Giant's Causeway - Best Town to base at?

Welease

Wife has always wanted to visit.. So decided to dump the kids at grannies and have a weekend away..

Looking for ideas on what town would be a good base for the weekend?

Looking for ideas of towns with a good restaurants, pubs/accomodation and shops etc to potter around during the day.. Nothing specific required, early 40's so no need for nightclubs .. Just decent market type towns or harbour towns for a relaxed weekend (i.e. smaller than Belfast)

Ideas appreciated...

Penfailed

Portrush? Harbour town, pubs, restaurants, er...shops. Harbour Bar is a good pub/restaurant all-in-one. (It isn't a shop though)

mr chips

Dunno if this is too late, but if you haven't made the trip yet then Ballycastle might be a more pleasant place to stay than Portrush. Some decent pubs, with a traditional music session every Thursday night in O'Connors and every Friday night in Tom's, aka House of McDonnell. I know the owner of the Glen Haven B&B and she'll look after you well. If her place is full there's another one called Acravilla that I've heard good things about. A new B&B I'd also recommend was featured recently on TV - it's called Teach an Cheoil and is located outside Ballyvoy about three miles from the town. I know the owner of that one too!

Call down to Johnny Joe's in Cushendall for your dinner one of the nights.

DaithiOGormain

Portrush would be your best bet, I think. Personally, I can recommend 'Adelphi Portrush' http://www.adelphiportrush.com/, which is a four star family run 'Boutique Hotel' with lovely food and a great health spa, as well as a cosy atmosphere and fairly reasonable prices. Currently, prices for a double room are at around £75 per night, including breakfast and use of the spa. From experience, this is probably the nicest hotel in the area. If you don't want to stay in Portrush, Derry is a lovely city, though quite far from the Giants Causeway. Carrickfergus is a nice place to stay (I live there), but it is 45 miles down the coast from the Giants Causeway, so fairly far, although the road to the Causeway from there is very scenic and beautiful.

slapbangwallop

As an outsider I would say Ballycastle.

One of the nicest places I've ever been to.

The Guvnor

Is the causeway and the rope bridge something one could do in a comfortable day if driving from Dundalk?

Penfailed

I'd say so...

mr chips

The Guvnor wrote: »

Is the causeway and the rope bridge something one could do in a comfortable day if driving from Dundalk?

Roughly a couple of hours each way for the trip there & back, possibly a bit less nowadays with the Newry bypass. At busy times like weekends during the tourist season, the wait to get across the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge can take a while - I've queued for 20-30 minutes to take people across, and 10-15 minutes to come back. Been a while since I did, though, so they may have made things a bit more efficient in the meantime.

At the Causeway, it's worth walking along the upper cliff path first, rather than using the shuttle to go down & up to the main cluster of rocks that is all many tourists bother with. Haven't been at the new visitor centre so no idea how long you'll need to get through, but allow at least an hour for the walking around part (you could easily spend twice that if you want to). Car park there is dear enough, but I think there's a park & ride service from Bushmills village which should be cheaper.

Suggest you do the Causeway first, then you can get a feed at the Fullerton Arms in Ballintoy (village right next to the rope bridge).

martinedwards

the ramore restaurant in Portrush is pretty good. We would make the trip from Belfast just for a meal there.

Welease

Sorry I meant to post an thanks on this thread..

We have decided to locate in Portrush as suggested, in a nice B&B (Antrim House) in the centre of town.. Heading up in a couple of weeks. Will be popping into the Titanic exhibition on the way. Looking forward to it..

Thanks for the suggestions.

Raindog97

Welease wrote: »

Sorry I meant to post an thanks on this thread..

We have decided to locate in Portrush as suggested, in a nice B&B (Antrim House) in the centre of town.. Heading up in a couple of weeks. Will be popping into the Titanic exhibition on the way. Looking forward to it..

Thanks for the suggestions.

Looking to do a similar trip in a few weeks and was wondering how you got on staying in Portrush?

Welease

Raindog97 wrote: »

Looking to do a similar trip in a few weeks and was wondering how you got on staying in Portrush?

I wouldn't have any hesitation about staying in Portrush, I thought it was a typical nice seaside town with very friendly people, but to be honest our weekend there was so (for want of a better expression) wierd its difficult to review in the context of more normal weekends away I developed a extremely serious medical condition that weekend (unrelated to Portrush ) which gave me seizures every couple of hours and several operations on my brain since, and it was the weekend before The Irish Open so Portrush was unusually quiet.

That aside, it's a nice little town, some good little restaurants (although it seems 2 mainly that folks recommend.. 1 in the Harbour and 1 further up which were booked solid .. the rest seemed empty). There was a funfair there which when we passed by at about 9:30pm on Sat night has 2 people wandering around (yes, it was that quiet)..

It's a nice clean town.. good variety of bars/restaurants/hotels/B&B and a pleasant drive to wherever you are looking to visit I wouldn't hesitate to stay there again.

Have fun!

Raindog97

Welease wrote: »

I wouldn't have any hesitation about staying in Portrush, I thought it was a typical nice seaside town with very friendly people, but to be honest our weekend there was so (for want of a better expression) wierd its difficult to review in the context of more normal weekends away I developed a extremely serious medical condition that weekend (unrelated to Portrush ) which gave me seizures every couple of hours and several operations on my brain since, and it was the weekend before The Irish Open so Portrush was unusually quiet.

That aside, it's a nice little town, some good little restaurants (although it seems 2 mainly that folks recommend.. 1 in the Harbour and 1 further up which were booked solid .. the rest seemed empty). There was a funfair there which when we passed by at about 9:30pm on Sat night has 2 people wandering around (yes, it was that quiet)..

It's a nice clean town.. good variety of bars/restaurants/hotels/B&B and a pleasant drive to wherever you are looking to visit I wouldn't hesitate to stay there again.

Have fun!

Welease -- thanks for the reply and sorry the holiday wasn't ideal (to say the least).

We ended up staying in Ballycastle at a self-catering beach cottage, but went to Portrush for dinner at Ramore one night. Both towns were very nice and tranquil (especially in October). Between the two Portrush seemed more like a holiday destination -- boardwalk amusements, hotels, etc. whereas Ballycastle had a more 'local' feel and was quieter. Wouldn't hesitate to go back to either for a holiday. Beautiful area.

This was a great tool to find self-catering rentals:
http://www.discovernorthernireland.com/accomfinder/

Believe this was a better value than a hotel room in the area.

Only thing that wasn't good about the holiday was the fishing trip that never happened. One of the reasons we booked in Ballycastle over Portrush was a skipper there, <SNIP>, had agreed to take us out for seafishing Sunday morning (confirmed by email a few days in advance). When I called him Saturday though, he said that his boat was full and he couldn't take us out. I'd like to give him the benefit of the doubt and chalk it up to an honest mistake, but experience tells me otherwise. So, I would be careful if anyone is considering doing business with him. Apart from that, it was a wonderful weekend.

muffler

Good post Raindog97 and I'm glad to hear that you had a positive experience overall. I have removed a name from your post as the person in question obviously doesn't have the right to reply.

LovexxLife

Hi Sorry to drag this up again.
Hoping to bring my other half away for a surprise weekend in June.
Looking for a hotel for 2 nights B&B and a evening meal if I can include it in a deal or something.
Just wondering is there any hotels with a pool?