216: Ireland and Northern Ireland

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Kim took a last minute spring break trip to Ireland and Northern Ireland with her younger daughter and this week on the podcast, she tells us all about it!

She flew into Dublin and then stay at a country estate hotel in Northern Ireland before visiting Belfast, the Causeway Coast, Derry/Londonderry, and Galway before looping back to Dublin.

See Kim’s articles on:

Ireland Trip Highlights:

Killeavy Estate in Northern Ireland
Belfast – Titanic Belfast and city architecture
Causeway Coast – Carrick-a-Rede bridge, Giant’s Causeway, Dunluce Castle
Bishop’s Gate Hotel in Derry – walk the walls around the city
Galway – Kim didn’t love Galway and her stay at the G Hotel because it felt more like a conference center hotel then something great for families. It was also a long walk into the center city. (see where Tamara stayed at a bed and breakfast near Galway)
Kylemore Abbey in Connemara & Cliffs of Moher
Clontarf Castle Hotel in Dublin suburbs
Malahide
Dublin – Trinity City Hotel and Trinity College / Book of Kells, shopping for Aran Sweaters

Full Episode Transcript

[00:00:00.000] – Kim Tate

Find out how to spend a week in Ireland.

[00:00:14.000] – Tamara Gruber

Welcome to Vacation Mavens, a family travel podcast with ideas for your next vacation and tips to get you out the door. Here are your hosts Kim from Stuffed Suitcase and Tamara from We3Travel.

[00:00:29.320] – Tamara Gruber

So, Kim, I just came back from the Green Mountain state of Vermont, but you just came back from a really amazing mother daughter trip to the Emerald Isle. So I can’t wait to hear about it because as usual, you’ve been so busy that we actually haven’t had a chance to talk and catch up. So I get to hear about it at the same time as our listeners. But I know I was following along on Instagram and it looked like you had great weather, amazing sites. I saw lots of smiles on Mia. So tell our listeners, this came about a little bit last minute, or at least you weren’t sure if it was all going to come about. So tell us, why did you go to Ireland and how did this all come about?

[00:01:07.260] – Kim Tate

Yeah. So it was a world wind trip. Pre COVID, I actually had won a media trip thing that they had at an Ireland event for a few different things to Ireland, including airfare and a few hotels and experiences and things like that. We had been planning to go May of 2020, and of course, that didn’t happen. I finally had reached out because Mia has been getting a travel bug and saying, I want to go somewhere for spring break. I’m like, Well, why don’t we go to Ireland? Because I still have this trip and maybe they’ll still honor it. So I reached out and we got everything arranged. Finally, very last minute, got our airfare and itinerary all planned out and we headed off. We had basically one week plus a day. We left Seattle on a Saturday and it was a nonstop flight. It leaves at 6 PM and got into Dublin at 11 something and on 11 something AM on the Sunday. Then we departed Dublin again on Sunday, April ninth, 3 o’clock in the afternoon and came home. It’s a one week trip but took us eight days because of the day loss.

[00:02:24.230] – Kim Tate

But it was nonstop flights. Aer Lingus does nonstop from Seattle to Dublin, which is super, super nice. It’s about just under nine hours to get there and then just under 10 hours to come back because of the different That’s not too bad.

[00:02:37.950] – Tamara Gruber

I think it’s like 6 to 7, I guess, or.

[00:02:42.010] – Kim Tate

So for me. Yeah. For me to get to the East Coast would be 6 hours.

[00:02:45.870] – Tamara Gruber

Yeah. I always think it’s amazing when that happens, but I forget it. They go across the polar cap or.

[00:02:51.120] – Kim Tate

Something like that. They did. They go way almost to the North Pole, practically.

[00:02:55.880] – Tamara Gruber

When you had first told me about it, you said that you were doing a ring around Ireland. A lot of times when people do a ring around Ireland, they’re doing a ring around the Republic of Ireland, the Southern part, ring of Kerry, Dingle Peninsula, that thing. But you actually did Dublin and North and you went to Northern Ireland. You looped that to Galway in the back across. So you did the northern section and.

[00:03:21.310] – Kim Tate

Northern Ireland. Yeah. Which was still whirlwind. Oh, my gosh. If you try and do an entire… Yeah, it was crazy. It was a lot of on the go. We changed hotels almost every night.

[00:03:31.720] – Tamara Gruber

Yeah. I mean, that’s the problem that even when we’ve talked about doing Ireland as a family, I’ve said you really need to switch hotels a lot because you can do some things as day trips from Dublin and Dublin is a great city to spend a couple of nights, but you’re not going to spend a week there. And then you really want to see the countryside. That is what it is.

[00:03:52.490] – Kim Tate

Yeah, for sure. We got into Dublin and this was a funny thing which you would appreciate. I had clarified, I need an automatic car. I cannot drive manual. I’ve tried to learn, but I don’t have a manual car. I’ve never had a manual car. So it’s one of those things where even if you try and learn for an hour with a friend, it’s not going to stick with you unless.

[00:04:11.760] – Tamara Gruber

You actually do it. Well, especially when you’re driving on the other side of the road.

[00:04:15.160] – Kim Tate

Exactly. I was like, There’s no way I’m going to figure it out if I’m on the left hand side. They set up a car rental for us and we got to Dublin, cleared customs. Everything was easy and pretty smooth. Then took our little bus system out to the Hertz rental. I’m picturing, Okay, they’re used to riders coming from the US. They’re going to give us a compact car because it’s Ireland, right? No, they gave me a mini SUV. I’m just like, Really? They’re like, Oh, yeah, it’s brand new. There’s no miles on it at all. You’re the first ones to drive it. I’m like, Oh God. It’s this beautiful mini SUV.

[00:04:52.640] – Tamara Gruber

Every scratch is mine.

[00:04:54.380] – Kim Tate

Exactly. But of course, thankfully, they had the full level A insurance coverage package on it.

[00:05:01.250] – Tamara Gruber

I think you have to get that in Ireland, right?

[00:05:03.290] – Kim Tate

Well, I think there’s different levels you can get, but I don’t know. You have to have something.

[00:05:08.290] – Tamara Gruber

Something was required because it’s so common to clip a mirror or get a scratch.

[00:05:13.630] – Kim Tate

That stuff. Well, yeah, I’ll tell you when we get there, but I definitely was worried about scratches on one side of my car. But anyways, but I got the car, figured it out, got used to the left hand of driving pretty well. Good for you.

[00:05:27.800] – Tamara Gruber

I know you’re worried about that. I know I could be worried about it, too. I’ve done it once, but it takes a lot of… I found it was easy on the highway because the little roads are very hard.

[00:05:38.510] – Kim Tate

Oh, my God.

[00:05:38.890] – Tamara Gruber

The little roads were horrible. And then parking.

[00:05:40.980] – Kim Tate

Yeah, parking. I was back and forth, back and forth. It was like eight point turn to get in the parking spot because I would misjudge because you’re on the other side of the car, too. That was the other thing is Mia would be like, Mom, lane position. Mom, lane position. Because I’m hugging the other direction. You’re just not used to in the lane where you need to line up. And so it me. The first day once I got it, I was like, Oh, yeah, I guess I just need to line up here because you’re sitting on the right hand side of the car. So it’s just funny. But I figured it out. And like you said, it was highway driving mostly, so it was pretty fine. We started our first day. We drove about an hour north to a castle estate called Killivay. It was nice. I was surprised they didn’t put us in Dublin. I was glad that I didn’t have to drive into Dublin and deal with that.

