Dublin – April 2014

Today was our last day in the Irish capital. After we had checked out and left our bags, we headed out for a walk in the sunshine by the River Liffey to the ferry terminal. It is worth noting that a cycle path also runs alongside the river making for an easy roll for a wheelchair user…

We decided to do a circular route crossing the River Liffey and winding our way back to the hotel upon which we discovered the Aviva Stadium, more to ones taste due to its glass structure…

Though out this blog, one hasn’t discussed the accessibility side to Dublin, as with any big city nowadays the centre is completely accessible. The issues begin when you start to enter the suburbs as the drop curbs are more like lowered down bits of concrete!

Anyway, we returned to the hotel to picked up by the prearranged taxi driver (this was not Mr Perfect). We arrived at Terminal 2 at about half 3 and checked in without any issues and Dublin Airport were really helpful getting one on the plane. After waiting about an hour in the queue to take off, we had a lovely flight back where it was clear skies all the way, so went spotting over Wales. We arrived back into Bristol with the ground crew becoming puzzled yet again. As we were being driven back, to the terminal we heard on the radio that apparently I had gone missing, that is Bristol Airport for you.

In May, one will be crossing the pond for a 3 week adventure across America and Canada!

For the past two days, one has been trying to settle the argument with Jury’s Inn Hotel regarding payment. The hotel insisted that we find a HSBC bank in order to verify that payment has been made and gave us strict instructions on how to get there which we followed to the letter. After about 20 minutes of searching for a bank in the place where it said on Google Maps, we resulted to asking members of the public. This was perhaps a bad idea as it turned out that the majority were foreigners or Irish people not from Dublin. One then realised that there was a phone number on Maps, however, that ended up being the head office who said that there was no HSBC banks in Dublin or the entirety of Ireland, very confusing!

The irony is that we ended up discovering the Docklands area with some amazing architecture which provided some great photo opportunities…

One then followed some more strict instructions to get to Croke Park Stadium which I had on good authority is an amazing building…..I beg to differ. We walked through some rather rough Irish housing estates which one would avoid after dark..

After being barked at by several dogs, the structure presented itself. Granted, it’s impressive but debatable whether it’s worth walking about half an hour to see as it took 2 minutes to walk around the whole stadium, but then one doesn’t like football?

We then walked through some more weird and wonderful housing estates and managed to find out way back to the city centre where we stopped off for some lunch. The restaurant was rather strange as they couldn’t get the orders for a simple sandwich right, so one doesn’t recommend a place called The Living Rooms. We then spent the rest of the afternoon wondering around Dublin shopping district which, as one would expect from a small country only has a finite amount of things to do…

It seems that everything in Ireland is very expensive so you would expect it to be of good quality. However, one went into an American style restaurant where a calzone was ordered for a high price, however, it seemed to be heated up from a ready meal. In addition, a cheesecake was ordered simply to find out if it was a so called New York Cheese Cake, it was far from it. As it was the last night in Dublin we went for a pint, or a half pint if your me, of Guinness!

Tomorrow, we plan to have a stroll along the River Liffey before flying home at 5.30pm, which will be interesting once again.

We woke up to another sunny day and, after breakfast, we headed out onto the LUAS which is the Dublin tram system and is conveniently located next to our hotel. The entire LUAS rolling stock consists of low floor vehicles allowing for level boarding. This makes it the perfect way for wheelchair users to navigate the city of Dublin…

It is worth noting that the area around Dublin Zoo coming from the train station isn’t particularly wheelchair friendly thus caution needs to be taken. Disabled individuals can enter for a concession with one FREE companion, in total it came to about €25 for three people. One then realised the scale of the zoo which spans around 69 acres and worked out that it was a pretty good deal for what we had paid. It must of taken us about 3 hours to walk around the zoo discovering animals like giraffes and elephants…

As you would expect from a major attraction in Ireland, Dublin Zoo is completely accessible thus making it a perfect day out for a wheelchair user. We then stopped for lunch after trying several places which only had outside seating which is a no go for me as there were pigeons or as I like to call them the DEVIL! We resorted to the restaurant and discovered that the zoo doesn’t stock straws because they pose a risk to animals, apparently it was a result of a monkey choking on one, seriously?

Tomorrow, we plan to wander to Croke Park Stadium, if we can find a way to get there that is!

Before one delves into writing about Dublin, let me introduce Superbunny (on the right of the below photo). Compared to ones other wheelchair, Superbunny is much less breakable when flying (one hopes anyway)…

Today was ones first time flying with an electric wheelchair, definitely a learning experience! As you can fly from Dublin from Bristol, that was the obvious choice of airport. After check in, we got told to go over to the special assistance point, where there was nothing but a phone on the table requesting one to ring a number to get assistance around the airport even though half of it we didn’t need anyway, but they were very helpful, but also a little patronising making me want to kill them by the end of it!

We got onto the ambulift which took us out to the airfield, I have never stood on an airfield before, it’s quite windy! Anyway, there was a large group of ground crew deciding the best way to get my electric wheelchair onto the plane and then, like normal, they decided to lift it, I’m sure health and safety went out the window!

After a short flight, we arrived in Dublin where we were greeted by yet another ambulift. Opposed to Bristol where they lifted my wheelchair, it seemed that Dublin had the sense to use equipment, it was like a luggage conveyer belt which they used to get ones luggage off the plane. As usual, one skipped through security, there are benefits of being disabled sometimes! We were then escorted out of the terminal and all the way to our fully accessible taxi with our Polish driver.

You may have thought the flight would have been the most difficult part of the journey, but in fact our troubles hadn’t even began yet! We entered the hotel to be told that they forgot to read the comments section on the booking form which clearly stated that the room needed to be wheelchair accessible, it transpires that they didn’t have a wheelchair accessible room. We were then told that we would be transferred to another hotel, which we waited a hour just for an accessible taxi to take us there. This taxi driver, who was foreign, seemed to have an obsession with the word ‘perfect’ as it was used in nearly every sentence. We finally arrived at another hotel where we were informed that apparently we had not paid for any of our accommodation when it stated on the paperwork that it was prepaid, so one got a little stressed and stroppy with the staff in both hotels. By this time it was around 5pm, and we hadn’t even eaten, so we decided to get a pizza takeaway to eat in the room. After all this palaver, one decided to go for a little roll into the centre where the Dublin Spire is located (which was completed 3 years late, fun fact!)…

As we are in Ireland, it was only appropriate to finish the day with a pint of Guinness…

Tomorrow we aim to explore the train station and then explore one of the city’s main attractions, Dublin Zoo!