Day Trippin
So, I'm planning my trip to London and Paris for the end of February. I still refuse to fly but it's easy enough to find land routes, even if it's a bit more costly. I priced round-trip ferry and train tickets to London from Dublin and it was about 300 euro. With some more extensive fishing around I found this: http://www.seat61.com/Ireland.htm Long story short (because it's actually more confusing than this website leads you to believe), I can get round-trip tickets for 82 euro. Same exact trip. Sweet.
But I can't figure out how to book it. I'm traveling from Dublin to London so I can't contact the sail/rail people because thats UK to Ireland. I couldn't even call the phone number because I didn't know the UK country code, but that's a moot point cause they can't really help me anyway. I called the phone number for Irish Railways that's listed, but the same thing always happens (at any time of day)... "Please hold for bookings....(wait 3 seconds)... Goodbye" *CLICK*. Every frickin time. So I went to the Irish ferries link... it doesn't actually tell you any info... just how to order a brochure for rail/sail from Ireland. Great. And it mentions how you save 10 euro by booking online... but I don't see the special fares available anywhere (don't even get me starting on all their dumb broken links... grr).
So I call Irish Ferries to see if I can get some info. Indeed I can! I can get the tickets, for 82 euro over the phone. I cannot book them online because they are "hand written tickets". I also cannot go into their office and book them because they have no longer have offices anymore... so it has to be done by phone and credit card only. They'll just jot my details and mail them out to me... my hand written tickets. This has trouble written all over it. But I'm a glutton for punishment, so of course I'm going this route. I'm going to call back later today once I book the hotels because I want to allow for PLENTY of time for someone to HAND WRITE my TRAIN and FERRY tickets and mail them out to my address that no one can ever seem to find.
I'm going to do all that after I go to the bank to find out WHAT HAPPENED TO MY ATM CARD that they promised they were going to mail to me last month. The replacement for the one that had the WRONG NAME on it because the data entry clerk didn't look how my name was spelled on the forms I filled out in TRIPLICATE.
OK, ok, *breath*... I'm off.
But I can't figure out how to book it. I'm traveling from Dublin to London so I can't contact the sail/rail people because thats UK to Ireland. I couldn't even call the phone number because I didn't know the UK country code, but that's a moot point cause they can't really help me anyway. I called the phone number for Irish Railways that's listed, but the same thing always happens (at any time of day)... "Please hold for bookings....(wait 3 seconds)... Goodbye" *CLICK*. Every frickin time. So I went to the Irish ferries link... it doesn't actually tell you any info... just how to order a brochure for rail/sail from Ireland. Great. And it mentions how you save 10 euro by booking online... but I don't see the special fares available anywhere (don't even get me starting on all their dumb broken links... grr).
So I call Irish Ferries to see if I can get some info. Indeed I can! I can get the tickets, for 82 euro over the phone. I cannot book them online because they are "hand written tickets". I also cannot go into their office and book them because they have no longer have offices anymore... so it has to be done by phone and credit card only. They'll just jot my details and mail them out to me... my hand written tickets. This has trouble written all over it. But I'm a glutton for punishment, so of course I'm going this route. I'm going to call back later today once I book the hotels because I want to allow for PLENTY of time for someone to HAND WRITE my TRAIN and FERRY tickets and mail them out to my address that no one can ever seem to find.
I'm going to do all that after I go to the bank to find out WHAT HAPPENED TO MY ATM CARD that they promised they were going to mail to me last month. The replacement for the one that had the WRONG NAME on it because the data entry clerk didn't look how my name was spelled on the forms I filled out in TRIPLICATE.
OK, ok, *breath*... I'm off.