[00:06:27.040] – Tamara Gruber

I was going to say that’s a Factor for sure.

[00:06:28.990] – Kim Tate

Well, actually, that comes in later on after I’d driven for a while, I was like, I cannot drive into Dublin for our last two nights. Can you please let me go return the car and then just pay for a taxi to take us into the city?

[00:06:40.000] – Tamara Gruber

That’s what I did when I drove in Ireland is I dropped it off at the airport, taxied into the.

[00:06:45.360] – Kim Tate

City, taxied back up at the airport. That’s what we did. T hat’s I think the way to do it for most people. Although I will say that having driven through Belfast, I did it in Belfast and we stayed in downtown Belfast. I think I could have managed Dublin. If I managed Belfast, I could have done Dublin. Mia even said that afterwards. She’s like, Mom, you would have totally been fine because Dublin is bigger than Belfast in some ways. But we did it. We stayed at the Kil’evy estate. It was beautiful. It’s like one of those castle estates. This is a common thing I think people don’t because they’re like, Oh, it’s so cool that you stayed in the castle. I’m like, Well, we didn’t actually stay in the castle. There’s very few castle hotels in Ireland now. A lot of them they have castles on the property and you stay in a sub building that was built to be the hotel.

[00:07:29.720] – Tamara Gruber

I find that even with the country estates, I know I stayed in one where I actually got to stay in the manor house, but there’s only a few rooms in the manor house and most of them are in these other buildings throughout the property. So I do think that that’s.

[00:07:44.950] – Kim Tate

Pretty common. I think Ashford Castle might be one of the main ones that you actually stay in the castle. But anyways, we stayed there. It was a beautiful room. I mean, it was just a really nice way to start the day because it was like a state and they have all these walking paths. And so to beat jet lag, we got off the plane. We actually slept on the plane a bit. We don’t remember it. It was the worst. E economy is just tough.

[00:08:10.150] – Tamara Gruber

I will say, like, Aer Lingus, my experience in economy was the same. I felt like they turned the lights off for maybe an hour. It was really bright the whole time and it was super noisy on my flight that time. They kept going up and down the aisle. Also part of it was somebody behind me every five minutes stood up to get something out of the overhead bin. So I’m always very aware of what’s around me so I can settle in.

[00:08:34.280] – Kim Tate

On the Seattle one, it wasn’t like that because I think they know most people sleep, so they get the food service out pretty quickly and the lights go off immediately. Then we bought those little foot hammocks, which I’m tall so I was like, I don’t think this is actually going to work, but I’m going to buy one just to see so I can review it and see if it actually works. Me and I both used it. I can’t decide if it won me over or not. There’s some little bits that I’m 5’9, so I think for anyone who’s 5’7 or under, it probably is really useful. But my legs were just a little too long for it to be really comfortable. But there was a couple of times where I could put my feet on it and have my knees cleared enough that I was able to adjust a little bit. I could turn my body sideways then and use it as a holder for my feet if I bent my knees towards Mia, if that makes sense. But anyways, so we made it work. We had our earplugs and mask on and stuff. It’s probably ugly sleep because you wake up with really dry mouth and you can just tell that you were just there like, Sorry, I’m rambling.

[00:09:38.220] – Kim Tate

But anyways, it was tough, but we made it work. We got off, we checked into our… We got to our estate and everything, and I said, One of the most important things to do to combat jet lag is we have to get active and be in the sun and really try and just push yourself. Thankfully, even the little three hours we got on the plane, we think that we got probably three hours and then maybe another hour, but it tied us both over and then being active and hiking around the entire property really paid off and it worked. Then they have a little day spa there. As being hotel guest, you get to go into the little thermal pools section. We hung out and did that and then we had dinner and then we went up to our room and relaxed and slept.

[00:10:19.720] – Tamara Gruber

That sounds perfect. I know from the East Coast it’s hard when you fly to Ireland because you usually arrive by 6 or 8 AM in the morning and you don’t know you can’t always check into your hotel and you haven’t really slept because the plane is not that long. Yeah.

[00:10:37.130] – Kim Tate

I think coming from Seattle, it seemed to be really nice because we left at 6 PM. So you tell your body is already like, Okay, it’s getting towards the end of the day. And then you have dinner. So it’s a natural rhythm. And then you arrive at 11 something, and so by the time we drove to our hotel, the room was ready. I was really pleased. I was like, from a jet lag standpoint, it worked really well. Good. Then the next morning we got up, we had breakfast and checked out and drove to Belfast, which was another, I think it was an hour and a half north or something.

[00:11:10.580] – Tamara Gruber

Now that Brexit has happened, anything that you have to.

[00:11:14.990] – Kim Tate

Do to cross over? No, nothing. We didn’t even know we had crossed. We were looking at the map because we couldn’t even figure out because Kilhevy actually was in what we kept expecting it to say Northern Ireland and it just says UK. And we’re like, Oh yeah, I guess that’s right. But it’s actually UK right in the border. But nothing, we had no idea. I didn’t even see a sign that said you’re in this now. The only way you know is because the miles per hour and I can’t remember who uses what. One uses miles per hour, one uses kilometers per hour. So the signs and your GPS and using all that, that gets a little tricky because you’re like, Wait, okay, what’s the speed limit here? Because you all of a sudden have to start looking at it with… I think it’s miles per hour. And then it’s UK. In the UK, yeah. Anyway, so that’s the one tricky thing. And then, of course, you have to use pounds. That aspect you have to carry. When you’re doing this trip, if you’re going to go into the UK and Northern Ireland, you need to carry two different currencies because you need to have pounds for Northern Ireland and then you’d have to have Euro for Republic of Ireland.

[00:12:15.060] – Kim Tate

But from the border standpoint, there’s nothing different, nothing’s changed. So that was nice. But yeah, so we went into Belfast. That was a scary thing. Those were some narrow streets, little alleyways, and then everybody parks on it and you don’t really know what they’re doing and you don’t know is this one way only or what you’re doing. Then you get to the hotel and there’s nowhere to park and you have to go in. You’re like, Where do we go? But anyway, they told us where the parking garage was for the hotel. We went down there and parked. That’s another thing, like in and out of parking garages when you’re on the other side of the road. It’s like, Am I going to clear this ramp?

[00:12:48.040] – Tamara Gruber

I guess the little ticket thing is on the other side.

[00:12:50.520] – Kim Tate

Yeah, everything’s on your driver’s side. Anyways, but it was fun. Belfast is just a really cool city. Mia ended up really falling in love with Belfast. She thought it was really neat. She told me she thinks it’s like a European version of New York City, which I thought was interesting. S he thinks it more so than Dublin, the way she had the vibe from it. So I don’t know. But I think not even New York City, not Times Square, New York City. More like those little get out of the main Midtown area a little bit more and just those side streets that have all these businesses and just people are busy and lots of people walking and just living their lives.

