We arrived at the Hyatt Centric The Liberties hotel around 11:30am and our rooms were not quite ready. We stored our luggage and went for a walk to shake off the jetlag. Thankfully it was a beautiful day in Dublin with temperatures in the 50s and blue skies.

We walked about 20 minutes over to St. Stephen’s Green and walked through the park. Lots of people were out and about due to the great weather.

We found Grafton Street, the pedestrianized shopping area, and walked around to check out the stores and the musicians playing in the street. From there, we walked over to Temple Bar and then to Christ Church.

By this time, we were hungry so we grabbed fish and chips from the famous Leo Burdock’s across from Christ Church and ate it on the church grounds (along with many others). It was just OK. We definitely way over-ordered as two people can easily split an order of fish and chips.

Around this time, I got a call that our rooms were ready so we walked back to the Hyatt and checked in. I’ll have a full review of the hotel in the next segment of this trip report.

After we all took a nap, I went for a walk by St. Patrick’s Cathedral (which was very close to the hotel) and Dublin Castle.

On the way back, I explored the neighborhood around the hotel, which had several whiskey distilleries. Our daughter and her boyfriend had gone for a walk as well and I met them for a pint at the historic pub next to the hotel.

After calling around to a few gastropubs, we realized that Ireland was playing New Zealand in the Rugby World Cup quarterfinals that night so every place with a TV was completely booked up. We ended up eating dinner at the hotel and it was surprisingly good and not too expensive. We also ended up watching the rugby match along with everyone else in Dublin.

The next morning, I was able to score us tickets to Kilmainham Gaol (pronounced “jail”) when they posted their cancelations around 9:15am. If you can’t buy tickets when they go on sale, check in the morning of the day you want to visit and you should be able to grab tickets if you’re not too fussy about the time. Since we had a Guinness tour booked at noon, we grabbed Gaol tickets for 3pm.

We took it easy in the morning as everyone caught up on sleep. We had a big breakfast at the hotel and then walked over to St. Patrick’s for a craft market around 11am before walking about 25 minutes to the Guinness Storehouse for our noon tour.

Frankly, I was a little disappointed with the Guinness tour. It’s just a self-guided walk up through the different floors of the building where they show how the beer is made, how it’s marketed and how to drink it (with a small sample) before you head to the rooftop bar (visible in the top right of the picture above) for a sample pint and views of Dublin.

The views at the top were great though. It took a little while to grab a table but once we had one, we enjoyed the beer (well, I did) and the views.

As we were hungry, we grabbed lunch at the casual dining restaurant in the building. While I enjoyed my lunch, the others didn’t love their choices.

From Guinness, we walked back toward the center of town and stopped at The Brazen Head, the oldest pub in Dublin. I enjoyed another pint and the kids ordered some food to make up for the bad lunch at Guinness.

As our prison tour time was approaching we grabbed an Uber-Taxi and headed to Kilmainham. Quick aside about Uber and taxis in Dublin: While you can use the Uber app to order and pay for a ride in Ireland, it will still be a regular taxi as Uber itself is illegal. Essentially, you get a price range for your ride and the driver will put in the meter total which will show up in the app with the opportunity to tip (not required there). I think it was a bit more expensive than just ordering a regular taxi, but obviously, time is money on vacation, so I was glad for the convenience of ordering a car and paying via the app.

We loved our tour of Kilmainham Gaol. It was probably our favorite thing we did in Dublin. It definitely helped that Mary, our tour guide, was engaging and extremely knowledgeable. The prison has a long and dark history going back a couple of hundred years.

The tour lasted around 90 minutes and we were pretty exhausted afterwards as we had walked about eight miles that day in total. We headed back to the hotel and my wife and I spent the next couple of hours resting and watching NFL RedZone (thanks to VPN). The kids had more energy so they explored Grafton Street a bit more and found a hidden speakeasy.

That night we had dinner at Pickle, an Indian restaurant in the Camden Street area, walking distance from the hotel. Some of us enjoyed it more than others, but since I planned the trip, I got to pick the restaurant 🙂

After dinner, we grabbed an Uber-taxi back to the Hyatt and had dessert there as we had enjoyed it the previous night. The next morning, I walked over to the Conrad hotel and picked up my rental car at the Sixt location there. I picked up the group from the Hyatt and we headed west for our next adventure.

While there was probably much more we could have seen and done in Dublin, we got a good taste of the city and saw quite a bit in a day and a half. It gave us a chance to stretch our legs, get over our jetlag and get our first taste of Ireland (and Guinness!) Kilmainham Gaol is a must-do highlight but you can skip the Guinness tour and do something else instead if your time is limited.

Up Next: Hyatt Centric The Liberties Dublin Review

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