Hi Liz
We returned from Ireland on Monday evening. It was a great trip.
We enjoyed the tour and had a nice group and tour guide to travel with. And the weather cooperated, too — it was misty for a few minutes on one day only, then the rest of the days were partly sunny and cool — like fall here. I loved it! What a treat to get a break from the heat.
The only negative in the trip was when we stayed at the City Hotel in Derry. I have to say it wasn’t very clean — when we went to turn down the bed at night we noticed blood splatters on the inside of the duvet and on the bottom sheet. And several others in our group felt, too, that their rooms were unclean. Although we had requested a wake-up call one morning, the call never came and we were late for the bus departure. Others in the group mysteriously received wake-up calls at 4:30 and 5:30 in the morning that they hadn’t requested. It was the only hotel on the trip that I can say I would never go back to. The others were great, and the Cabra Castle, where we stayed the last night, was just beautiful.
And I did get to see my donkey at the sanctuary! It meant so much to me. What a beautiful place — home to about 300 donkeys. I spoke at length with the manager/owner, and I’m going to be working with him to try to help him with promoting the sanctuary and increasing its visibility in the states. Seeing as I work in advertising/marketing, he’s hoping I might be able to help with promoting it in the U.S.
And lastly, the driver that we had on our day trip to the sanctuary — Liam Sears — we can’t say enough good things about him. He made the day so much fun, and he was so kind and happy to see the donkeys himself. We truly enjoyed his company. Is there any way I can e-mail his employer and let them know what a great job he did?
So that about sums it up. Thank you, Liz, for all of your help and patience with our many questions/changes in terms of this trip.
We will most definitely contact you in the future should we plan a return trip to Ireland, which, of course, I hope we will!
Best,
Sandra