[00:13:28.660] – Tamara Gruber

It was cool. I remember liking Belfast a lot. It was much cleaner, nicer than I expected also after all you read about the trouble is the trouble, too. I think it’s a great little city.

[00:13:42.690] – Kim Tate

Yeah, it was great. We really liked it. We actually, from our hotel, which was right by the city hall, so their big capital building, I guess is what we would call it, which is a very touristy district, but we just walked. It was about a 30 minute walk to the Titanic Belfast exhibit, which you and I, we got dropped off there, so we didn’t get the full feel for it. But it’s like this whole big… They’ve really blown that up since you and I were there. There’s a big mall there, I think now, or IMAX or something like that. They’ve got this other tender boat, and it’s just a bit of a walk, but it’s a nice walk to get over there. We did the Titanic exhibit, and that was… You and I have both been there. It’s just a museum with a lot of information. It’s cool for people who are into the history of that and especially the ship building phase of it, like the whole H&W ship building company is interesting. I thought it was really funny because one of the competing lines during those times was the Kunard line, which you saw their old posters and they’re still in operation.

[00:14:47.950] – Kim Tate

It’s interesting to see how that was. We did that and then after that, they had booked us on this little bike river float thing.

[00:14:57.210] – Tamara Gruber

Oh, yeah, like the water bikes.

[00:14:58.980] – Kim Tate

Yeah, water bikes. Which we looked a.

[00:15:01.080] – Tamara Gruber

Little chilly for that. It was like, Please don’t.

[00:15:03.310] – Kim Tate

Fall in. Yeah, I know. We were like, Don’t fall in. I told Mia that, too. It was chilly but the sun was out. I mean, we had the most amazing weather. You commented on it. I was so jealous.

[00:15:12.590] – Tamara Gruber

All your pictures have.

[00:15:13.470] – Kim Tate

Blue sky. Blue sky.

[00:15:14.510] – Tamara Gruber

Especially the cliffs of Moher. Oh, you never see that. I know.

[00:15:17.450] – Kim Tate

It was too bright. You couldn’t even see the definition on the cliffs because they were all silhou for the bright sun. Yeah, the glare. Yeah. It was amazing. Everyone commented on it. They’re just like… The funny thing is Mia had forgotten to pack sunglasses and we could not buy sunglasses anymore. I’m not telling you, it’s ridiculous. They do not sell sunglasses in Ireland. Tells you how rare they have sun. But yeah, it was funny. But we had the most amazing weather. Then on our way back to the airport, the taxi driver had the radio on and they were calling. They’re like, Well, this has just been unbelievable weather. This is unheard of. But the luck is ending today. Tonight, the storm front moves in, and then it was going to be nonstop rain the rest. I don’t know how we got lucky. I tell everyone that we brought it from Seattle. We brought all the sunshine from Seattle. It was a little tongue in cheek thing, but it was just amazing weather. We were on the water doing that, but yeah, it was chillie but sunny. But it was a tricky one of those things.

[00:16:19.410] – Kim Tate

I think if you’re in there in the summer and you’re with a big group of people that’s chatting and having fun and you bring a drink with you, not necessarily just a drink, we joke because we had a Coke and we put them in the little cup holder. But we were like, What are we supposed to see? So we just started biking and we’re like, We’re not really seeing anything. Eventually, we just turned around and so we got back to the dock and I was like, What are some of the sites along that we’re supposed to notice? They’re like, Well, mainly the big cranes, which we had already seen really up close when we were at the Titanic Museum. They were really far away from this view. I was like, Oh, okay. I just wanted to check. I think it’s definitely one of those things, if it is warm and you’re hanging with friends and you just want to have some fun little thing to do, it’s really useful. But if you’re just with your family looking for something to do, it’s not maybe the best use of your time.

[00:17:06.990] – Tamara Gruber

Not a tourist thing necessarily.

[00:17:10.480] – Kim Tate

Yeah. I think it is a tourist thing, but only if you have a lot of extra time. Right. Yeah. That was that. We had dinner at this really amazing restaurant that was right by our hotel that I just really loved. It was delicious and just nice system service and all that. That was that was that. Then we got up the next morning and headed to the Causeway Coast, which you and I have done a little bit of. They had us driving along the Coast. That’s one of those things that’s really funny. You think you can drive 60 miles per hour or whatever, but it’s all these windy coastal roads. It’s like, you have to slow down. There’s no way you can do that. It’s just a little slow, weavy going and stuff. But it’s still pretty much highway, like two lanes mostly. It’s not scary like some of the country roads. But it’s really a nice little drive, so beautiful. The Coast is just pretty all along there. We hit, I think, three of the main attractions up there, but there’s a lot to do. But of course, the Karak Reed Bridge, which I shared a post and story on that.

[00:18:15.230] – Kim Tate

It’s just this National Park site that you can… You hike over to the bridge section and walk across. You and I did that.

[00:18:23.480] – Tamara Gruber

I think it’s fun. I know a lot of people were nervous about it, but it’s so beautiful. That section of the coastline just is really surprising to me how blue the water is and white the sand is. It does not look like what you think Ireland is going to be. It’s really stunning.

[00:18:41.790] – Kim Tate

Yeah, no, I agree. The water is the thing that I think surprises me the most each time I forget because it looks like that turquoise Caribbean blue. It’s like, how is this North Atlantic ocean type thing? It’s just really weird, but it’s beautiful.

[00:18:58.320] – Tamara Gruber

I agree. Did you guys get to do that thing? It’s called the gobbins where it’s like that walkway along on the outside of the cliffs, like that metal walkway.

[00:19:06.920] – Kim Tate

No. I want to do.

[00:19:08.210] – Tamara Gruber

That one if I return to Northern Ireland.

[00:19:10.910] – Kim Tate

Nice.

[00:19:11.480] – Tamara Gruber

Yeah, I do. Although I know Glenn would not want to do that. Yeah.

[00:19:14.770] – Kim Tate

Anna would. Yeah. No, we didn’t do that. We just did the three main things. So we did, Kierke Ridd, then right next door, we did Giant’s Causeway, which remember, you and I went. And I was like, Last time, Tamara and I, I told Mia, we want to go up to the cliffs because Tamara and I didn’t get to do that. That was something we both thought would be really cool. We went up there and it’s a very different view. It’s crazy. I have on my Instagram post, I shared the two photos. I have a point from the blackish rocks at the tip looking back at the mountain that I eventually hiked to the top of. You can see right at the point what the look down looks like. It’s just crazy. It’s quite a difference, different view. We did that. Then last thing was we hit that Dunluce Castle, which I remember when you and we were together, it was weird. I feel like this is the same castle we went to, but remember how they just randomly pulled over somewhere and we had to hike along the highway and we just looked at it from the edge and took pictures?

[00:20:12.680] – Tamara Gruber

Yeah, I think it was one of those things that wasn’t officially on our but we asked to stop and then but the light was not great for photos. We were trying to get to one side to have the sun behind us and things.

[00:20:23.330] – Kim Tate

Like that. Well, so we pulled in there and I’m like, Oh, there’s a whole parking lot and you had to pay admission. But we were actually able to go into the castle and walk around. M e, I just thought that was pretty cool and really enjoyed that. T hat was the first castle she got to really walk through and stuff.

