The Great Adventure

Last year at this time (April 29th to be exact) we left with 6 of our friends on a great adventure. It was always my plan to do some type of trip report on it, but here it is almost a year later and I haven't done it.

So now almost a year later I'm going to try to get some of it documented here.

For us, it all started here.....

St. Patricks Day 2007 at the Beacon. That was when Ted and I were invited to go on a trip with the others in the pic. The plan was to go in April or May 2008. The destination was London, Scotland and Ireland. Of course as soon as we were invited, we were in. We started saving our $$ - and ended up saving a bit more than originally planned as the dollar did its thing!

Our friend JR was the main planner, but we all had our input. There were certain things all of us wanted to see and do. We had traveled together before on small trips. Weekends, a few days in Vegas, stuff like that. We always got along fine and had a good time. We all made a deal on this trip - we'd have a general itinerary, but all were welcome to do something else, go off on their own, whatever.

For the next year, we watched fares on flights, deals on packages, researched hotels, B&Bs, had and itinerary, then changed it, then changed it again. We found our flights in February, so that nailed down our dates. We'd leave for Seattle on Tuesday April 29th, spend the night there, get up and get a flight to London. We'd return to Post Falls Idaho on May 17th.

For me, planning a trip is almost as fun as going. I love researching, looking for prices, reviews, looking at photos online. I wanted to do what I could to contribute to the trip, so I kind of took on the lodging. We agreed on a general top price that we would pay per night, which helped. We knew that London would be hugely expensive, but luckily, since 3 of us work for an Airline we were able to get a deal at a Holiday Inn in London for $110 per night. After that, I just continued to book our lodging, one place at a time. We ended up with some pretty fantastic places and my wonderful friends usually let us pick which room we wanted first at the B&Bs since I did the bookings. I'll put some of the pricing here - it's been a year and I don't know how much prices may have changed with the economy, but it may help people get an idea of costs. We did try to pay for all that we could before we left. Also, for us, we did NOT charge things - we saved our money for this trip. We didn't want to come home, with bills facing us. Since we had a year, we just socked away everything we could. We sold a couple of toys we had, and we did use our tax refund and the stimulas money too!

We did as much online ahead as we could. The itinerary was set.

April 29th, Spokane to Seattle
April 30th, Seattle to London
May 1, Check into our hotel in London - maybe a walking tour, get settled
May 2, Double-decker bus tour, sight see etc
May3, Stonehenge and Bath
May 4, Sight see, pub visits etc.
May 5, Train to Edinburgh - get settled, walk the Royal Mile visit castle etc
May 6, Edinburgh, more sight seeing eating, drinking etc.
May 7, Get rental cars, load up and head to Sterling, see the Wallace Monument on to Fort William
May 8, Eilean Donan Castle, Loc Ness, Urquhart castle
May 9, Travel towards Aberdeen, then south to Dunnottar Castle then to Ladybank.
May 10, Short visit to St. Andrews, then to airport, return cars and fly to Dublin check in and get settled. Ghost bus tour that evening
May 11, Dublin - hop on hop off bus tour, Guinness storehouse tour
May 12, Wild Wicklow Tour.
May 13, Take bus to Cashel - check in to B&B. Visit the Rock of Cashel and visit town.
May 14, Head to Cork and Blarney Castle
May 15, Free day - to do whatever
May 16, Head for home :(