FlightNurse

I have to agree, go out to the castle's web page and look at the cost of the room SFO777 stayed in, no way José, for that price the food best be perfect..

daftboy

SO777 – kudos to you, you are the only person I can think of who would fly La Premiere to visit Ireland

As an Irishman myself I was nervous pre-reading as to whether the local hotels and restaurants would be able to deliver to your expectations, and I am really pleased to see that in the main it has done (Ashford Castle aside). We have a small population and not the most substantial culinary tradition but I think there is some great hospitality to be had in the country, some of it genuinely world class.

For anyone else reading and feeling inspired the Wild Atlantic Way is worth researching – a recent tourism initiative, on paper it was no more than adding some signage to the existing road network to point the way, but in practice it has made navigating that route extremely easy (the roads are often small/basic, and we don’t always go in for detailed directions in Ireland!) and has sparked the set-up of lots of little new hospitality operations along the coast, to complement existing attractions. Best experience by driving (as some have suggested above), it is highly recommended.

MickV

Wow. I can not believe Ashford Castle let you down so badly. I have stayed here a few times and found it exceptional. You have had so many service failures it is hard to excuse.

I am surprised you missed a trick in Adare. There is a fabulous hotel there with stunning food and surrounds. http://www.adaremanor.com/

PWMTrav

We are currently thinking about a trip to Ireland (I can't say planning, because if I took every trip I planned, I'd never work). Would you be willing to share any of your favorites along your preferred route around the island? It doesn't have to be high end at all, authenticity preferred over anything else. We eat our lobster out of hot dog buns off of paper plates here in Maine.

FlightNurse

Just like they should be!

pacenotes

You could spend a year in Ireland and not do everything. Stick to the coast to get the best of Ireland.

I grew up on the west coast, Galway is a small city but a great atmosphere where the pubs seem to not close. Westport is a small town near connemara & Achill island.

Killarney like SO77 would also be on my list same as going north to Donegal.

DEK

Wait wait! Not all of us here in Maine eat our lobster out of hot dog buns! Some of us prefer to eat it right out of the shell (after dipping the meat in melted butter of course)!

Sorry to hijack your thread SFO777 great trip report by the way!

KevinDTW

We loved Galway and enjoyed several visits each to Taaffes and Tig Coili, and eating eyesters at Conlon's. ^

SFO777

Thank you HawaiiTrvlr.

Thanks very much Thor3.

Thanks offerendum. It's definitely worth a visit. Just be sure to temper your service expectations.

Thank you Bretteee. The place probably doesn't look much different from 40 years ago, or even a few 100 years ago.

LOL. Certainly not for everyone.

Indeed. Thanks JohnRain. Looking forward to your new trip report.

Thank you stevie. I would agree that it's probably not the true Irish experience. But with only six days, we couldn't do everything.

Thanks BertieWooster. We saw them from a distance but didn't really have the time to pop over.

Thanks roadwarrier. Ever since our trip to Cape Town last year, I have much respect for SA wines. We hope to return next year.

Thanks so much HMPS. Indeed, I have communicated with management and they have acknowledged the issues. As for the Princess writing reports, not sure that is going to happen. She prefers to make cameos and offer her generally witty comments, which I write down just to remember. I forgot to mention one of the funnier ones. It was the first morning at Ballyfin and pouring rain. She looked our the window, sighed and said "... OK, this will be my one and only trip to… what is this place called?. Oh yeah, Ireland..."

Thank so much millionsandmillions for your kind comments. I'm happy to hear that you enjoyed some of our South Africa recommendations.

Yeah, that was kind of what we were thinking. It was pretty much the same price as Ballyfin and there was no comparison. I thought Ballyfin was worth every euro while Ashford was a bit of a rip-off.

LOL. Thank you daftboy. I'd pretty much fly them and Lufthansa anywhere I could even with out of the way routing. I once flew YYZ-DEN via FRA (5 hours connection) back in the days before LifeMiles closed the Lufthansa First Class for 35,000 miles loophole.