[00:20:39.510] – Tamara Gruber

You had said, I don’t know if the listeners would know this, but on your Instagram, you had said that this is her first trip to Europe, right? Yes, it was. So this is her first chance to really get that experience. And was she really excited.

[00:20:56.690] – Kim Tate

About it? Really excited. She loved it. She loved the castles. She loves architecture. Anytime we were in Belfast and all that… I think that’s why she loved Belfast so much. But she would just take pictures of buildings, she’s like, Oh, that’s a pretty building. That’s a pretty building. She just loved architecture. It’s so.

[00:21:10.960] – Tamara Gruber

Cute to see things like that come out that may not come out just at home or something.

[00:21:15.640] – Kim Tate

Yeah. S he really liked Europe and thought it was pretty cool. Of course, she’s learning French in school, so she really wants to go to France now. S he wants to do Switzerland for… Because she’s an outdoorsy girl, she loves hiking. That day that we did the Cosway Coast was one of her favorite days. She absolutely loved it.

[00:21:34.830] – Tamara Gruber

We.

[00:21:35.760] – Kim Tate

Ended up ending in Derry, which you and I have been to.

[00:21:40.180] – Tamara Gruber

We.

[00:21:40.910] – Kim Tate

Stayed at… It turned out that we checked into the hotel and I’m like, This is the same hotel Tamara and I stayed at, that Bishop’s Gate Hotel. I love that hotel. They put us up in this two bedroom apartment for the night, which was just beautiful. It’s actually slightly off on the side street, so you don’t go into the main doors. You have to walk out and you go down that little side street to go to the door because it’s a private entrance. It didn’t have a kitchen or anything like that, but it had almost like a studio bedroom. T here’s a wall, a built in bookshelf thing, vanity that separated one bed from the living room area. T hen there was a separate room with a door that had the bed, and then there was a full size bathroom.

[00:22:23.880] – Tamara Gruber

Good option for families.

[00:22:25.520] – Kim Tate

Yeah, it was great. It was really, really nice. The property there is just beautiful. The people, the service is I mean, it’s definitely an upscale luxury place, but the service is just absolutely amazing. They told us all about walking on the walls. Of course, the weather is beautiful, so we get in there in the evening, slightly before dinnertime, and they give us a few recommendations of places to go for dinner. We think, Well, we’ll go check out the wall because you can. Derry is one of the last walled cities still in existence in Europe, and you can actually still access and climb up to the top of the wall. It’s a big wide section. I don’t know if you.

[00:23:05.820] – Tamara Gruber

Remember it. I remember when we were there, we took a tour and we went up there. But I remember both of us were just so tired from how busy the whole… It was like the last thing we were doing for, I don’t know, a week or 10 day trip, and we were just like…

[00:23:19.440] – Kim Tate

And it was a late night, too. It was night time when we were there because I remember it was dark, I seem to recall. So you.

[00:23:26.940] – Tamara Gruber

Probably appreciated it more.

[00:23:28.030] – Kim Tate

This time. Yeah, it was great. Mia loved it. She thought Derry was just awesome. She loved the walls and all that and all the cute little stores. I mean, it’s just a very quaint, really cute city. So highly recommend that as a stop if you guys are going up there. So we hiked around and we were looking, we found these restaurants and we went to each one of them and it’s like, Well, that one’s closed on Mondays and that one, they just stopped serving food and now it’s just a pub. It was all these things we’re just like, Oh, my gosh. Well, the other one was we got there and it was like a prefix two course menu type thing. There was nothing on there that Mia could have that she wanted either. It was tricky because there was four options and she didn’t want the one vegetarian option. But I will say really quickly, for people who struggle with food allergies, Ireland was awesome. Super awesome. All the restaurants are required to list the main allergists. Like milk, wheat, fish, egg, nuts and peanuts, they list them separately. They have what each menu has is like a legend index, I don’t know what you call it, little thing at the bottom footnote.

[00:24:33.740] – Kim Tate

Each number is noted there what each one stands for, one for whatever. Then each dish is labeled with the numbers that that dish contains. When you look at like, Oh, can I have the salmon? S he can’t have eggs or nuts. You just look and like, Okay, eggs are three and nuts are five and eight. And so you can’t have anything that has three, five, or eight. And it’s just so easy to order food. It’s amazing. That’s so nice.

[00:24:58.210] – Tamara Gruber

I’m so glad because I know that that’s always been one of the challenges of traveling with Mia, even though she loves to travel and things. So it’s nice to see that there. And that was in the UK?

[00:25:11.820] – Kim Tate

Yeah, UK and Republic. It was on all the menus. Now they will say, Is it airborne? How bad is it? Because there’s nuts in the kitchen, and so you can’t guarantee that. But it’s like, Well, she does have anaphylaxis, so if you can just make sure that nothing gets crossed. You clean your hands and just make her meal carefully. But in the grand scheme of things, it was a very easy way to order, and they handled it. They took it all very seriously. They were great. So I hat off to that for people with food allergy. Ireland is pretty cool. But we ended up couldn’t find any place to eat that was really right. So we ended up back at the hotel and thought, Well, let’s just go to the restaurant there. And they had an amazing menu. They had a bar menu and they had the restaurant menu. And they seated us in the restaurant but let us order from either menu we wanted. I had some fish tacos, and I can’t think of what she had. She had something and it was just amazing. I had a glass of wine and it was beautiful.

[00:26:05.230] – Kim Tate

Then we just went back to our hotel and slept. I took a bath because it had a really beautiful, nice, clean bathtub. I was like, After all this driving, I need to relax a little bit. It was lovely. Highly recommend that. Then the next day, we headed out. Oh, did you want to say anything about Derry? Do you remember anything? You just remember being tired. We saw that bridge. Remember how we had to do that weird skateboardy thing?

[00:26:28.970] – Tamara Gruber

I was going to say I remember hurting myself doing the long board, but I do remember the really good fish and chips truck. I’m excited to hear about the rest of it because I think where you’re going next is a place that I really want to go to.

[00:26:41.480] – Kim Tate

I’m trying to think of which one. Are you thinking Galway? I am thinking of Galway. Okay. I’m going to be a little bit of a… Yeah, you’ll listen. Then we drove from Derry to Galway, and that was going to be our stop for two nights, which was so exciting. They put us in this hotel, which was part of my prize package actually, and it’s called the G Hotel. It’s considered a five star hotel. The lounge was beautiful, the restaurants were beautiful, but it is a… I told Mia it reminded me of a casino hotel or a conference center hotel. Tons of rooms, tons of rooms. I don’t think you can truly… So if you’re going for a five star experience with just amenities, they probably tick all the boxes. Like, yeah, technically they’re a five star hotel. They have a spa. They have a spa. They have the rest. But service wise, when you compare it to Bishop’s Gate that we just came from in Derry, it’s very different. The room quality is just conference center rooms. It’s just casino rooms. That makes me think.

[00:27:42.530] – Tamara Gruber

Of actually the last place we stayed at together in Ireland that was not far from the airport in Dublin, but it was definitely an event center, conference center place. And it had that feel. So it was larger, less personal and the amenities, but not the style.

