Planning a trip to the Emerald Isle

Hey guys!  I know I know I am the absolute worst.  I haven't posted anything for most of the year.  Since I am pretty much the only person that reads this it's okay I forgive myself.

But now let me write about something not as exciting as the trip itself but close enough to it...the planning part.  Some people hate planning and would rather just have someone else do the work.  IE. Angel can't plan anything to save his life.  Lucky for him I don't mind it at all.  When it's just the two of us I have carte blanche when it comes to our trips.  He's pretty chill and is willing to try and see just about anything.

Over the last few years I have turned it somewhat into a tradition to travel for Angel's birthday.  I mean what better excuse to book some plane tickets right?  Well my next big trip is coming up in October and I have been planning all week.  Over Memorial Day weekend I "accidentally" purchased a trip to Ireland from LivingSocial on my phone.  I've been wanting to go to Ireland over the last couple of years and I thought the deal I saw was interesting.  I had a coupon and was trying to finagle as much of a discount as I could, then I pressed buy by accident and there you have it.  I didn't think anything of it because LivingSocial has an awesome refund policy and I knew they would let me return it with no problem.  I told Angel that I bought it and he wasn't buying into the "accident" story.  He was kinda like whatever you bought it, if you really want to go we can think about it over the weekend.  So the cost of the trip on LivingSocial was originally listed for $1000.  The coupons I was trying to finagle was for 10% off trips, so that dropped the cost of the trip to $900.  After I spoke to Angel I called my cousin Gerard to see if he and his girlfriend Carissa would possibly be interested in joining us for this trip.  I told him he had 24 hours to think about it because that's how long the 10% coupon would be valid for.  He was very interested and would find out if he could get the days off.  Well it all worked out.  Everyone got their own deal from LivingSocial and we qualified for the buy 3 get one free discount.  After everything was said and done, the deal which included flight, car, 1 night hotel and 6 nights at Bed and Breakfasts came out too........$675pp!  At that price there was no way I was going to return that!  So Ireland here we come!!!

Fast forward to now close to the end of August and the planning must commence.  The only thing we had booked was the first night which is the hotel stay in Drogheda.  After that we get to choose BnBs from anywhere in the country.  So we really had carte blanche about what we want to see and do in Ireland.  I did a lot of cross referencing across travel books, blogs, websites, Instagram and Twitter accounts.  Ireland has soooo many stunningly beautiful places to see it was really, really difficult narrowing it down.  I wish we had a month to explore!  Since Gerard and Carissa are joining us on the trip, I wanted to make sure I wasn't being a nazi planner and making sure to do things that they would enjoy.  Luckily for me they are pretty laid back as well, they just wanted to make sure we can throw in a party or two and some hit up some good pubs.  My cousin mentioned he wanted to go to this party in Northern Ireland so I made sure to put that into the itinerary.  Angel was down for whatever, all he really requested was that we keep the car manuel which was what was included with the package.  To switch to automatic was an extra $160.  They don't really mess with that automatic stuff in Europe.  I was all for switching the cars because I love driving on roadtrips, but with stick shift that takes Carissa and I out of the picture.  Angel really wants to drive stick shift on the left side of the road with the driver on the right side of the car.  Oh boys. He also wanted to check out some Game of Thrones sites which I am all about.

Since we knew where and when the party in Northern Ireland was we at least knew which way we should head on our roadtrip.  Counter clockwise it is!  Carissa was really hands on in helping choose the BnBs after I chose what cities, towns and villages we would end up at.  After 7 revisions to the itinerary we now know what our days will be looking like.

Day 1: Catch an Aer Lingus flight from JFK. (Try to knock out during the whole flight due to early start the next morning.)
Day 2: Arriving in Dublin at the crack of dawn.  I set up a free 3 hour tour of Dublin.  According to Trip Advisor it's the best tour in town! With about 6,000 5 star reviews it was a no brainer.  After that we will definitely be stopping into the Guinness Brewery for the perfect pint.   I also want to do a quick stop at St Patrick's Cathedral.  Once we feel fatigued we leave Dublin and head out to our hotel in Drogheda.
Day 3: The Dark Hedges, Carrick-A-Rede Bridge, and The Giant's Causeway.  Staying in Portrush and party.
Day 4: Start our drive on the Wild Atlantic Way and make our way to the best hotel in the world at Ashford Castle for some afternoon tea. Then make our way to Galway for the night.
Day 5: Check out the Cliffs of Moher then end up in Kenmare.
Day 6: Spend all day exploring the Ring of Kerry and then stay in County Cork.
Day 7: Go castle hopping starting with Blarney Castle, Rock of Cashel and ending with Cahir Castle. Spend our last night in Kilkenny.
Day 8: Free morning (TBA) then back to DUB for our return flight

From all the research I was doing I was getting so hyped about this trip.  If I am missing any must die for spots please let me know so I can revise again.  One of my favorite kind of trips is road trips and this is turning out to be an epic one!