Previously, I have shared about my day trip to the Cliffs of Moher well as to Galway. No doubt, the go to car rental company that I would always rent from would be Sixt! This German car rental company consistently provide me with the cheapest rates among all. I also do have status with them as well. Although Sixt membership is rather weird, it does not provided any points or accrual towards free rental but only give cheaper rates as well as some perks such as mileage, upgrades……etc! I would love to share my experience with Sixt Dublin after having such great experience in the past. The pricing seems to be rather weird. Since I was only doing a day rental I wanted to rent for the longest hours possible. It is kind of weird that the cheapest combination comes up to renting from one branch and returning at another one since only the later had after hours return. The whole rental come up to 45.30 Euro!
I just rented the most basic auto transmission car model which was a Toyota Altis. We were there right at 8am sharp when the branch is open. There was a slight wait though. I guess that we had some bad luck to encounter a super angsty guy because the other lady that served the customer in front of us was an absolutely gem! We didn’t managed to get an upgrade which was kinda ridiculous, the guy barely smiled and talk to us. He did not go thru the damages on the car with us which made me spend additional time with pictures and go back to him. He also did not pass us the car park ticket which was required to get out of the facility. Needless to say, there is no escort to the car. Definitely this will go down as the worst Sixt experience ever!
It was a super basic Toyota Altis that was alright. It is rather smooth to drive in the city at low speed and of course being a Toyota it is rather fuel efficient. The car also comes with rear parking camera, bluetooth and USB port. Simple car for zipping around. Although the car does get a little bit unsteady and incapable of handling high speed at around 120-130 KM/hr. I guess that is the main difference between a Japanese and a European car.
We drove almost cross country I would say, from Dublin to the cliffs and then to Galway and return back to Dublin. In Ireland, they drive on the left and it is in the metric system where speed are in km per hour. The highest level of roads are known as the Motorways which are like the highways that we have in Singapore. You can drive up to 120 km/h. The next level would be the primary and secondary roads which goes up to 100 km/h. While traffic are usually light outside of the city centre and especially the notorious M50 do pay attention for speed cameras.
Tolls! This I find it to be the most annoying deterrence for a road trip in Ireland. There are tolls everywhere, on the M50, on the way to Galway. Super annoying. Some of them are automated like the busy M50 while others you have a choice to go pass automated ones to pay in cards or manual ones to pay in cash. Like those with an attendant. Old School. They are of different amounts and you have to have loose change. If you carelessly go into a wrong gantry, you might just be stuck there. Rule of hand. slow down and pay attention, try to go to the manual ones to play safe. it is rather expensive too. just for a day we paid close to 20 Euros in tolls.
Petrol cost roughly the same, not much difference in comparison to Europe as well as Singapore. Overall, I do not really enjoy driving in Ireland due to the traffic as wells the tolls. Furthermore parking is hard to find and expensive. All these complicates everything! Although I have to say the similarities in driving orientation as well as the measuring system makes it easy enough for any commonwealth nations which includes Singapore! Overall not a good experience but as usual, Sixt offers the cheapest rates. Let me know how your experience is!
Seeing The World In Steps 