22 Monday Jun 2015
Posted in Croatia, Dubrovnik, Europe, Game of Thrones, Northern Ireland, Split
Season 5 of Game of Thrones was quite epic. Not only did a whole bunch of characters die (spoilers!), but Mr. Selfish and I were able to see the sights that we stumbled upon during our own GoT tour come alive as Dorne and Braavos.
14 Wednesday Jan 2015
Posted in Accommodations, Club Carson, Dublin, Europe, Ireland, Northern Ireland
Tags
Club Carlson, Dublin, Letterkenny, Radisson Blu Dublin, Radisson Blu Letterkenny, Selfish Year, Selfish Years
This is post seven of fourteen on our trip to Northern Ireland and Croatia, minus our mini Game of Thrones tour. Those posts can be found here.
Mrs. Selfish and I have a pretty clear hierarchy when it comes to hotel preferences: Hyatt, Hilton/Starwood/Marriott, IHG, other. There are admittedly a ton of great hotels out there, but I’m pretty cheap when it comes down to it. I mean, why pay for a good (or even a great) hotel when you can get it for free?
Unfortunately, Northern Ireland wasn’t exactly swimming in hotel options, so I decided to try a new program: Club Carlson.
Mrs. Selfish and I each got the Club Carlson business cards back in the summer of 2013 because the sign-up bonus was decent: Gold status (which meant free internet & breakfast) 80,000 Club Carlson points and 40,000 on each anniversary. The real kicker, however, was the card’s #1 feature: redeem one award night, and get a second one free!
Since we were doing a lot of fast travel in Ireland, I decided to give Club Carlson a whirl, so I booked us for two nights in the Radisson Blu Royal Hotel Dublin and two nights in the Radisson Blu Letterkenny.
12 Monday Jan 2015
Posted in Europe, Ireland, Northern Ireland
Tags
Dunluce Castle, Europe, Giant's Causeway, Ireland, Malin Head, Northern Ireland, Selfish Year, Selfish Years
This is post five of fourteen on our trip to Northern Ireland and Croatia, minus our mini Game of Thrones tour. Those posts can be found here.
Although we didn’t have the amazing sunny weather that we had in Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland was absolutely beautiful. In fact, while we were visiting, there was an epic storm due to some hurricane in the U.S. that was wrecking havoc on the northern coastline.
As a result, the weather was tumultuous and varied from torrential rain to cloudy to brief glimmer of sunshine. Mr. Selfish and I tried to hold out for the brief glimmers of sunshine but we weren’t always the best at predicting when it would occur. There were certainly times when we got caught in torrential downpour.
Below is one of the instances, in which we got lucky with the sunshine:
This is Dunluce Castle, and although it looks quite scenic on the coast, it is mostly in ruins. We didn’t go in; we just snapped some photos when the sun came out briefly. This is because we were trying to ensure that we had some sunshine at Giant’s Causeway, which was our next stop.
11 Sunday Jan 2015
Posted in Accommodations, Europe, Hilton, Northern Ireland
This is post four of fourteen on our trip to Northern Ireland and Croatia, minus our mini Game of Thrones tour. Those posts can be found here.
Mrs. Selfish and I drove for 6 hours from Dublin to Belfast, taking the long way (the drive normally takes an hour or so) during our Game of Thrones tour. Since we were traveling during peak tourist season, I tried to have us stay in as many chain hotels as possible to mitigate our costs for the trip.
While I normally like to stay at Hyatt hotels, they don’t have much of a footprint in Ireland (though that is changing, with the opening of a Park Hyatt in Dublin this year), so Mrs. Selfish and I fell back on Hilton.
The Selfish Years 