Thank you very much MickV. Our friends had stayed there before and were equally surprised. The castle and grounds are gorgeous. Too bad the service wasn't up to par. Thanks for the note on Adare Manor.

Other than what I wrote about, we really didn't stop much. The highlights for me were Ballyfin, the PanAm Clipper and the helicopter flight up the coast.

Indeed, is there any other way?

Thanks very much pacenotes.

Thank you DEK. It's hard to beat fresh Maine lobster in Maine.

SFO777

Off to Dublin


Getaway day from Ashford Castle and one last look out our window before a civilized 10:30am departure.



Our wonderful driver Patrick, promptly there to pick us up at "Ten Torrty".



One last look at Cong as we head for the 2.5 hour drive to Dublin.







We hit the burbs around 12:30p and Patrick suggested lunch at The K Club, which hosted the Irish Open this year. Beautiful grounds and hotel...





















... But the food, not so much.



Ugh.



With no plans today, someone suggested The Guinness Storehouse. Interesting to see even if you aren't into Guinness. But Sunday afternoon is probably not the smartest time to go.























































Mrs. SFO777 with a Guinness for the photo op only. One sip was enough.









After the Guinness experience, a 20 minute ride to our hotel for the night past cool looking parts of Dublin.



























To our hotel for the night, The Shelbourne.



Other than the bar, a pretty ugly hotel. I didn't even take room pics. Mrs. SFO777's quip was "We're staying in a hostel". LOL.





Just after 7pm, we headed up the street and around the corner to a real gem of a restaurant, Shanahan's. Outstanding service and great food.



Great bread.



But the size of the servings was astounding. OK, one main could have fed the entire table.









Our desserts were incredible including one of the best Key Lime pies ever.







And back to the hotel before our 6:15am pick up.





For more pics and an HD version of this report, please visit SFO777.com.

Just posted the next installments SFO777.com
• US PreClearance Lounge at DUB
• American Airlines Business Class to JFK
• AA cancels our JFK-LAX flight and we are downgraded to Business


Will post to FT as soon as possible.

TheBOSman

SFO777, how dare you show that A****** seatmate's hand you incorrigible jerk!

Also, two consecutive flights in business, hopefully Mrs. SFO777 is not currently pricing out LAX-DUB private jet flight costs!

Great report as always.

SFO777

LOL. Yeah, I sure got an earful that day.
Other than adding AA to her now ever growing "no fly" list, one of the better ones was "... only Lufthansa or Air France (to Europe) from now on..".

Thanks TheBOSman.

nequine

The K Club grounds look fantastic!

Was the tour of the Guinness factory just follow a route or was it properly conducted tours with a guide? The place seems massive, much bigger than the Budwiser Brewery I visited in St. Louis.

LOL at the Stag guys on the truck thing. A lot of people are put off going to Dublin these days because of the amount of Stag/Hen do's heading there. Hotels seem to be trying to counteract having them in their premises by restricting the number of rooms that can be booked by one party.

PWMTrav

Some places are victims of their own success. They probably draw enough just for being Ashford Castle that they can get away with mediocrity. Especially since most visitors are only going to come once in a lifetime anyway. It's a huge problem in Rome, Florence and Venice (especially the latter two). Enough that I can run a modest side business entirely predicated on helping new visitors to avoid those places

It's sad, though, because it means a giant, majestic castle doesn't provide the experience that its appearance suggests. And in this category, you can't get angry, reproduce it and implement higher service standards. There's only one Ashford Castle.

PWMTrav

That's not so bad. AA has been on my no-fly-to-Europe list for a while now. Especially in business (haven't flown first to Europe), my wife strongly prefers Air France. I'm a little more flexible - I really like Swiss and Alitalia as well.

After seeing some of your pics, Alitalia might serve a better meal in business class than Ashford Castle does on the ground Man that's a real shame, but the rest of the trip looked awesome. I really want to plan a couple of nights at Ballyfin when we go to Ireland.