[00:27:59.580] – Kim Tate

Yeah. Well, we came up and parked there. Nobody came and got our car. They’re supposed to have valet and stuff. We have our car there and we sit there for a minute and we just start unloading our own stuff and then nobody’s still there. So then I haul our suitcases up and we go in and then all of a sudden there comes the bell. Oh, can I help you with your bat? I’m like, Nope, I’ve already pulled them out of the car and everything. Now I’ve got an elevator and we’ve got them at this point. So we get checked in. So it was just the service was just not great. And then the room quality was just, you can’t have high quality cleaning and upgrades when you’ve got 800 rooms. It’s not that many, but you know what I mean? It just was a lot. But when we went to the lobbies, they’ve got three different lounges, and then the restaurant and our breakfast that we had in the mornings was amazing. I mean, the chef is amazing, the food is amazing, all of that. That’s where it’s hard to explain. But the other thing that was a hindrance is it’s on the outskirts of Galway.

[00:28:55.840] – Kim Tate

It felt like it was in the suburbs. When we wanted to go in to see that main downtown Galway, the famous streets and all that, that was about a 20 minute walk for us or so. But here’s going to be my honest opinion. It felt a bit like Miami Beach or something. It was so weird. It was like a college hangout bar thing. We walked down there to go get dinner and no place looked appealing. There’s a lot of outdoor, like Vegasy… It felt Vegasy, actually is what I would say is the best fit for it. Just a lot of loud people, loud music, people all over the place, not really seeing how to get into places. Even the look of it.

[00:29:36.810] – Tamara Gruber

I’ve definitely heard that it’s like that college.

[00:29:39.630] – Kim Tate

Feel.

[00:29:40.400] – Tamara Gruber

And music and stuff like that.

[00:29:42.470] – Kim Tate

Yeah. There were a few street performers and stuff, and I’m sure there’s some really cute and unique things, but it was just after driving for five hours because that’s about how long it was between the two, we just wanted to find a place to eat and relax. Then we thought, Well, I guess we’ll just eat at the hotel. We walked all the way back, so another 26 minutes to go back to the hotel. We get there and it’s like another one of those prefixed, really high end dining menus that Mia was not really impressed with. We even talked to them and like, Well, we can talk to the chef. I’m like, Well, I don’t want to spend 50 bucks on a meal. That is like, Oh, we’ll try and figure it out for you. Because it was another two course prefix thing. We are scouring. Because we’re in the suburbs, there’s nothing around us. There was a hot dog place in a subway or something, and it was just brutal. We find this other place, a bar called Harry’s, and it’s another almost back to where we just were. So 22 minute walk to get there at night.

[00:30:42.440] – Kim Tate

But they said, It’s totally safe. You’re fine. Walking around at night, no issues there. That was a nice thing. Same in Derry. They said, Yeah. They didn’t even know what I was saying when I said, Is it for us to walk around at night by ourselves? They’re like, Do you mean, can you find directions? Or do you need to I’m like, no, is it safe? They’re like, Oh, yeah, no, it’s no issue whatsoever. You’re completely fine. That was nice. But we walked there. It was definitely like a bar pub, but they had food and they were like, We can sit you at this because I’m saying we’re starving. My daughter just needs to eat. It’s already 830 at night at that point. She’s like, Oh, it’s going to be about a 40 minute wait. There was this random table right by the hostess stand. She’s like, Well, I could see you here if you’re okay since it’s just two of you. I’m like, We’ll take it. It’s fine. We don’t need a nice table. We sat right at the front door eating our food, but we were happy and made it back. That was our one day.

[00:31:34.610] – Kim Tate

Then the nice thing about Galway, though, is that we woke up the next morning and headed out to go drive to Conamara to visit Kyle Moore Abbey and the Conamara National Park. Then we went to Clifton, which is this cute little town. That was an amazing day. We had a low note going into Galway, but then the next day, getting out and exploring that Conamara area was awesome.

[00:31:58.780] – Tamara Gruber

When I stayed near Galway, I stayed in this I can’t remember how to pronounce the name of it but it was like this I wouldn’t call it a country estate, but it was like a country home, like a small inn of maybe a handful of rooms. But elegant, had a reading room with a fireplace where you could have tea. They made homemade breakfast in the morning and they had a lake. It was really lovely but I never got to go and see what the actual town was like. But I don’t know, maybe I’ll drop a link to that in the show notes too for a different option if you want to stay in that area. I think if.

[00:32:34.340] – Kim Tate

It was me and I was talking to our friend Jody, who’s the Ireland expert also, because she thinks that it was a mistake having us go to Galway. But I think it was part of my prize package, and then they were just trying to give us two nights in a hotel for once. But if I was doing it and I was splurging, I would drive from Derry to Ashford Castle because that is near Westport ish, I think. Westport or just drive to Westport and stay in Westport and then leave from Westport and do the Kyle Moore Abbey, the Connoll come around. I just think Galway is just like a day stop. You want to maybe have lunch in or something and do maybe some cute shopping. You can probably just do.

[00:33:13.610] – Tamara Gruber

It on the way back to Dublin.

[00:33:15.490] – Kim Tate

Yes.

[00:33:15.890] – Tamara Gruber

Stay closer to the Coast.

[00:33:18.890] – Kim Tate

I would stay somewhere else or do something, yeah, and not stay right there by it or something unless you really like that Vegasy, spring break, college town feel. If that’s your cup of tea, then stay in Galway, not on the outskirts. Anyway, so that was that. Then the next morning we woke up and we were supposed to just check out more of Galway, but there was nothing else we really wanted to do and then head back over to Dublin. What we actually, I added on myself was I was like, Well, we’re not too far away from the cliffs of Moher. I’ve never been there. It’s this epic thing that we should see, so I’m going to go do that. So we get up and we get on the road and all of a sudden, we’re driving these back roads and really crazy because we were using Google. I drove those.

[00:34:04.350] – Tamara Gruber

And they’re so narrow and it’s like the busses are coming the other way. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, you’re like in the headrow. Yes. That’s where I was like.

[00:34:12.480] – Kim Tate

Yeah, we got stuck. I mean, on the way out of was way worse than the way in, I think, because just traffic was building also. But we made our way there. Google took us this way. Then all of a sudden we’re like, Oh, my goodness. Okay, it’s like I was picturing, okay, maybe I’m naive, but I’m like, Clifson Moore, like, Okay, we’re just going to pull over and park in the little trailhead parking lot and walk along and see it. No, it’s a major thing.

[00:34:38.710] – Tamara Gruber

It’s probably the biggest attraction in Ireland.

[00:34:41.170] – Kim Tate

Yeah, I guess. You pay I don’t even remember what it was I think it’s €14 a person or something along those lines. Maybe I paid €22 for both of us, maybe it was 12 and 10 to go in and park your car and then you walk across from the parking lot, which is on the other side of it. Then you have to walk across and they’ve got a little visitor center. It was just wall to wall people tomorrow. I think part of it was this Easter weekend. Part of it was it was sunny, beautiful weather. I think all the locals decided that was the time to go as well. It was a weekend. All these things just piled onto it. It was just wall to wall people. It was horrid. I had to wait in such a long line to go to the bathroom. It was just crazy. But we did it. We walked out there, we got our picture. We’re like, Well, I don’t really know what else to do. We’ll take another picture and then I guess we’re go. I thought I read somewhere.

