In a mere 48 hours, we went from feeling like royalty, living in the lap of luxury …. to common Irish peasants, ready to harvest potatoes.

This is where we thought we were staying. Isn’t it stunning?

We booked a two-room cottage next to Adare Manor. This was because two adjacent rooms in the actual Manor were out of our comfortable price range. Way out of our price range!

For some reason, I was under the impression that the cottages were near the Manor and that we would have full access to the Manor itself. Turns out they were more than a mile away. No matter, we didn’t end up in a cottage anyway.

When we checked in, the woman at the reception desk said, “We’ve upgraded you to a villa.”

How wonderful is that? We were upgraded in Dublin to the Princess Grace Suite and now we were being upgraded from a cottage to a villa!

Even “Ugly Dougly” – as I’ve dubbed him – appeared to be happy for us!

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