Ireland August 13-21, 2019

My three adult kids bought me this trip to celebrate my 60th birthday, with them, of course! It was a trip of a life time and getting to share it with them was all that more special.
8/13 - 8/15 - Dublin - stayed at Avalon Hostel. Decent, clean rooms and reasonable price. It is in the heart of Dublin so ear plugs would be recommended. We opted not to get our rental car until we left Dublin and we were very glad. We walked everywhere because it's just so convenient. We enjoyed the Book of Kells - beautiful! Very crowded at 10:00am despite a timed entry which no one checked so not sure how that benefited. We did the Guinness Storehouse Connoisseur experience which was totally worth the price! Toured Dublin castle and picked up our Heritage cards. We did the Culinary Walking tour - Hannah was a blast! We also did the Literary Pub Crawl which was a lot of fun as well. The Museum of Archeology was amazing!
8/16 - 8/17 - Belfast and Bushmills/Giant's Causeway - Thoroughly enjoyed the Black taxi tours! The Belfast Titanic was "meh" for the price and very crowded. We stayed in a nice Pub/Inn and walked to the Giant's Causeway from there - VERY crowded, but absolutely worth it! Dunluce castle is a must see!
8/17 - 8/19 - Donegal area - We opted for Slieve League rather than Cliffs of Mohr. It was a decision we all agreed was prudent for our us. The B&B we stayed in was our favorite all trip. Donegal castle was awesome!
8/20 - 8/20 Westport & Trim - Kylemore Abbey, Ashford Castle and Ireland School of Falconry. Because of our appointed time for the school of falconry we did not make it to Trim in time to see Trim Castle (Braveheart) - that is the one thing we all regret. It is an impressive site!
Things that I was thankful we were prepared for....1)Having a really good rain jacket - it did rain all the time but usually short lived. We had down pours that turned into blue sunny skies within minutes. 2) My French press and coffee from home. I used it all but 2 of 9 mornings as the Nescafe did not cut it. 3)Not getting the rental car while in Dublin - it's easier to walk. We opted for gps (75 euros) and used it constantly since service for maps on iPhone was intermittent. I used National because my corporation has a corporate partnership and it got me a free second driver. I did NOT purchase CDW as the credit card I used specifically covered it. They quoted us 30 euros/day and we threw the dice. We did end up replacing a tire that was punctured when rubbing too near a curb on the first day - tire was $100 so still less than the 30/day. 4) Packing light for 4(ish) days, our B&B did laundry for us for about 20 euros, it was worth it not to have to take time out to do it and because there was 4 of us all the suitcases fit in the back. 5)Adapter/charger was essential with 4 iphones. 6)Getting to the airport at 3+ hours early, we did and would have been cutting it close had our flight not been delayed, that included rental car return which is very well marked.
I will return again in the future and feel like there are few things I would change. I am thankful for the hints picked up on this site.
The only challenge was a personal one, I am an early bird and my three kids are not. I tried to build that into the schedule where I could but I ended up feeling like we started late most days and missed some sites, not crucial but something to consider when traveling again.