Ireland and Malta 2015 pre-adventure notes

So off to Ireland and Malta for the months of October and November. Lots of pre-adventure stuff going on, like checking airfares, finding homes, rental cars, etc. Lets start with airfares. Been looking at fares since March and I must say, I’m quite unimpressed. One would think that with oil at a 10 year low, and traveling in the off season that fares would be somewhat reasonable, meaning low. Not a chance! Fares to Ireland haven’t changed significantly over the last 8 months, if anything they have increased slightly.  Lowest airfare I have seen for this time period was around $816.00 round trip. I finally bit the bullet and bought ours at $1074.00, could have been a little lower but I refuse to travel on United.

What’s the deal with United? Nothing if you like being treated like second class citizens, made to feel that you’re imposing on the flight attendants personal time to shoot the breeze or if you expect to have an uncomfortable flight.  I was a Global Services client of United for 2 years and still got bumped from first class so that attendants would be “rested” before they started their shift. What a crock of, well, a crock. By the way, to be Global Services all depends on how much money you spend with United. My company bought me 3 around-the-world tickets for business in one year, spent well over $60,000.00.  I was then ordained with the Global Services tattoo and allowed to be one of the first on the plane. WOW! I felt privileged. Sad, since then I have not spent that kind of cash or travelled daily on a United flight so back to cattle car class and the crap treatment that comes with United coach service. Can’t say enough about those attendants though, how did it get this way?

We’ve also been looking for a home or apartment to rent since March and have gone through about 1-200 between Ireland and Malta. Takes a lot of looking at what a home has to offer, researching towns, travel distances, transportation, etc. to find something that matches our needs. We managed to rent a beautiful home in Cleggan Ireland that looks wonderful and a neat apartment in Malta that is close to the promenade but not too close. The Ireland home was rented through a company in Clifden called “Love Conemara” and got a pretty good deal. We rented the home for the month of October and received a week free. Not bad. The apartment in Malta was rented through HomeAway and we got about 500.00EU off the list price. You just got to ask!

We have a rental car in Ireland, through Eurocar Rentals, paying about $250.00 for the month. We won’t be renting a car in Malta because bus transportation is perfect for what we want to do. So, short and sweet, just a note on our progress. More to follow……..