[00:35:27.180] – Tamara Gruber

That they had closed part where you used to be able to walk along the cliffs that in one part of that always closed. But did you notice anything?

[00:35:35.130] – Kim Tate

No, there’s two lookouts that are both open. I don’t know if there’s anything further, but there’s a southern point and it’s still open. You could walk. So you come in and the visitor center is midway and you go to the right and you go up to there’s this little white… I don’t know if it’s a lighthouse or castle. I probably should know that on the right. But you can also go off to the left then, and there’s that path that feels like it goes along the cliffs that you’re looking at.

[00:35:59.520] – Tamara Gruber

But that I thought that path would go for miles if you wanted to.

[00:36:02.900] – Kim Tate

I don’t know. We didn’t look at it that far. I didn’t look at the map that far because we had to get to Dublin, so I knew we weren’t going to be doing that. So I didn’t look at the map. It would be worth looking at the map. But you could definitely go the ways down there. I saw people.

[00:36:17.640] – Tamara Gruber

When I was there, it was as typical, like rainy, super windy. So we weren’t doing a very long walk either. I mean, it was.

[00:36:25.300] – Kim Tate

Definitely windy. I mean, it was windy for sure.

[00:36:29.130] – Tamara Gruber

You’re on cliffs.

[00:36:30.140] – Kim Tate

Yeah. That’s the one thing is when you’re on all those coastal things, you have to be prepared for the wind. I actually lost my tooth. My actually beanie, it wasn’t a tooth, Mia clarified, but I lost it at the Giant’s Causeway. It got blown off my head. We tried to rescue it because it went into the water and we kept waiting for the tide to bring in it. I felt so bad. I’m like, Oh, I hope it’s like cotton. Some animal uses it for a nest or something. I felt so bad. That was a beanie. But it was a looser beanie, but it was worrisome. It’s windy out there on the Coast, even on sunny blue sky days. But we left there. We didn’t spend much time there, but we saw it. We said we’d been there. It was a sunny, amazing day. Everyone was commenting. It was just crazy. Then we got in the car and decided to use Google Maps to head back to Dublin. That was the worst driving of my life. It was those narrow, literally blind corners, single lane road. I’m like, Are you supposed to honk to let people know you’re coming to the corner?

[00:37:29.010] – Kim Tate

I don’t know what the etiquette is. Thankfully, I never hit anyone on a corner, but it was this single lane back roads where you’d have to pull over if you had like, Oh, my bushes are a little narrower than this. So you pull over or you have to reverse to a driveway or something and try it. And you’re reversing for a while. It was crazy. I do remember.

[00:37:50.380] – Tamara Gruber

Because I had driven from Killarney up to the cliffs of Moore. We were going to stop at a town along the way. And actually in that little town, I couldn’t find any parking, except maybe there was going to be a very small parallel parking point. And I’m like, look, I told the people I was with, I’m like, Look, none of you wanted to drive. I was the only one that volunteered to drive. I cannot do this. We are not stopping here. Too bad. I just can’t do it. And they’re like, You’re the driver. But at one point, our friend Robin was in the passenger seat and I was driving, and she’s like, T omorrow, getting a little close to the bush. I’m like, Would you rather me be close to the bush or close to the truck?

[00:38:26.320] – Kim Tate

Because that’s the choice. Yeah. No, I passed. That’s where I was like, Oh, my gosh, we totally scratched up this car. There’s going to be massive scratches because, I mean, you could hear it. There was nowhere to go. But thankfully, it was like we looked and it looked like it was just the surface stuff that they could buff out or whatever. And they didn’t even comment on it when I returned the car. So whatever. I didn’t lose any mirrors. I didn’t have any. I feel like they gave me this mini SUV. I did pretty damn good.

[00:38:52.900] – Tamara Gruber

I will say when I got to where I was going that night, I was like, I need a drink now.

[00:38:57.130] – Kim Tate

Yeah, I definitely enjoyed the drinks each evening when I was done driving. I’m like, oh.

[00:39:03.340] – Tamara Gruber

It’s stressful. It’s one of those things where it’s like, you want to do it as a road trip and you want to do it in the smallest car possible.

[00:39:10.520] – Kim Tate

Although you.

[00:39:11.820] – Tamara Gruber

Don’t have room for your luggage. It would be lovely to have a driver, but of course, that’s expensive because then they’re traveling with you. Then you’re in a bigger thing and then you’re dealing with more car sickness. I don’t know. It’s a tough one. I think one option is to stay and drive the highway, stay in some places, and then you can hire a driver for the day to go do some little things.

[00:39:34.450] – Kim Tate

Yeah, that’s true. I think I came out of that experience going, if I could do it, then other people can do it. I consider myself a pretty scaredy cat driver. I’m not confident with parking in cities like you said. You know what I mean? I’m not really confident at certain things, but I’m a safe driver and I’m good with traffic, all that thing. I thought Ireland was completely doable to drive. I would just say the tricky parts or the in the main cities, just really plan out in advance where you’re going to park and what that looks like. Because if you have to go to your hotel, know where you’re supposed to park before you get to your hotel in those downtown cities because that was where we got stuck was just having to pull along and let Mia run in to ask, where do we park? Try to get one that.

[00:40:17.730] – Tamara Gruber

Has a valet that’s actually out there.

[00:40:19.960] – Kim Tate

Yes, that’s there. That’s another huge thing is just the valets. The one place we stayed, so we got back to Dublin all the way across. We stopped at a little restaurant that Mia found on Google Maps. We use Google Maps a lot to get restaurant ideas, and we found some real charms that were just fabulous. We found one the night we left Kandamaro and we were headed back to Galway, we were like, We’re not going back to Galway to eat, so we have to get something before we get back there. So we found this great little hole in the wall place that single owner making the food and opening up shop. It was just awesome. It’s nice.

[00:40:54.080] – Tamara Gruber

That Mia is old enough to be a good navigator. She knows how to do all that stuff.

[00:40:58.350] – Kim Tate

Yeah, for sure. She is so good. We always joke, her and I want to go on the Amazing Race together. We’re like, we could do this. We’re good. We talked about it the whole time. We were talking about the Amazing Race. You’d have to eat all.

[00:41:07.210] – Tamara Gruber

The stuff, though.

[00:41:07.700] – Kim Tate

Yes, we’ve already decided that. I would have to eat the stuff which is already cut. And you’re not so good at some of that, too. I’m not good at that. We just were watching Amazing Race season 4, and they’re in soul, and they had to eat the live mini octopus. I’m just like, yeah, no, I would have been. One of the teams switched from it and went over to break the boards or whatever. I’m like, Yeah, that would not be happening for me.

[00:41:28.940] – Tamara Gruber

We’re in the middle of planning Japan, and I’m trying to get these reservations and things. I don’t like sushi. It’s not even the fish’s… I’m not a big fish eater, but the texture.

[00:41:41.760] – Kim Tate

I really don’t.

