Belfast Moot 2

[Inigo]

My wife and I attended the last one, and would like to be at this one too.

[Myrddin]

Silverstar hasn't posted yet? Someone needs to PM the Stark's Den Mother. :)

[Rimshot]

The plans are coming along nicely. Myself, SilverJaime & Jacmac30 are narrowing down possible venues and hope to have one sorted by the weekend. I know of one Tourney Knight who is coming with a few of his mates and I may have a Kingsguard and a member of the Nightwatch too!

You have been warned!!

[theMountainGoat]

You do realise that you are going to have to make sure you guys are not followed to our secret venue on Saturday, right? ;)

Have a good night out.

[Wyvernwood]

The plans are coming along nicely. Myself, SilverJaime & Jacmac30 are narrowing down possible venues and hope to have one sorted by the weekend. I know of one Tourney Knight who is coming with a few of his mates and I may have a Kingsguard and a member of the Nightwatch too!

You have been warned!!

I know this is Belfast - but that sounds a bit excessive for personal protection :)

Mart

[JacMac30]

Well I'm still not actually booked but I'm planning on arriving Thursday morning and leaving Saturday evening. Decided to make a few days of it. Hope to tour around a bit Fri/Sat. Fingers crossed the weather's good! :)

Thanks to Rimshot and Silverjaime for checking out the bars (I didn't do anything!). Well done guys.

Jackie - still deciding between leaving 5pm or 9pm Sat. Anyone else around the Sat?

[SamanthaofHodorsfield]

Well I guess I shall de-lurk and actually sign up for an account. I was going to use my facebook account like I do at WiC, but where is the fun in that? My days of lurking are over! I was going to try and get to the last one, but work got in the way, so, barring any more work (I can't believe I am, for once, praying I don't get a call for work), can I come to this one?

Couple of Qs though, for you Belfast residents. I was looking at travel, and I can either fly into Belfast International or Belfast City. Or I can be totally hardcore (aka in possession of a deathwish) and get the coach into Belfast Europa. Which is the most accessible? I mean, the one that isn't going to hit me with ridiculous taxi fares to get there and back each way?

Also, cheap hotels? Know any? Well, I should rather say, are there any you'd recommend that I avoid like the plague? Or, where are other people staying? I'll probably stay until Saturday and do touristy stuff on the Friday.......though depends on flights I guess.

[Wyvernwood]

Couple of Qs though, for you Belfast residents. I was looking at travel, and I can either fly into Belfast International or Belfast City. Or I can be totally hardcore (aka in possession of a deathwish) and get the coach into Belfast Europa. Which is the most accessible? I mean, the one that isn't going to hit me with ridiculous taxi fares to get there and back each way?

Also, cheap hotels? Know any? Well, I should rather say, are there any you'd recommend that I avoid like the plague? Or, where are other people staying? I'll probably stay until Saturday and do touristy stuff on the Friday.......though depends on flights I guess.

The City (George Best) Airport is closer to town, but you will probably get a cheaper flight to International (Jet2.com I think fly from Leeds ?) Friends tell me you can get a bus from the International airport to the Europa Hotel for about £9 return - will probably take about 30mins - and the Europa is pretty central. I would go with whatever is the cheapest, both airports are reasonably accessible (International is further from the city)

As for Hotels, there are quite a few - I have had friends stay at Jurys (http://belfasthotels.jurysinns.com/) - although there are others: Dukes, Ibis etc. I've asked a few friends to make some recommendations, and I'll post here again with them (living here you don't tend to use the hotels :))

Martin

[theMountainGoat]

Yes of course you can come, you would be very welcome.

A very good question - if flying in you definitely want Belfast City, the International Airport is a long long way outside the city, more like in the centre of Northern Ireland.

Where are the rest of the Bros and Lurkers at? I fear I may have put people off attending with all my warnings in the first post, just in case I wasn't clear - this will be AWESOME and you do want to be there!

[Wyvernwood]

The International airport is definitely 'doable' - just takes a little longer.

To to clarify - there is a bus service from Internation Airport to Belfast (Translink Airport Express 300) - it is £10 return (£7 single) - it runs about every 15 mins at peak times and takes 30-40 mins depending on traffic. I suspect that the cheaper flights offered via International Airport over the City Airport could swing it.

Buses from City airport is the Translink Airport Express 600 - and is £3 return (£2 single) - and takes approx 10-15 mins depending on traffic.

