Isle of Man

The Black Oil

Haven't been there since the 1990s. Anyone been recently? Did you fly or get the ferry? It is worth bringing a car?

Alun

Went there in 2015 by ferry and took the car, an MX-5, for a week. It was OK, but a week was stretching it a bit. Visited the Laxey Wheel which was interesting, travelled the electric tram, climbed Snaefell and had a blast driving round the TT circuit at speed with the top down, and there's some nice enough walks if you're into that, but otherwise it seemed to be stuck in a 70s time warp to a large degree. The pubs were woeful, and the big hotels in the major towns looked pretty dingy too. We stayed in a b&b on a working farm which was fun, got to feed some young lambs and piglets and they had some Manx cats and kittens running around. The b&b was near the site of an internment camp that German citizens were sent to during WW II which I'd never heard of until then. In short I'm glad I went but I wouldn't be in a big hurry to go back.

The Black Oil

Thank you. I'm thinking more so a few days, not a week. There's a parkrun over there in Nobles park. Ferry was pretty pricey when I looked it up, August bank holiday, mind.

odyssey06

Are there more frequent ferry sailings in summer? I remember looking into it, wanted to go for a few days, either a long weekend or say monday - friday but the sailings seemed to be based on a full week.

Alun

Here's a summary of the Ireland - IOM sailings for 2022. The only way to do less than a week is to sail from Belfast as far as I can see,