[00:41:43.070] – Tamara Gruber

Like texture for sure if it’s used there. But I hate the taste of seaweed. It’s so basic, but I really don’t like it. So it’s like Shoshini or something is a little bit better taste. But we’re looking at some of these places and there’s so many like, one Michelin star, two Michelin stars. And I want Glenn and Hannah to be able to experience this. But at the same time, some of these places are like $300 a person. I said, Glenn, there’s just no way. There’s no way. Half of it I’m going to be trying to hide my napkin. Yeah, exactly. Or making you eat it all. They’re like, 17 courses of sushi. I’m like, No, I can’t do it. Yeah, that’s tough. Yeah, anyway.

[00:42:22.270] – Kim Tate

Yeah, that’s going to be an interesting thing. Maybe, can I just get all mine cooked? Can I do the teriyaki version? Luckily, every.

[00:42:29.600] – Tamara Gruber

Restaurant is so specialized, so it’s like one day we’ll do the hot pot, one day we’ll do tempura, one day we’ll do soba. Yeah, tempura.

[00:42:36.810] – Kim Tate

And udon noodles. Yeah, exactly.

[00:42:38.610] – Tamara Gruber

So we mix it all, just do different types of things. Not every day is sushi. Yeah.

[00:42:44.710] – Kim Tate

I would say food in Ireland is pretty… There’s nothing too crazy. There’s a lot of lamb and different types of fish, lots of fish on their, like white fish and then fish and chips and stuff. But it’s pretty easy to find food everywhere. It’s very… I don’t think Americans… Like a lot of cottage.

[00:43:03.830] – Tamara Gruber

Pie and fish and chips. Yeah. I don’t think.

[00:43:05.360] – Kim Tate

Americans would have too much of an issue going to Ireland with any of the food there, so that was good. But yeah, and so we… Although the.

[00:43:11.240] – Tamara Gruber

Mushy peas, I remember one time getting fish and chips, and I totally forgot what else was on the menu. This may have even been in England, but then it came and I’m like, Oh, that’s funny that they gave me guacameole. Wasabi. It was guacameole and you take a big bite and I’m like… That’s funny.

[00:43:26.480] – Kim Tate

One of my fish and chips had mushy peas with it. Yeah. It’s funny. On our way back across to Dublin, we had stopped at another place that she found that was really cute called Old Berkson. It’s one of those things that you were talking about tomorrow where it was like this small town. We’re like, Oh, we should stop in there. It was this popular tourist town. I managed to find a spot and I parallel parked it. Mia was like, Damn, mom. I parallel parked it. It was on the point. I was like, dang, that was one of the best parallel parking jobs. It was on right hand side of the car. It was funny. But we were trying to figure out the parking system, like, Oh, I guess we have to pay for parking here because they had the parking meter things. But then nobody was paying for parking. We didn’t see the tags in anybody’s cars. We’re like, well, do you pay for parking? Are all these people just not paying for parking? Then I’m like, Is there really going to be parking authority that’s going to come? It’s this conversation about it. It was just funny.

[00:44:20.270] – Kim Tate

But yeah, so we did that. We got into Dublin. We stayed at a place called Clontarf Castle, which was another part of my prize, which definitely seemed It was funny because it definitely seemed like the tourist group One of the tourist group type hotels. It reminded me of the place that I was put up in when you got the nice Romeo and Juliet place or whatever. I was in this In Kilkenny, I was in the downtown Kilkenny. It’s one of those tour group hotels. It was great. It was fine. It was not bad. But the room, it had this medieval banquet theming. It was so weird. I was like, Hmm. It was funny, but really nice concierge, great service there. I was able to pull It’s in the suburbs of Dublin, which was probably the worst traffic I’ve experienced. We pulled in and we were able to park my own car and it was nothing. That was the nice part of if you do have a car, this place is really convenient because then they told us we could take… Because a taxi was going to be about €20 each way. But they said, we have a bus that if you want to take the city bus in, you can do the city bus and it’s a pretty short trip.

[00:45:20.560] – Kim Tate

Mia and I were like, Yeah. I thought, Well, that’s a great learning experience for her also, how to navigate public transit and all that. We took the public bus into Dublin that night and walked around and then came back out and it was fun. So it’s a unique way of avoiding the driving in the city thing. And the next day was our last day there. We started off, they told us to do this Dublin coastal route, which we could do like Skerries, but we mainly wanted to go to Malahide, which is a famous little Dublin town near Dublin that a lot of people love, seaside coastal town. So we went and drove out there. That was the reason we still had our car. So we drove out there to check that out. We were going to go up to Skerries, which is supposed to have this beautiful water walk and these windmills and stuff. So we would have liked to do that, but we were both just getting tired and we wanted to not have to get up too early because then we had that later afternoon in Dublin, we had the Book of Kells Trinity Library thing.

[00:46:18.650] – Kim Tate

So we skipped scary, just went scaries and just went to Malahide, checked that out, and then went and dropped the car off at the airport and got a taxi into our new hotel in Dublin, which was the Trinity City Hotel, which was right by Trinity College, which was pretty central and nice to navigate. And we went and did, of course, the Book of Kells and the Long Room Library, which is really interesting because they’re trying to do funding stuff and they’ve realized that all the books are not being protected properly and they’re not reading fire codes and all this stuff. So most of the bookshelves were empty compared to when you and I went. Yeah, I saw the picture.

[00:46:56.600] – Tamara Gruber

It’s so different. It’s crazy. It’s a little sad because does it still have the smell of the old books? Not as much.

[00:47:02.290] – Kim Tate

No, I mean, it does because it’s probably still in the wood, but it’s not quite what it was. So it’s a little different. Then one of our big things we wanted to do is both of us decided we wanted to get Aaron’s sweaters. We went to Kyle Moore Abbey and they had a few sweaters there, but they didn’t have really a style. They had very limited selection. The lady there, she said, Well, we just get them from the Aaron’s Sweater Market or whatever the name. She was like, T here’s one in Galway and there’s one in Dublin. I’m like, Okay, well, those are authentic then. They’re real. She’s like, Yeah, that’s who we get them from and we only carry Irish goods. They make sure. I was like, Okay, that makes me feel better because there’s a lot of… When we were in Clifton and when we’ve been in Galway, there’s a lot of Aaron sweaters and they’re not real. There’s no way because you’re not going to get one for 60 pounds. You know what I mean? You’re not going to, not pounds, but you know what I mean? We found out this was the authentic place and so we did go there in Dublin and it’s right by Trinity College, which is really convenient.

[00:48:03.540] – Kim Tate

We both got cardigans that are just beautiful and have certificate of authenticity. I think they’re hand knitted, but they’re machine sewn together because they have stitching on the seams and stuff with a traditional serger. But we got Merino wool because I’m not a fan of wool. That was the other thing is we were really picky about, we felt all of them because me and I both have texture things and I didn’t like most of the wool stuff, but this one we found was really good. That’s how I feel.

[00:48:33.240] – Tamara Gruber

About all those sweaters. My skin is so sensitive, so it’s really tough to get those things, even if I’m like, Well, maybe I’ll wear it with a turtle neck, and then I get it and I’m like, I can still feel it pricking me through.

[00:48:43.900] – Kim Tate

Yeah. We got the super fine Merino wool, and they only had two different options in the whole store that were made in it, but one of them was this beautiful cardigan that we really liked. Cool. Anyways, but that was it. Then we headed back to the airport the next day. Sorry, this is getting really long, but we were on Heirlingus to come back and I was able to pay to get us upgraded to experience the Heirlingus business class experience so that I can write an article about that. It’s a lot like what we had with TAP, Tamera. I feel like it’s almost the exact same layout and the exact same product that TAP uses. I’m not positive, but it felt very similar. They feel like similar.