Martin

[SamanthaofHodorsfield]

Thanks very much guys. :D I'm looking at around £45 for a coach (and ferry) or £65 for a flight into Belfast Int. £20 more to not spend 10 hours with screaming children is a decent price to pay methinks, so I'm going to go ahead and book the flights when I remember where I put my purse. XD.

And I know that if you live in Belfast you aren't going to stay in a hotel. :P I just figured do you know of any areas where you shouldn't stay because it's like the ghetto or something? It's like Birmingham, where I used to live, there are most definitely areas I would advise people to stay out of, even if the hotel is dirt cheap.

Edited because I apparently haven't learnt to type yet and keep missing out words. lol

[theMountainGoat]

The venues we are looking at are in Belfast City Centre if that's any help.

[SamanthaofHodorsfield]

It does help yeah. I'm having a gander now.

[Renasko]

Hmm, I'm only down the road. Guess I should make my way to one of these moots, sometime. Count me in as a 'maybe'. I'll try and make it happen.

[JacMac30]

And I know that if you live in Belfast you aren't going to stay in a hotel. :P I just figured do you know of any areas where you shouldn't stay because it's like the ghetto or something? It's like Birmingham, where I used to live, there are most definitely areas I would advise people to stay out of, even if the hotel is dirt cheap.

Just to let you know that last year I flew into Belfast Int and got the bus in and it's easy. I got off at Royal Ave (before the bus station) because I was staying at the Premier Inn Waring Street. I'm probably going to book that hotel again. Last year it was 2 mins from the pub. This years proposed pub is a bit further away but we're talking 5/10 mins if that.

Oh and when booking the hotel don't worry too much about including breakfast as there's some great cafes around Belfast that serve breakfast at a 1/4 the price!

I remember being surprised when I got off the bus last year just how close everything was. It's hard to judge distances with Google Street View ;)

Look forward to meeting you. I too will be there until Sat so might see you about :)

Oh and this year I've chosen to go for the more expensive flight into Belfast City because the times are nicer. Don't have to get up at 4am!

[williamjm]

Also, cheap hotels? Know any? Well, I should rather say, are there any you'd recommend that I avoid like the plague? Or, where are other people staying? I'll probably stay until Saturday and do touristy stuff on the Friday.......though depends on flights I guess.

If you want somewhere really cheap you could to the hostel many of us stayed at for the last meet. I seem to remember it was about £10 a night, which combined with the 1p each way Ryanair flights meant it was a ridiculously cheap meet. The accommodation was very basic but adequate and it was a convenient central location.

Sadly, I won't be able to make it this time, have used up my holiday allowance for the year :(

[SamanthaofHodorsfield]

If you want somewhere really cheap you could to the hostel many of us stayed at for the last meet. I seem to remember it was about £10 a night, which combined with the 1p each way Ryanair flights meant it was a ridiculously cheap meet. The accommodation was very basic but adequate and it was a convenient central location.

Sadly, I won't be able to make it this time, have used up my holiday allowance for the year :(

I did look at hostels, and particularly that one - I stay in hostels a lot when working so it doesn't bother me. However, tripadvisor is giving some lousy reviews for that hostel which really put me off and that seemed to be the only really central one. I'm currently looking at the Ibis, as that seems pretty local and reasonably priced, though if most people are checking into the Premier Inn, I'll do that.

JacMac - awesome. Though flights on Saturday leave at ridiculous o'clock, so I'm considering returning the Friday evening instead. It's a 7:30pm flight, so I still have most of Friday. It just doesn't seem logical to pay for an extra night in a hotel just to get up at the crack of dawn to catch a plane. XD

[williamjm]

I did look at hostels, and particularly that one - I stay in hostels a lot when working so it doesn't bother me. However, tripadvisor is giving some lousy reviews for that hostel which really put me off and that seemed to be the only really central one.

I seem to remember last year we booked that hostel, and then somebody pointed out the abysmal tripadvisor reviews. I would say it was better than the reviews, there wasn't anything seriously wrong with it, but maybe we were lucky.

[theMountainGoat]

Yes but that was after Romulocks had arranged for us to move out of the room with the broken window that they had put us in first of all.

The Linen House is a dirt cheap hostel and you really do pay for what you get. It is not as bad as some of those reviews say and if you really do need to keep your costs to a minimum then you won't find cheaper, but I would not stay there again.

[lilsisorcha]

I am certainly hoping to be there not too far from Parris n Sermelt n co. :D