! Not a small car, I can assure you. BMW SUVs are common; Range Rovers, too. But the @small cars" are VERY small cars. I get the category that is 2 up from the smallest, is usually says VW Golf or similar and it's a descent size. So 'small' means TINY.

The bigger car has a bigger engine and gets WAY better gas mileage, especially if you have 5 people in the car! And I pay more for diesel when i'm going far, as the gas mileage is way better and diesel is much cheaper. To give you an idea of price, i filled up a tank yesterday and it was 1.28/litre. that's euros.

I'm looking for a car for 3 weeks next week; and also Dec 20th when i get back from a trip to the usa. the price difference is 335 euros next week, 1,200 over christmas. Their demand is a big factor! Book early and you'll know if there's a festival or something that increases demand!!

Susan
Expat in Waterville

I don't know if anyone mentioned this, but look into AutoEurope which is a consolidator. We paid around $70 per day with super CDW in May 2016 (August might be more). We paid a $70 drop fee, which over a nine day rental is factored into the $70 a day figure. Definitely get an automatic, even if you are used to driving a manual on the right, and pick up and drop off outside the city center. Think hard about how much space you need for luggage, car trunks are small these days. We switched to 22" bags because our 25" bags just barely fit into a mid-sized car trunk on our 2013 England trip. We had reserved a compact but they ended up giving us a mid-sized car, otherwise we would have been in a pickle.