On October 16, 2012 I booked the hostel I will be staying at for my 5 nights in Belfast, Ireland! It took me almost a month to write this post about it because I've been so busy with work and school. However, I am really excited about finally booking the place(s)where I will be staying at during this trip.
In Belfast, I will be staying at a hostel, Global Village. it is in University Road, which is close to Queen's University and that is a university I want to check out whilst I am there. also from the website it seemed to be a clean hostel, centrally located, so it seemed a good one. I booked a private room. since the room is for two people I had to pay double to get the room all to myself, which is worth it to me. I will be staying there from March 10-March 14, and will leave Belfast for Dublin on the 15th. the link for the hostel is: http://globalvillagebelfast.com/. I only paid the deposit of 10%, $33, the rest, $303, is due when I check in.
On March 15, I will go from Belfast to Dublin, and in Dublin will stay at the Grafton Guesthouse, http://graftonguesthouse.com/ until March 17, and then on March 18, I will fly back stateside. I did book a single room at the Grafton Gueshouse. it is not a hostel's. I will be in Dublin for St.Patrick's weekend, and all the hostels on hostworld were almost entirely booked up or WAY too expensive for me. I checked the website on the 15th and saw that there was still open spots, and by the next afternoon when I went to make the booking, there were no rooms left. well, there were, but not for the entire 3 nights I need, and I did not want to book a different hostel each night. I searched and searched for a good hour, and finally found this one. it seems centrally located, and it is a hotel not a hostel so it is expensive. still, it looks nice and clean, and centrally located, and all 3 nights were free. so I booked it and paid the deposit. the rest, $343, is due when I get there. so the total amount I need to save for both Belfast and Dublin for hotels is $650. more expensive than I thought, but doable. by the end of December I should have it all saved up, and still have 2.5 months to save up for day-to-day expenses.
Booking the hostel and hotel, made me so excited! I now have the flight booked, and the hotels booked, so it is official: I am going to Ireland during Spring Break! It made it real, it made it more of a real plan than a dream. it is becoming a reality. I am so excited for this! I'm already thinking about going back Spring 2014 since from planning this trip, I know there are so many other places in Ireland that I would love to go check out but don't have the time on this trip. but for now, Belfast and Dublin are the two cities I'm gonna check out, and book an all day tour outside each city for each one. this trip is going to be amazing, and it promises to be very interesting and fun. :) :)