[00:49:25.000] – Tamara Gruber

Airlines to me. There’s certain national carriers that are a little step above others, and I put them at the lower step overall, but it’s fine. When you’re spending.

[00:49:37.680] – Kim Tate

Almost 10 hours on a flight, it’s still a really nice way to do it. Much better than economy. Yeah. I seem.

[00:49:43.920] – Tamara Gruber

To recall, maybe I’m wrong, but I think they also offer a bid, like you bid for upgrade. Yeah.

[00:49:50.650] – Kim Tate

If you have a certain saver ticket and stuff like that, certain discounted tickets, you will not get that option. But if your ticket is one of the normal economy class tickets, you will have the option that you can bid for an upgrade, which I thought was interesting because there was actually two empty seats in the cabin. I don’t know if people just didn’t bid or I’m not sure. I think I did that once for.

[00:50:15.050] – Tamara Gruber

Icelandair and I bid and I got it in the cabin. There was only two people in the first class or business class cabin and I’m like, Okay, I guess no one else wanted to. But I got it for another, I don’t know, I remember at the time, but maybe it was only $300 or something. I’ve heard that.

[00:50:29.580] – Kim Tate

Some people have luck, like 300 bucks, some people pay 500. I’ve heard some people up to 800 or so, but mine to work with them on it, I didn’t get to have the bid because mine went through the sales department since it was my winning ticket thing. But I do know that it just varies based on… And I’m sure that that would be depending on how bad you want it, looking at the expert flyer thing, and you only find out 24 hours before if your bid won. So it is like a little it’s strictly like, I’m prepared to go in at economy, but it would be cool if I show up and get this. Right. Because you can set your.

[00:50:59.920] – Tamara Gruber

Max of how high you go, whatever. Just like any auction. Does it.

[00:51:04.300] – Kim Tate

Work like an auction? I couldn’t remember that. Or if it’s just like, this is your price and that’s what you pay? Or does it say like, yeah, I don’t know how that works? No, I’m not sure, but I feel.

[00:51:11.820] – Tamara Gruber

Like I said I would go up to this or something, but I’m not really sure, to be honest. I can’t remember. Well, I’m very excited for you guys. It sounds like you had a great trip. Did you have any final tips or anything? I have a.

[00:51:23.590] – Kim Tate

Tips article I’ll be getting out, hopefully soon, before you and I head to Scottsdale. I’m trying to work on a couple of articles, so who knows if I’ll actually get to them because I’ve got a busy week. But when we put this out, hopefully I’ll have some links in there because I’m going to have some travel tips that were useful for us about just money and driving and all that, some of those basic things, and then about our flight experience as well. Nothing else to add, though. It was a great trip. I highly recommend it. It’s so easy to travel in Ireland. So nice. Everybody speaks English, so there’s no hurdles, especially with kids. Eating with allergies was amazing. It was just great. Love, love, love Ireland. I feel like it’s such a.

[00:52:00.580] – Tamara Gruber

Friendly country. I keep bringing it up as an option for a family trip at some point because I’m like, Okay, I’ve been there twice now without you guys. I want to go. And we’ve flown through there on our way to London, but that’s all. But I’m really glad that you had that time, like mother daughter time. Obviously, it all goes fast. She’ll be out of the house, too. I know. It gives me chills just to.

[00:52:26.300] – Kim Tate

Hear that. It’s true. But it’s really nice.

[00:52:28.340] – Tamara Gruber

I’m glad that you had that. I’m glad that she’s your more adventurous one that you got to do something like that. Yeah, it was awesome.

[00:52:35.600] – Kim Tate

Well, and you have a very…

[00:52:37.210] – Tamara Gruber

I guess we should just tell our listeners a little bit. Like we said before, we’re trying to keep up with maybe once a month, but we’re just super busy right now. The two of us are going to be off to Scottsdale, Arizona before this comes out. I can’t tell you to follow us. Hopefully, you’re already following along. I know many of you are. Hopefully, you saw it. Yeah, hopefully you saw it. Hopefully, it was great. I’m sure it was great. I bet it’s going to be fabulous.

[00:53:01.580] – Kim Tate

Yeah, I bet it’s.

[00:53:02.370] – Tamara Gruber

Going to be sunny. Yes. It’s supposed to rain here.

[00:53:05.440] – Kim Tate

All next week, so I’m all in. And we’re having this rare…

[00:53:09.670] – Tamara Gruber

We’re actually having spring right now. Oh, wow. Actually, no, we’re having May spring right now. It’s been cold, super windy, and with the grass is just turning green. So we don’t have any buds on our trees yet, no flowers. I actually have some daffodils, but my plum trees doesn’t even have buds yet. So that is springtime right now in mid April, just turning the grass green. But it’s supposed to be 80 tomorrow. Oh, my goodness. I’m like, what? That’s insane. It’s crazy to go from 30 to 80. So we’re going to be out in Arizona, and then I’m going to pop down to Tuscon and see Hannah. And then you’re going to go to… Walt Disney World first.

[00:53:50.110] – Kim Tate

Walt Disney World. And then Alaska Cruise. Alaska Cruise.

[00:53:53.550] – Tamara Gruber

On which then? Norwegian, actually.

[00:53:56.330] – Kim Tate

That’s what my father in law loves. Norwegian.

[00:53:58.930] – Tamara Gruber

Then you’re going to be in Disney. Disneyland for a conference.

[00:54:03.360] – Kim Tate

And then I’m going to probably.

[00:54:05.120] – Tamara Gruber

At that same time be back in Arizona in T uson, bringing Hannah home. But I’m going to have a little bit of time. So I might do a little bit more exploring and actually finally write something about T uson at some point after all the trips. And then we’re going to Japan. Awesome. So hopefully we can figure out, maybe before I go to Japan, how to do something. Yeah, because I do have.

[00:54:24.580] – Kim Tate

That time in the middle of May. And you’ve got… Yeah, I thought it would probably help. So we’ll try to do…

[00:54:29.400] – Tamara Gruber

Maybe we can then talk about your cruise and our Arizona trip and stuff. That’d be awesome. Yeah. And then I’ll be in Japan, and then you’ve got another conference. And then hopefully we’ll do another episode. And then I’m going to go to the UK. I’m going to have to drive some of those roads in Scotland and Wales, which I think are equally narrow.

[00:54:46.670] – Kim Tate

And wavy. That was the other thing, wavy. It’s just like, oh, my goodness. Yeah, sorry. I’m going to have to.

[00:54:53.060] – Tamara Gruber

Fight for the front seat if not the driver, so I don’t get too terribly car sick. For sure. Yeah. So it’s a busy but fun trips, like a long line of trips coming up. So make sure.

[00:55:05.710] – Kim Tate

You’re following us @W e3 Travel for T amara on Instagram @stuffsuitcase for Kim on Instagram. I think for her and I, that’s where we both post everything live the most often. Anyways, we will hopefully check back in with you again soon. All right. Talk soon.

[00:55:22.610] – Tamara Gruber

Bye.