Puzzle with English, Irish and Welsh elements

[whole diary]

[grahame]

Help - I feel like I'm taking "Fare's Fair" over.   I'm planning for later this month ...

1. Wednesday, 26th June - from Cambridge Science Park at 12:00 Midday, can't fly (too much equipment) to CityWest, Dublin for 09:00 on Thursday, 27th June.   Prefer a longer overnight crossing (Liverpool to Dublin would be idea) to get a good night's sleep.  Second choice is to cross in the evening and get a hotel on the other side

2. Friday 28th June - from CityWest at 17:00 to ... Well I'm on holiday from that point onwards, with a 16:00 pickup of the keys for a holiday cottage near Harlech.   Need to have a car there;   Lisa will drive some of the way, but not all the way through the Wales.

My "best" so far ... Wednesday, SailRail from Cambridge to Dublin, on the horrid middle of the night ferry from Holyhead. Thurday - 18:38 Dublin to Rosslare, irritatingly misses the boat, stop in hotel overnight.  Morning boat, train to Carmarthen to meet Lisa there.  Is a Dublin to UK^▸ (United Kingdom) Sailrail valid for that?

I'm happy within Dublin - shuttle bus from ferry to Dublin in the morning, and Luas to CityWest

Ideas to improve on my initial thoughts, folks?

[Rhydgaled]

Carmarthen is still quite a way 'across Wales' from Harlech...

Sadly Harlech is a long way round by rail from either Holyhead or Fishguard, I guess that's why you said you need a car. Using only public transport, a bus from Bangor to Porthmadog is probably the best way to get to Harlech from one of those ports.

I'm not a fares expert, but on the fishguardtrains.info site I'm pretty sure they said you can get rail-sail tickets from Ireland to UK^▸ (United Kingdom) via Rosslare/Fishguard, whereas in the other direction you can only book UK to Rosslare as some of the connections on the Irish side are missing.

[grahame]

Notable silence on this thread ... I've still not booked and wonder if anyone can spot any ideas I've missed. I will have too much luggage to fly, want to avoid having to transfer from train to boat or vice versa in the middle of the night as that could badly effect the course  am to give on arrival in Dublin.   Prefer not to drive, but the Liverpool -> Dublin boat does not take foot passengers, and I don't really want to have a car with me on the way back either.

[WSW Frome]

Rail Sail ticket info from Ireland is shown on the Stena.ie site. From memory such tickets via Rosslare now cover only Dublin area to Rosslare stations. Via Dublin-Holyhead, I recall a wider geographical area being available. Both will cover the current question, if an onward rail journey to Harlech is viable.   

[grahame]

From memory such tickets via Rosslare now cover only Dublin area to Rosslare stations.

Not even those - I was advised that if I wanted to travel from beyond Rosslare, I would need to book separate even though the Stena site says otherwise (15 Euros extra).  "Via Fishguard" looking more and more impractical as I looked at timings.

On the good side, Stena are now running a second boat on Holyhead to Dublin, and it's recently started to take foot passengers.  So that means I'm off Cambridge at 13:45 and into Dublin port at 23:45; that late, I have pre-booked a taxi to my hotel.

Coming back on the morning Irish Ferries boat on the Saturday, and I've got a road pickup at Chirk at 14:00.

I'll advise how it goes, take plenty of puzzle pictures, and come back with a fare summary too.

[TonyK]

Last time Mrs FTN and myself sailed to the Emerald Isle, we had no plan beyond Rosslaire. On docking, we found two trrains waiting, and decided to take the Wexford one. Finding that the other left first, we took that, to Waterford. It continued to Dublin. From memory, and it must be around 2002, it was like a step back in time, good fun, not very fast, and cheap. Also friendly - we got the same train out of Weford towards Dublin a couple of days later, and were met by the conductor with "Ah, it's yourselves!" It was loco hauled, about 8 carriages. It was an inter-city service, but still went along the street in Waterford, no fences or anything like that.

[grahame]

Last time Mrs FTN and myself sailed to the Emerald Isle, we had no plan beyond Rosslaire. On docking, we found two trrains waiting, and decided to take the Wexford one. Finding that the other left first, we took that, to Waterford. ...

Alas, the line from Rosslare to Waterford has been closed, as has the station at Rosslare Harbour to be replaced by one a few hunted yards (?) up the road.  Saves tracks on the harbour / level crossings etc.    Services / connections are poor - I looked at taking the morning boat from Rosslare to Fishguard, but there's no early morning train at all (from anywhere) to connect with it.   So that would have been a night in a hotel at Rosslare Europort.  There is a train from Dublin to connect with the evening boat (from Dublin at around 16:30) ... and that lands you at Fishguard at around 1 a.m.    All very disjoined - you would have thought that with an elapsed time of around 10 hour travelling, a daytime journey from Dublin (capital of Ireland) to Cardiff (capital of Wales) would have been possible!