At the end of May, we flew from Toronto directly to Dublin to explore the southern part of the Republic of Ireland. We opted for a car rental with SIXT to see as much as possible during our one-week stay.
Our post about what we saw, where we ate and stayed in Ireland can be read at this link.
We booked our car rental well in advance of our trip to ensure the best rates. Ireland is very popular with tourists. The most famous road trip is probably the “Ring of Kelly.”
Minimizing Some Rental Costs in Ireland
To keep our daily rate lower, we chose a car with a manual transmission and decided to have only one driver. It would have been an additional 40 euros a day for an automatic transmission. Ireland is an expensive place to hire a car.
Here are some other ways we tried to mitigate some of the costs:
Travel Credit Card Insurance
We used the basic collision coverage included with our travel credit card, so we did not need to purchase it when we picked up the car. We were covered by our PC World Elite Card.
Normally, we do not purchase extra coverage, but after reading others’ experiences in Ireland, we decided to add more comprehensive coverage.
Additional Collision Coverage by RentalCover.com
The supplementary coverage we purchased reduced the deductible costs should there be any mishaps with the car. The narrow roadways in Ireland make it easy to scratch the side of the car with hedges/branches. Sometimes, side mirrors are clipped due to the narrowness of the roads as well.
We purchased supplementary coverage with a third party called RentalCover.com. Their rates are half what the car rental companies charge. The extra insurance we purchased covered these potential issues.
The one downside to using this third-party insurance is that the car rental company puts a large hold on your credit card while you have their car. SIXT put a €5000 on our credit card, which made us a little uneasy. We have not experienced that much of a hold in other countries before.
Luckily, we did not have any damage. We took photos and video of the car from all angles when we picked it up, and we filmed and photographed the car afterwards to ensure we had proper documentation should a damage claim happen.
Driving Conditions in Ireland
At times, we simply laughed at the speed limit as the roads are narrow with many blind corners. Occasionally, the middle of the road is shared with oncoming traffic. Luckily we always encountered patient and courteous drivers.
Driving in Ireland, especially on regional roads marked R, can be quite treacherous. As the navigator, I quickly learned to plan our route via M or N types of roads to make the driving less dangerous. Even the motorway roads with occasional tractors and a speed of 100km/h seemed risky at times. Many of the roads are not separated by a median as they would be in Canada. Craig drove successfully on the left side of the road with a manual 6-speed transmission. It took a while to adjust to the speed of the drivers on the small roads. Craig got used to the narrow roads without a shoulder lane and with hedges or stone walls.
The use of roundabouts was much more efficient than traffic lights!
Would we rent a car again?
We wanted to see a lot of Ireland in a short time, and that was our reason for booking a car rental. It gave us a chance to enjoy the countryside more, and we were able to stay in some beautiful places outside of large cities. I don’t know if the convenience of a car was worth the stress of driving on some of the narrow roads. I think our next visit to Ireland will include trains instead of a car rental as our main mode of transportation.
