Dublin

Travelling with Kids

Dublin: June 2018

Age of kids: 9 & 7

We spent the weekend in Dublin in June 2018 – mainly to go to the Billy Joel concert that was happening in the Aviva Stadium. We have shamelessly hoisted our musical tastes onto our children, which is both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, car karaoke is far more fun when we enjoy belting out the same songs. On the other hand, they want to come to the same concerts as we do… Billy Joel was the absolute top of their list at the time (especially for 7-year-old B) so we thought we’d make a weekend of it & hightail it to Dublin.

Our plane arrived in Dublin airport at 8.00am – so after dropping our bags off at the hotel, we were ready to explore the city by 9.30! The early departure of the plane was both a pro and a con. Arriving so early meant that we had a full day in Dublin. But waking at 5.00am to get to the airport in time was a bit of a killer! Fortunately, our two are pretty good at travelling and were excited about waking early and heading off.

The first thing we did was head into Dublin City Centre. Our hotel was near the Sean O’Casey bridge, so we walked about 20 minutes to reach the high street. We decided that second breakfast was in order and felt far more awake after a bite to eat and a cup of tea.

Now, normally I plan our trips to within an inch of their lives. I am not super spontaneous when it comes to holidays! This was the first instance of us going away (as a family or as a couple) that I had booked nothing excursion-wise. I had saved a couple of ideas on Pinterest, but that was it. Mostly, this was because I knew we had the concert in the evening and I didn’t want to tire the kids out by racing around for the entirety of a long day.

Adam & I decided that the best thing to do would be to go on some kind of tour bus. After a quick Google search, I found one that look ed right up our street: the Viking Splash Tours. In hindsight, we should have booked in advance, but we were super lucky: there were spaces on one of the early afternoon tours. We booked online, had a spot of lunch, and headed to the meeting spot.

The tour was fantastic! Our tour guide was informative and funny – and pitched things perfectly for the children on the tour, as well as throwing in a few jokes & facts for the adults. Dublin was invaded by the Vikings in 9th century – hence the theme of the tour.
We raced around Dublin wearing Viking hats with the tour guide leading the raucous roaring at unsuspecting Celts (aka the general public). The buses are bright yellow and have the advantage of doubling as a boat, so as we approached the Dublin Docklands, life jackets were handed out & we drove straight into the water. The kids thought this was absolutely amazing & I would say it’s by far the best city tour we’ve ever been on.

Viking Splash Tours: http://www.vikingsplash.com

After the tour, we headed back to the hotel for a bit of downtime before heading off to the concert. We found a family pub on the way for some supper and a happy little Guinness.

After that, we strode on over to see Billy Joel himself. The Aviva Stadium is really impressive and the directions to the correct gates were clear. The concert and atmosphere were phenomenal – and yet B fell asleep 30 minutes into Mr Joel’s set. She woke up towards the end of the concert, just in time for Piano Man, We Didn’t Start the Fire and Uptown Girl. The girl’s timing is impeccable. 9-year-old E was bopping away & singing her heart out for the whole concert & assured us it was the best she’d ever been to!

We didn’t rush to get up on the Sunday morning, but by 11.30am we were outside Trinity College ready to see the Book of Kells. Again, this was a lucky break for us. We had wandered past the day before & seen the queues for tickets. Another quick Google search secured us tickets for Sunday, but I would definitely recommend booking beforehand if you can!

Both my girls love reading, particularly E, so both were excited to see the oldest book in the world. It was well worth seeing, and the information in the exhibition was fascinating, but the crowds were on the heavy side. We basically had to stick elbows out to try and get close enough to see the book!

The Long Room, on the hand, really wowed the kids. It’s the main chamber of Trinity College’s Old Library and is just beautiful. We’ve been to museums and galleries before with the children and know that attention spans are not going to last as long as you’d like. Younger children are probably not going to want to spend hours reading every panel and examining every artifact. If you go in knowing before going in that it’s going to be a ‘highlights’ tour, I would say you’re going to have a much better experience.

After leaving Trinity College, we took a long walk through Dublin to get to The Cake Cafe (https://www.thecakecafe.ie/), just off Pleasant Street. the entrance was slightly disguised – so keep an eye out for the sign hanging above the gates. The Cake Cafe is a hidden gem, serving delicious cakes and biscuits in a small, flowery courtyard. It was lovely! It also has the added bonus of leading into The Last Bookshop, where we spent a nice while rummaging through the shelves to find a new read. Cake and books: what more could you ask for?

Now, with happily filled stomachs, we walked back towards our hotel, stopping in Anne’s Lane to see the umbrellas there. I love a good street art installation, so had the camera ready. The kids were not quite as interested after the initial ‘ooh’ factor – so after a couple of snaps were taken, we moved on.

It was time to head back to the hotel, collect our bags and speed off towards the airport. We were back in Cardiff by 7pm and ready for school / work the next morning. Definitely a whirlwind weekend, but I think we got a good balance. We didn’t exhaust ourselves, but packed enough in to feel like we had a good flavour of Dublin. And it’s certainly on our list of places to revisit – perhaps for slightly longer next time!