Road Scholars

Things we learned during our trip to Ireland and England with kids

• Build in sleeping and laundry days into your vacation schedule:  I'd recommend 1 day for every 3 to 4 days of extensive exploring
• Definitely pack light:  I packed one, small suitcase for each person in the family plus a large suitcase for the carseats plus one carry on bag per person.  7 people times 2 bags + 1 bag for carseats = 15 bags.  It's still a lot.  I would have seriously preferred taking a total of 4 outfits per person in a small backpack and seeking out laundry facilities than having to load and unload that many suitcases each time we went to a new hotel.  I seriously contemplated mailing stuff home.
• Pick a spot to call your new home for several nights and explore everything within a one hour radius of you before moving to the next hotel.  We stayed in London in one hotel for three nights (which ironically ended up being the only not so great hotel we stayed in on the trip) while the rest of the two weeks was spent in a new hotel each night.  It got old very fast especially when you combine it with the previous bullet point.
• Try to reserve a hotel that has at a bare minimum a little refrigerator when you're traveling with kids.  At least this way you can go to the grocery store and get milk and have cereal in the morning for the kids.  Much easier and cheaper in the long run.
• The mini-buses are the way to go when you're renting a vehicle for a family with more than 3 kids.  Trust me on this one.  It's worth it.  The tiny 7 passenger car we rented in Ireland cost us 300 euros for one day.  (Cry with me please.)  Our 9 passenger mini-bus with a ton more room than our mini-van at home was 400 pounds for 7 days.  (The difference between euros and pounds is minimal)
• Rent vehicles in weekly increments instead of daily.  You save a gigantic amount of money.
• ( ) around a name on signs on the streets/highways in Ireland means that road takes you in the direction of that street or city.  No ( ) means it takes you directly to the location you're wanting to drive to.
• When you go to a pub in Ireland and England (essentially a restaurant), you seat yourself, note the number on your table, go to the bartender and order your drinks and food and then they will bring it out to your table.
• Major roads can be tiny, narrow back roads
• Attractions close much, much earlier in Ireland and England than they generally do in the United States.  Most everything closes between 4pm and 5pm.  Next time, we'll travel to our destination in the evening and be able to wake up in the morning and go to our attraction.  Unfortunately, we did it the other way around on this trip and it cost us a few of times.  (i.e. Eden Project, trip to Plymouth, and the Heritage Centre in Kildare)

How in the world did you afford this trip?

We've been planning this trip for quite awhile.  Our theme for school this past year was British & Celtic Literature and History.  Niki and the boys had separate reading lists which they completed over the course of one school year.  This trip was the ultimate field trip after finishing their study on England and Ireland.

Here are the ways we saved in order to take our trip to Ireland and England at the end of our school year:

• Our trip to England and Ireland cost less than sending Niki to a private school for one year.  We put away money monthly just as though we were spending money on tuition.
• I watched flight prices on Travelocity for months before buying the tickets.  When the price dipped down, we bought the tickets and were able to get a 20% discount on top of it because Les works for an airline with a special price discount for their employees.  (The special discount disappeared a month after we bought the tickets so we won't be able to do that next time.)
• Many of our meals on this trip were bought at the grocery store
• I did a lot of research on the Internet before going and knew what memberships we wanted to purchase to save money on attractions.  (With our size family, it's almost always worth getting the membership especially when it lets you into other attractions for free or a discount that you would have otherwise paid full price for)
• We've been saving our hotel points for years.  Most of our hotel stays on this trip were free because we used our rewards points to pay for it.

Developing Wisdom

It's always humbling to think you're an experienced traveler only to be knocked down a few notches and feel like an absolute amateur again.  Here are some bits of wisdom we've acquired on this trip thus far:

• Just because you rent a 7 passenger vehicle, does not mean it will fit anything beyond the 7 passengers.
• Dublin has e-tolls.  Yes, you read that correctly.  We saw a sign for a toll and then never saw any toll booths.  The next day when we returned the rental car, we learned we had to pay the toll electronically or be fined 200 Euros.  What?!  How were we supposed to know this?  Les was informed he could pay the toll on the lower level of the Dublin airport in a little bookstore.  He went there and asked the clerk about paying a toll and sure enough the clerk asked him how many times we went through the toll and Les paid the 6 Euros for the toll fee and we avoided the fine.
• Rent the 9 passenger mini-bus!!!!!!!  It's wonderful!
• The Dublin airport is huge and busy.  Plan accordingly.