4-Day Blarney Castle, Ring of Kerry, Cliffs of Moher & Connemara

Posted By : Warren_B
Ring of Kerry and Cliffs of Moher were great. I wish I had more information on Connemarra, specially the Abbey. There was a lot to cover and I would have laid out my plans better. I missed the gardens totally, I felt I wasted my time going to the Gothic building, a long walk with no return. We needed to get our lunch in before our long travels back to Dublin. We then made a 30 min stop soon after leaving, no value, would have rather have the 30 mins at the abby.
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Posted On : 2024-06-24 10:44:07

Posted By : no_lp191
BEWARE: NO 24-hour contact available for any issues and the tour is not a consistent 4 day tour but you are passed between partner company tours. I followed up with them and they will not provide a contact to their customers following my husband and I being left at a Taxi station waiting to meet up with our transfer guide. He was an hour late and did not realize we were missing from his meet up. During the hour we waited, another tour guide from Lally's tours fortunately helped us search the train station and coach tour drivers and make calls for a meet up and for contact number in hopes we could get in touch with someone so we could figure out how to get back from Galway to Dublin.

While the individual tours are delightful, you may be shuffled between a multitude of contacts each day. It takes only one leg of the tour to fall and your first class customer experience is blown. Below is a detailed review of our tour:

Day 1: Rail tour to Blarney Castle, Cork and Cobh - John was a great guide narratively as well as navigating how to get to the the Blarney Stone line so that we did not waste time in line. He was generous in showing us the grounds of Blarney Castle. I would recommend this day tour from Dublin but if multi-day you are shifted to a new Railtour host to get to Killarney. Plaza Hotel in Killarney is great...great location. Guide told us you can get "to go" continental breakfast but you have to ORDER it at the hotel. Some guests did not and did not have a breakfast on Day 3.

Day 2: We went with Deros tours to Rink of Kerry. A few optional spots are stopped at not noted in the itinerary ...which are not included in tour (8 Euros for Sheep Dog Demonstration). Ate at charming pub. Our driver decided to skip Sneem due to the number of buses in city, which was disappointing. He stopped elsewhere, but it was NOT a town.

Day 3: Cliffs of Moher was great and I feel we had adequate time to explore as long as you are agile (I think 1.5 hours). Eat in nice location on way. End in Galway at Harbor Hotel. This Hotel is fine...not as great as Plaza but still fine.

Day 4: Connemara: Had Colleen with Lally's tours. She was fabulous and grew up in the area and knew a lot. Kylemore Abbey and the surrounding lands were fabulous!!! Martin was a great driver. Transfer Guide DID NOT MEET US AS NEEDED AND OFFICE CLOSED. We were left trying to contact miscellaneous partner tours to track down someone who could reach our contact with the tix and alternative method back to Dublin due to Train Issues. A CONTACT NUMBER WOULD HAVE SOLVED THIS. IN A DAY AND AGE OF MOBILE PHONES...An after hours contact number was NEEDED. My tour guide from previous tour we tracked down on streets and she helped make calls for us. WE paid her for her extra time where our tour lacked the service.
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Posted On : 2024-06-18 11:16:33

Posted By : dianemC4133QV
Brian our tour guide for most of our trip was the most informative, friendly and lovely gentleman. We learned so much about the country and totally enjoyed our trip. Andrea and Gerry also deserve high praise because they also were amazing.
RIT made our trip to Ireland magical. Thank you so much. Will highly recommend this company.
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Posted On : 2023-10-19 14:15:03

Posted By : A5253LMmaggiem
We enjoyed a fantastic tour! Everything was excellent from start to finish. The tour guides (Terrence, Michael, Ian, Shelia and others) truly made the trip - they were incredibly welcoming, knowledgeable, and accommodating. The sights, accommodations, food/beverage stops were all perfect. Thank you Railtours for making our first trip to Ireland so memorable!
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Posted On : 2023-07-22 16:24:33

Posted By : amybY4045RI
I absolutely LOVED my four day tour! The sites, the food, and the commentary made the hole trip! I booked this last minute not knowing what to expect, but Brian, our tour guide, made everything fun and easy! Meeting at the train station was super simple and they had everything planned for us! You do need to pay attention as meet times can change, but they tell you all of this before you leave the bus/train. I’ve wanted to go to Ireland for along time and this trip was absolutely amazing. So glad I did it. No regrets! Will be using rail tours again!
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Posted On : 2023-07-05 22:32:15

Posted By : bpowell888
A lot of bus travel covering some of the most beautiful scenery in the country and stops in lovely villagescto get a feel of real Ireland.
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Posted On : 2023-06-13 17:55:09

Posted By : alya_l
Too many transfers, people, constantly changing buses, drivers, guides, people continually on and off the bus. No congruency, reservations messed up, didn’t have tickets or rooms ready for extremely expensive single supplement I paid $2k for for our daughter. It was a mess, disjointed and boring with really long bus rides that weren’t worth the drive or time.
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Posted On : 2023-06-04 14:21:56

Posted By : jeannefreeman
Viatour puts the tour together for you, which is convenient. If I had to do it over, I would book directly with the tour operators and skip the Viatour layer. The experience was fantastic. However, a viatour limitation (which I didn't notice at the time- my fault) is they don't allow you to select single supplement when you are booking a group. Our family of 3 traveled together, I always book two rooms. I somehow missed that piece on the Viator site and they automatically default to a triple accommodation. Luckily we were traveling during the low season and so the hotels could get us a single room in addition to the preassigned triple. Viator could fix this by putting that into the booking at the start (like hotels do). Their offices were always closed when we checked in and so each stop we had to fix it, pay the extra, etc. etc. Not a huge problem, but pretty unnecessary. They booked us with a company called Railtours Ireland. That company is excellent, our guide was hilarious (Brian. and his coworkers call him MadBrian". We had a lot of fun. The railtour company makes it super easy to see the highlights. I would skip Viatour and just book your tours separately.
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Posted On : 2023-04-02 09:49:12

Posted By : 752karlieg
My experience with Rail Tours was absolutely amazing. I was so impressed with the amount of care and knowledge each tour guide had. As a first time solo traveler this experience was perfect for me and I felt so well taken care of each step of the way. All of the tour guides were so kind! John Todd really helped me out by taking pictures for me at the Cliffs of Moher so now I have great photos that captured the experience. I would highly recommend Rail Tours for people who want to experience as much of Ireland in a short time as they possibly can!
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Posted On : 2023-02-02 16:28:21

Posted By : JanetM1838
We had a fantastic time on our four day tour. Brian was informative, interesting and funny. He shared great tips and recommendations each day. It's a busy few days but we appreciated the organized itinerary. Yes, be prepared to move your luggage each day so pack accordingly. It's obvious. Chosen hotels and lunch stops were great. No complaints at all. We love Ireland and its people. Five star all the way.
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Posted On : 2022-10-30 16:59:23