Recommendations for one night on Isle of Man

We have been on the IOM some years ago. We stayed in Douglas and made some trips around. To go to Port Erin we took the steam train. Then we where hiking around Port Erin. This was a nice day trip, but to stay over night I would prefer Douglas if I compare the two cities.

At Douglas we had a great diner at the Portofino Restaurant, 1 Bridge Rd, Douglas, Isle of Man IM1 5AG, Isle of Man.

To stay overnight we stayed with Pamela. She offers B&B over AirBnB (Huge emperor bed with en-suite). She is great but maybe this is not your style and it is not directly in Douglas centrum.

@alioth and @stolman may know more.

I can’t say anything about accomodation, I’ve never stayed in the island as a tourist (I did know a hotelier, but they left years ago and sadly died of COVID but that’s another subject). It depends what you mean by “modern accomodation”, if you mean new build “Premier Inn style” hotel, there’s only one I know of (Sefton Express by the airport) but again I’ve never stayed there!

I live almost in Port Erin.

Places we like to eat within walking distance of our house:

• Versa – hyper local food, very good quality (and the chef lives on our street so I have to promote them :-))
• Breagle Glen – curry house, we go every Friday, more or less.
• Shore at Gansey Bay (pub + restaurant)
• Station Port Erin (pub + restaurant)
• Fishery (Port St Mary) – although we’ve not been in a while because it’s the other direction from where we normally walk.
• There’s also a pizza place by the Bay which we get deliveries from, but they also have a small seating area.
• Foraging Vintners sometimes have food, but it’s not sit-down dinner type food typically.

Note that Versa and Breagle Glen are BYOs – if you want wine/beer, go to the co-op (almost next to Versa) on your way.

Places to have wine/beer:

• Foraging Vintners (2 locations – one by the life boat station, and a beach bar – nice to watch the sun set behind Bradda Head there). The beach bar is only open on good weather days as it’s outdoors. They also have their own ciders as well as wines.
• Albert (Port St Mary, overlooking the harbour) – beer is ALWAYS excellent.
• Bay (Port Erin) – again on Port Erin beach, although if you want to sit on the sea wall you’ll have to have a plastic glass.

We prefer Bushy’s beers, but Okell’s is fine also.

If you want to go a bit further afield, in Castletown there’s an Italian restaurant we like – Leonardo’s (which is a BYO, Co-Op is just across the square). There’s also a Japanese restaurant there, but good luck managing to book a table (we’ve been trying for months, it’s new and very popular). The Sidings by Castletown station also has lots of guest ales.

We don’t go into Douglas much so I can’t really say too much about it, but there are a couple of good Asian noodle places there we like (one very close to the steam railway station, and another further into town) and the North Quay has quite a lot of restaurants.

Walking:
You can take the coastal footpath from Port Erin (and by the ruins of the old marine biological station…) round to the Calf Sound (where there’s a cafe, so you can rest your feet) – and keep going around past the Chasms and the Sugar Loaf and end up next to the school in Port St Mary. You can do this as a loop. The Calf Sound is definitely worth a visit if you have time and like to watch nature.

Alternatively you can go up Bradda Head (up to Milner Tower – which you can go in, and look out from the top) and across the top of the headlands, and descend down into Fleshwick Bay, then come up the road from there and back into Port Erin, or keep going on the coast until you reach the Stacks, and walk back down the Sloc. There are some fairly steep gradients on this.

Getting from Ronaldsway:

It really depends on where you can park there, since we only stop there for fuel at area Mike, I don’t know what the situation is right now for overnight parking. If you are on the same side of the airport as the terminal, there’s a frequent bus service into Port Erin/Port St Mary. The buses are card/contactless payment only. If you’re on the Cafe 26 side (area W), then it’s about a 30-40 minute walk along the coast and into Castletown, or you can get a taxi.

Check your pm
If you want Douglas, the Mannin hotel is modern,air con and quite nice, alternatively, the Regency is traditional and has a very nice french restaurant.

By the way, now I think of it — if you do stay in Douglas, a nice day out is to take the MER (Manx Electric Railway) to Laxey, have lunch at the Mines Tavern (the Laxey MER stop is quite sheltered, so it’s nice to sit outside even if the coast is windy, and watch the trams come and go), and then take the Snaefell railway to the top of the mountain, and perhaps visit the Laxey Wheel which is just a short walk up the hill. The mining history is fascinating. We often take our visitors to Laxey (although being in Port St Mary, we start the day on the first steam train to Douglas).

You can get an all day/all transport ticket, I think it’s £17 and it covers the steam railway, the MER, the Snaefell railway and the buses for a day.

NicR wrote:

However, when I PPRed at Glocester they asked whether I’d filed a GAR, and despite me saying that it shouldn’t be necessary, they were insistent on us filing one anyway

The easy way of avoiding this is to just say “yes” :-) Unfortunately, most airports don’t actually know what the GAR requirements are, especially if they are used to it being required for customs/immigration (which is not the case for the Isle of Man — they probably simply assumed it was the same as the Channel Islands). I’ve had other weirdness at Gloucester in the past, for example, insisting that fililng a written flight plan is required for flights to the Isle of Man (it is not, and never has been). Airfield staff really have got to learn that this stuff is for the PIC to manage, and leave it to the PIC, and only concern themselves with generating a flight strip or whatever the PPR does for them…because PROB90 the PIC knows what the actual requirements are, and they (the airfield operator) are wrong!

Nice write up, you went to a couple of places we’ve never been, which we’ll have to try now!

Just to be clear:

> Currently, EGNS has no real handling option available for GA. The only available option is The Jet Centre, who wanted to charge in excess of £350 for handling and one nights parking. They used to offer a concession to GA aircraft – up until a few weeks ago it would have only cost £55 but the boss decided they no longer want to attract GA and therefore terminated the concession. However, there are at least two people actively working on re-opening a GA ‘handling’ facility, with whom I met during my trip. They hope to have something in place for next year, and aim to offer a ‘no frills’ handling service for < £30. This would be great.

So did you pay the £350, or did the two guys manage to handle you somehow? (Being based in the island, we only ever go to the fuel farm at area mike, so we never need to deal with handling, and I have a landing card for EGNS).

NicR wrote:

The only available option is The Jet Centre, who wanted to charge in excess of £350 for handling and one nights parking. They used to offer a concession to GA aircraft – up until a few weeks ago it would have only cost £55 but the boss decided they no longer want to attract GA and therefore terminated the concession

Investment from the local economy / government etc to set up and run the airport ….. colossal

Investment from The Jet Centre …… almost nil (other than a few 5L cans of magnolia paint) — and to be given the chance to dictate the airport policy, through ridiculous pricing — as to who can / cant use the airport

Makes you wonder, who is running the show there / I would think that the airport management (if there is any?) should urgently do something about it