Ireland Itinerary: Taking parents to Ireland 15 days car or train/bus

The train trip from Dublin to Belfast is only about 90 minutes -- or did you mean go to Belfast and stay overnight? Waterford and Cashel aren't all that far apart, but depending on your timing it probably won't work to do them in the same day. And, of course, neither of them are near Belfast (completely opposite direction).

I think it's easy to drive in Ireland most of the time. There are major highways in many places. And you'll find that many areas are not well-served by public transportation. You can use www.viamichelin.com to find driving distances and times from one point to another in Ireland (but I'd add about 50% to their time estimates). It can be very slow going in places.

Your best bet for your final night would be a B&B near Bunratty Castle. The area is just minutes from the airport, and you can drop your rental car at Shannon easily.

Since you will need to be at the airport around 9:00 for your noon flight, you might run into timing problems trying to take a bus from Galway that morning.

Since you have two weeks you should be able to easily fit in everything that you would like to do. Take a look at a good guidebook map and viamichelin.com and see what might be the best order in which to do things.

Nancy's suggestion of arriving at the airport 3 hours ahead of departure will certainly make sure you won't miss your plane. I have found that 2 hours is more than enough, especially when departing from a small airport like Shannon.

I agree with her suggestion of staying in Bunratty. But other places are close as well, Adare for instance - farther than Bunratty, but still an easy commute to the airport. Or Ennis (north of Shannon).

In my three hour estimate I was allowing time to drop off the rental car and take the shuttle back to the airport. With lots of people doing the same for morning flights, sometimes there can be a wait. I think they do actually want you there two hours in advance at the airport.

Hi - Thanks for your advice. I was thinking of returning the car after Dingle (driving to Shannon to drop off car and taking a bus to Galway) I would do day trips from Galway and then on the last day take an early bus from Galway to Shannon.

Hi. Yes. I'm doing an overnight trip by train to Belfast to do the Black cab tour. They really wanted to see the Waterford Crystal Factory. I'm trying to judge distances/driving times from one place to the other using one week with a car and one week using Galway as a base and taking day tours. I'm not that thrilled about driving but I think relying on bus/train isn't going to get me where I want to go.

Last time we left via SNN we arrived at the car drop-off place just under 2 hours before our morning departure time. Had no problem at all. Dropped off the car, shuttled to the airport, and made our plane in plenty of time. Maybe that's not normal (except that the prior time was pretty much the same).

Still, best to be on the safe side I suppose.

Regarding using the bus toward the end of your trip: By then you will certainly know how comfortable (or not) you are driving on Ireland roads. You could probably make the decision to drop/not drop the car early at whatever time suits you.