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| Cows…they are cute. |
“Fascinating Fact of the Day About Ireland”
“Sports are huge in Ireland. Irish people take their sports seriously and get very into soccer, hurling, camogie, and handball.”
We’re running out of photos and need to get out to take more. With the cold and rainy days this week, continuing today and possibly into Sunday, any remaining photos are at a premium.
Today, we’re working on the various holiday houses we’ve selected for the 62 nights in England beginning on August 23, 2019, where we’ll stay while we are awaiting a transatlantic cruise to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, ending on November 8, 2019.
We’ll spend some time in the US visiting family and friends. During this period, we’ll head to Nevada, where we’ll see son Richard and sister Susan, who live an hour apart and take care of some “business.”
We’ll need to renew our driver’s licenses and also our passports which will expire in 2021. It makes sense to renew our passports while already in the US, which requires us to mail in our current passports while the renewals are processed.
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| Donkeys are highly regarded as rescue animals in Ireland. |
We don’t want to send our passports to the US Department of State while in another country. It’s unsafe to be without our passports in hand and based on our history. We cannot depend on the mail getting to us in a timely fashion.
A few nights ago, we rented a car for our time in England. Like those in Ireland, prices are higher than we’ve paid anywhere in the world over the past almost seven years.
As we often do, we use tentalcars.com to book rental cars since we’ve found their prices to be the most reasonable. Also, we’re able to select a vehicle from the many providers they work with, including Hertz, Avis, Alamo, Europcar (our favorite), and others.
We recently booked the rental car from Rentalcars.com with a company with which we weren’t familiar Easirent. In error, we failed to read the terms and conditions of their car rentals.
When we arrived in Dublin, Ireland, almost three weeks ago, we discovered a few disturbing shocks; one, the Easirent pick-up location was far from the airport, and when we called for the shuttle, they explained their shuttle was “down.” We’d have to take a taxi, paying out of our pocket.
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| Shearing sheep is a popular business in Connemara. |
This was ridiculous. I was determined not to let this fact slide. I spoke to a manager at Easirent and insisted they send someone to pick us up or we were going to cancel our three months rental. We waited outside for about 30 minutes for the arrival of a driver.
Once we arrived at the Easirent office, we were shocked once again. No doubt, our error wasn’t reading the terms and conditions in advance of making the booking. Little did we know that this company charged an additional Euro 2800, US $3135.57 for the excess, a fee to cover costs in the event of an accident which were charged to our credit card, not just “held.”
After we paid all the fees (not including insurance) Euro 4826, US $5404.37 including a “fuel fee” (Euro 95, US $106.39), we were frustrated we’d had to have this entire amount charged on our credit card and…that it would take three weeks after returning the car for the excess to be returned to our card.
The actual cost for the car was Euro 1471, US $1647.29. What a ripoff! As we perused rental car options a few evenings ago, we bypassed every Easirent offering knowing full well it wouldn’t be acceptable.
Europcar only charged a refundable security deposit Pound Sterling 250, US $316 and Pounds Sterling 1200, US $1517 for the “excess” (on a credit card hold on that portion of the credit card used) and fully released from the card a few days after returning the car.
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| Here again, the little horns are growing. Here’s a link on why some sheep have horns and others do not. |
As a result of the differences and procedures for Easirent and Europcar (and Avis, Alamo, and Hertz), we will never book a car through Easirent again. The prices for the actual rental car itself are similar amongst all the cars, depending on the value and style selected.
It’s all of these other charges that made a huge difference, along with the inconveniences we faced when we arrived in Dublin, exhausted from the long flights from South Africa and dealing with immigration in South Africa.
Today, as we book the multiple holiday homes in the UK, we’ll be mapping the various locations for the most convenient options. Once booked and approved by the owners, we’ll share some photos and details.
Once again, we’re reminded of the importance of reviewing the terms and conditions for all travel venues, whether rentals, cars, cruises, hotels, and flights.
This was the first time we’d failed to review the terms and conditions, but we’ve learned our lesson and won’t avoid doing so in the future. I can only excuse us for being distracted when we booked the car only a few weeks before Sleavingouth Africa for Ireland.
Hopefully, tomorrow we’ll have pinned down our time in England and have news to share.
Have a fantastic weekend!
Photo from one year ago today, June 1, 2018:
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| Frank, our resident Francolin, who’s decided to make our yard his permanent residence. Francolins are highly territorial and extremely noisy when other francolins invade his space, except, of course, for Mrs. Frank. They’ve been building a nest. Francolins are monogamous and mate for life. They nest in grass-lined low-lying shallows. The incubation period is from 18 to 21 days carried out by the female. Once the eggs hatch, both parents tend to the chicks until their first winter. We’re looking forward to Frank’s and the Mrs.’ chicks. For more photos, please click here. |