Thread: Need help in DUB

try holiday inn express, Hotel Reservations: 0800 291 353 Hotel Front Desk: 353-1-8628866
your airline might have special rate with them.

Chen Wan, thank you. Added the #s to my book.

I ended up staying at the Bewleys at the airport. 2 rooms & 10 meals (4 adults & 1 child for dinner and 5 breakfast buffet) for €215. With the food and free Wi-Fi it seemed like a fair enough last min deal. If I had planned for it I probably could have done better, my fault for not thinking of my "Buddy" in plan B. Anyway, nice place with friendly staff, Wi-Fi was fast, most of the food was good & none was bad- about normal for a hotel (all apps were very good, as were the pasta and beef), and the free shuttle ran every 15-20 min.

Yeah, it was a little crazy. I take my 2 daughters somewhere for spring break every year. This year our plan was to go to Cork, Ireland. My wife & her mother (the buddy pass) decided to crash our trip. I was fine with it, and was actually happy my wife decided to join us. My MIL is no problem and I didn't mind traveling with her, but was a little nervous about going with an S4 over spring break. Because of this I decided to fly into DUB instead of SNN. This eliminated the connection in JFK and gave us two flights a day to get out, a plan B, if you will.

I made the listings to go; my kids & myself on one listing, and the wife & MIL on another (no reason for all of us to sit in back). We all got on, 3 up front and two in the back.

The trip went great. I survived driving on the left side of the road & shifting with my left hand. My wife & I managed to avoid killing one another with me driving and her navigating. My MIL (70 yrs old) walked all over the place. The kids had some great experiences, including seeing abbys, gathering eggs, kissing the Blarney stone, and seeing the Irish country side. To quote Dave Mustain: "So Far, So Good, So What..."

Time to head home.

We were keeping an eye on the DUB-ATL flight home, and it looked ok the night before. One last check before we left the the B&B the AM of the flight and it's looking dicy. I figure we will at least get my wife and H.S. aged daughter back to ATL and the rest of us the next day.

We get to airport and they are asking for volunteers to give up seats. NOT GOOD! None of us get on. On top of that, we now have 5 HKs to deal with the next day. It was somewhere around this time I made the "Help" post. We looked and buying a ZED for my wife, as she had something planed for the day after our return. She decided against it, though.

In the end I decided to list my wife and daughters on one listing so they could use an S2. I put my MIL and I together so she wouldn't be left alone. Also, I put us all on the (eariler) DUB-JFK-ATL so we had two shots at getting out. We got to the airport earily and checked in. It's looking great for my wife and kids on S2s, the two of us on S4s are on the bubble.

I'm checking Travelnet every 20 min or so and at about 40 min out seats are being assigned. Wife & kids are up front Another refresh and all of us are on! I was about let the other non-revs know, when an agent came up the stairs with tickets. All 5 of us are up front. Good times.

Once we got to JFK I had to look at the DUB-ATL flight. I was glad we swapped, my MIL wouldn't have made the direct flight. From JFK the only hick-up was a half hour delay before boarding and an hour delay on the ramp.

Over all, things went fairly smooth. When you consider all the things we had stacked against us- 5 non-revs, one being a "buddy", it being spring break for a lot of metro-Atlanta schools, and no plan C- I'm happy with the way it all turned out.

One last thought. My wife says I have a travel guardian angle. You can call it that, or maybe luck, or even travel karma but I have pulled off some goof stuff over the years w/o much of a plan.

I will say I did one thing on this trip that points to "travelers' karma" though. After we all got off the hotel shuttle at the airport, we headed down the walk way to the terminal. About 50 yards away it dawned on me I didn't tip the driver. I think for a min about just blowing it off. But I thought better of it and headed back to the bus. The driver was ready to help me look for whatever I had left on his bus, and was happily surprised by what I had come back for. Who knows...