Trip Report

Trip Report – Ireland: Day 1 – Dublin to Galway

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My wife and I arrived into Dublin around 11:30 AM local time on Sunday, September 2, 2012.  We were quite tired from traveling but we had made our first nights destination Galway, on the west coast of Ireland.  After an on-time arrival into the airport we had an approximately 35 minute wait to get through immigration due to extremely low staffing levels at the Dublin Airport.  Makes for a rather lackluster first impression of the country.  After making our way, finally, through customs we began to search for the SIXT Rental Car Desk.  Unfortunately, the rental car desk is located in Terminal 2 and we had flown into Terminal 1. (As a side note, when you think you can’t go any farther and that the SIXT rental car desk is not there, turn the next corner.  It is hidden back there).  To continue with our first day misery we had to wait about 55 minutes at the SIXT desk prior to being helped.

After all of that wasted time spent in the airport we were very excited to finally be out of there (we did have a 15 minute wait for the rental car shuttle bus but that is besides the point).  Here is a view from the rental car shuttle bus pickup point of Dublin Airport:

After retrieving our car from the off-airport lot, we made our way to Galway.  Driving on the wrong side of the road was quite challenging on that first day!  However, we made it safely and checked into our hotel, The Galway Harbor Hotel ($$$$).  The hotel is located approximately 3 minutes, on foot, from the old city centre.  The hotel itself was nice enough but was nothing remarkable.  It was clean which for me is honestly one of the most important things.  Here is a view of our standard room:

After getting checked into our room we made our way into the city centre which was quite lively, even for a Sunday evening.  We strolled for a bit through some of the old town and eventually decided on having a pint or two in a few of the pubs (obviously that is not Guinness, it is Smithwick’s):

Our dinner was nothing special that night so I won’t mention it other than to say that it is recommended not to wait too long to eat dinner on a Sunday night in Galway or you may risk all the good restaurants being closed for the night.  Eat prior to 8 PM!

Overall, I must say that I was slightly disappointed with Galway.  Everything I had read or seen recommended it so strongly but all we saw were approximately 2 streets worth of old town with a large industrial center surrounding it.  Maybe we were there at a bad time or missed seeing what makes Galway special, not sure, but for right now I probably wouldn’t recommend people to stay here unless they are looking for a good jumping off point for touring the Cliffs of Moher.

My next post will cover Day 2: Galway to Tralee, with stops at Cliffs of Moher and Limerick.

Trip Report – Ireland

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In what I hope will be a continued series going forward I am going to give a full trip report of our recent 8 day trip through Ireland.  I plan to do a day-by-day account of our trip with tips on sightseeing, hotels and dining options in each place we visited.  I will also try to include as many pictures as possible in order to illustrate what I am discussing.  Today’s post is just the outline for the future posts and I will try to get them up here in a reasonably timely manner.  Here is the daily itinerary for our trip and also the order of the posts:

Day 1, 9/2 – Arrive in Dublin, rent car and drive to Galway

Day 2, 9/3 – Leave Galway early AM and drive to Cliffs of Moher.  From there a quick stop in Limerick and on to Tralee.

Day 3, 9/4 – Depart Tralee early AM and tour Dingle Peninsula.  Spend night in Kenmare.

Day 4, 9/5 – Travel from Kenmare to Kinsale, stay near Kinsale that night.

Day 5, 9/6 – Depart Kinsale early AM to travel to Powerscourt Estate with a quick stop in Cashel. Spend night in Powerscourt.

Day 6, 9/7 – Depart Powerscourt and return rental car, spend day in Dublin and stay in town.

Day 7, 9/8 – Spent the entire day in Dublin

Day 8, 9/9 – Early morning departure for return flight to States.

Look for each day to be a detailed post in the coming weeks!

Weekend NYC Trip

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I know I haven’t posted anything in a while and I don’t really have a good excuse, I need to work on improving the frequency of the posts. That being said, my wife and I spent last weekend in New York to celebrate our 1-year anniversary. It was a quick but quite enjoyable trip and now I have something to write about!

As both my wife and I have been to NYC a few times each we spent most of the time there just enjoying ourselves with no set schedule.  I love this way of traveling, it provides for such a relaxing time.

The pictures from this trip are not the best but they are serviceable (taken from iPhone) so I will include them with some restaurant and one hotel review below. Enjoy!

Beautiful day in Central Park!

