Renting one car for 6 people in Ireland

Zero. A nine pax van might work, but it'd be a bear to fit on some of the roads.

Exactly what I wanted to know. Thank you.

Ditto. My sister rented a car for her family of 7, it was categorized as a "people mover", and technically sat 7. We ended up with one of her kids sandwiched between my 2 (one in a booster, one in a car seat) in the back of our car, they preferred that. But the 6 in her car (it was a Hyundai Santa Fe with a 3rd row) were completely squished by the luggage. And some of their luggage was in the back of my car.

Yikes. Not sure that will work for us. I just hate the thought of having to rent 2 cars simply for the fact that it will be more expensive and we'll have to keep track of each other.

For what it's worth, renting two economy cars is likely LESS expensive than one van-type "people-mover" and might, combined, still get better mileage.

hmmm - good thought. Looks like it will be 2 instead of one! thanks.

I went with group of 6 and we rented a box like van that seated 2 in front, 3 in middle and 3 in back. Space in the back for luggage too. It wasn't a problem except some of the smaller country roads where we had to pull in the side view mirrors to get down the road because of the hedges on the sides. We thought it great fun and my daughter had to take pictures of it.

We have rented a van for six and hoping it will be OK. A friend of mine has a 7 seater van, a Dodge I think, and there is plenty of room ! We are thinking we can even put one suitcase between the seats where 2 people and 3 people would sit (if there was a third person). If not, we'll get bungie cords and tie luggage to the top. Five of us traveled to Europe one summer with a station wagon and that is what we ended up doing with some things. Whatever happens wll be one more hilarious story to tell
P.S. Even with a small car I've had to pull off the road for others to pass and pull in mirrors, etc. in Ireland.

Six of us (all adults) rented a van in Italy a few years ago. The van was a nominal 7-passenger van (a Renault diesel, as I recall--it got great gas mileage, by the way). It mostly worked for us, with one person squeezed somewhat uncomfortably in the third seat with the luggage. But it worked only because we had made an effort to pack as lightly as possible using ETBD-style luggage. I don't see how you could get nine pieces of luggage in the car with six people. I wouldn't plan to to put any of the luggage on top, unless you are very sure that there won't be any rain during your trip in Ireland (highly unlikely). And some car rental companies prohibit carrying luggage externally.

Pat, one thing about traveling, especially in a foreign country, you can almost always come home with some kind of funny story! The car thing may be ours this time.

2 of us pack lightly but the 4 younger adults do not! Could be a problem!

I agree with others who suggest two vehicles. Ireland's view of auto capacity (like many other non-US countries) has a different idea (more generous) of how many people can be accommodated in any given vehicle. I'd go for two vehicles. Although you might be able to find a vehicle that could accommodate your entire party and luggage, you won't find many local country roads or villages that accommodate that vehicle in a comfortable manner. Sure, tour busses make it through the Ring of Kerry etc, but they pretty much own the own the road. And you won't. And you definitely don't want to stay on the motorways if you want to see the beauty of Ireland. I would never ever be tempted to rent a single vehicle to accommodate six adults. But maybe that's just me. By the way, you could WALK Ireland, luggage in tow, and still absolutely love Ireland, even if you got no farther than 10 miles. Beautiful country, no matter how you approach it.

Googled car rental Ireland. VW Caravelle, 9 seater $2858.97 for two weeks in July. This will fit just about all country lanes. This was through Budget.

I have a VW Caravelle reserved for our party of 6. It would comfortably seat 8, so plenty of room. It's diesel, and standard shift. Buses travel the small roads, so I feel confident I can. After riding the bus on the Almalfi Coast, I know anything is possible.

One good thing about driving a larger car/van in Ireland is people like me in a very small car are going to pull over to the side to let you pass by on narrow roads. One bad thing is it's going to be harder to find parking in towns & villages because we often were really glad to have a small car to fit into tight spots. And we stopped at some roadside ruins and on the side of the road to take awesome scenery photos and you will have a harder time finding those little pull-offs to fit your van. But, it's always fun to have a full car on road trips!

On the trip with my sister and her family, we rented a small economy car, which cost around 150 euro for a week. Her car (which technically seated 7) was 450 euro for the week. So two economy cars would have cost less than the bigger car, and the price of gas will about make up the difference. It's worth exploring.

Good grief. You all have given me a LOT to consider. At this point, I don't know what to do! The only thing about taking more than one car is trying to keep up with each other and letting each other know when we want to stop for something. Non of us will be taking our cell phones since our carrier doesn't go overseas.

Ireland (from my one trip) has much smaller roads on average then Germany or Italy . so some others experiences might be quite different then in ireland

You could use two-way radios to stay in touch. On our first trip we used the FRS radios that we use here (but found out after the fact that they are illegal in Europe because they use the same bands as emergency services). You could buy an inexpensive set of radios that CAN be used there either before you leave or once you arrive, and they would still be cheaper than the huge vehicle. We didn't find it any trouble to follow each other, anyway.

I now think we'll be looking at renting 2 cars because of each of the 6 of us having a medium suitcase and a backpack. Seems like the only way to go. Thanks for all the input!

If you have 2 cell phones that you can remove sim cards from (you may have to call & get them "unlocked") then you can just buy 2 sim cards. It's pretty cheap, go to Carphone Warehouse. We looked into it when we got to Kilkenney. I seem to recall the card was 20euro with 20 euro of free minutes (yeah, basically free) and then you top up the cards almost anywhere.

How interesting! I'd never thought about the sim card swap. Thanks. I'll be looking into that.