Looking north on 5th Avenue from the front steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (I must recommend going if you haven’t before, rivaled some of the best museums I have seen in Europe)

NYC Public Library

Hotel Review:  New York Hilton Fashion District (W26th Street & 7th Avenue)

Price: $$$$$ (We used HHonors Points)

This is one the of the newer Hilton Properties in NYC so I decided to give it a whirl for our weekend anniversary trip.  The entire hotel has a “hip” vibe from the check-in area to the restaurant (RARE) all the way to the rooftop bar.  It wasn’t exactly “our scene” but nonetheless my wife and I enjoyed the hotel.  The hotel is located in Chelsea and is within easy walking distance to the subway and reasonable walking distance to Greenwich Village.  The rooms were average size for NYC and all features within the room were new and fresh.  I am fairly indifferent as to whether I would choose to stay here again.  There was nothing specifically or even generally wrong with the room or the hotel at all but nothing really connected with me, or my wife, as I think they have a different target audience.

Restaurant Review: Dell’Anima (Italian)

Price: $$$

We used Yelp to research restaurants and chose this restaurant based upon the great reviews and proximity to our hotel.  After finding the restaurant we wanted, we used Opentable to book reservations for our Saturday night anniversary dinner.  We arrived a little early for the reservation and chose to have a glass of wine prior being seated.  There is a small bar right at the entrance of the restaurant with a very good wine/beer selection.

After finishing our drink we were seated in a corner table for two and helped immediately.  I can’t compliment the service enough, it really makes a huge difference when the wait staff appears to actually care about the food/presentation.  We both thoroughly enjoyed our meals.  The restaurant does VERY well with fresh takes on Italian classics.  Overall, I would recommend this restaurant to anyone visiting NYC or to anyone that lives in the city.  The food was fantastic and the atmosphere was great. (The price was average for NYC, but expensive to me!)

Restaurant Review: Cookshop (Meatpacking District)

Price: $$

Again, we used Yelp and Opentable to find and book this restaurant for brunch.  We were not let down this time either!  This was one of the best brunches (not even sure that is a word but I am going to use it anyways since this is my post) I have ever had and would HIGHLY recommend it to anyone in the NYC area on a Sunday morning.  The restaurant has a nice outdoor patio and very open inside and the wait staff were very attentive for how busy it was.  (As a side note – Make Reservations for Brunch.  We were able to skip past a 45-minute wait when we arrived.  Also, order the fried egg breakfast sandwich – you can thank me later)

Hope you enjoyed my first official trip review!  I expect to improve with each one.  The next big trip we have planned is for Ireland this fall but in the meantime I am sure we will have a couple more weekend trips.

Trip Report – St. Louis and Jacksonville, IL

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10/24/2011 – Southwest Flight #1232 MSY – DAL (Leave 6:10 AM, Arrive 7:35 AM)

                          Southwest Flight #1256 DAL – STL (Leave 9:30 AM, Arrive 11:10 AM)

10/28/2011 – Southwest Flight #1568 STL – HOU (Leave 8:55 AM, Arrive 11:05 AM)

                           Southwest Flight #2675 HOU – MSY (Leave 12:05 PM, Arrive 1:10 PM) 

As part of my writings for this blog I am going to try and squeeze in a few trip reports from my business travels, if possible, and all personal travels.  I had flown this same exact itinerary the previous week so I did not expect any significant deviations.  However, as we boarded on the 24th in New Orleans the Captain mentioned that there was some pretty thick fog in and around Dallas.   He said he did not expect it to be an issue and anticipated an early arrival (+/- 10 minutes).

The in-flight services were what I have come to expect with Southwest, efficient and friendly.  Nothing spectacular on that front and there typically is not, I have found Southwest to be quite uniform across the board.  The interesting part of this flight came as we were in our final approach into DAL.  Coming in, I could see there was fairly dense fog near ground level but did not think anything of it as you could still make out items on the ground.  We had circled around downtown and had begun our decent DAL from the north.  After extending the flaps and lowering the landing gear, as we were about to break into the fog barrier, I could feel the engines powering up and then I saw the flaps retract back into the wing.  At this point, I was not sure whether we were making a go around due to the density of the fog or if there was some mechanical error.  We did not receive word from the Captain until we had climbed back up through the upper cloud layer.  He notified us that just as we were on final approach DAL closed down flight operations due to the dense fog and that we were being diverted to Austin, TX.

Our landing in Austin was uneventful and we spent the next 3 hours on the ground in Austin.  Some of the time (approx. 45 min) was spent on the tarmac waiting for a gate to open up and the remainder was spent parked at the gate.  While at the gate Southwest gave us the options of returning to the terminal and made use of the old numbered boarding cards.  I really enjoyed getting to see those again!

Around 11 we were told to board the flight again and we took off for the short flight back to DAL.  At this point, I was not sure if I was going to be able to make it to my connection and feared having to wait in the ill-equipped Dallas Love Field.  However, as we taxied to our gate I was able to look up on Southwest.com that my flight to St. Louis had not departed due to the fog.   Thankfully, there was nothing special to report on the flight from DAL to STL and I was happy enjoy some fresh air.  Unfortunately, that fresh air didn’t last long as I had a 2 hour drive to my final destination. Not fun, but such is the life of an accountant.