4.6/5

I would recommend them.

Wonderful guides

CIE made my trip to Ireland Great

The booking service was great. Trina was very helpful answering my questions and with the following up with me up until my trip.

Not enough time in Galway ! Complete disappointment.

Left Galway after 2 hours only to stop at a rest stop an hour later and spent 60 minutes there 🤯

Delightful Scottish/Irish Dream Tour!

We had a delightful 14 day, 13 night trip on the Scottish/Irish Dream Tour. Most of the hotels were topnotch and had great service; however, we found the Ballachulish Hotel to be lacking. The floors squeaked so badly that anytime someone walked across the floor above, it could be heard. We had dinner at this hotel as part of the package. The service was horribly slow. It took two hours for our group to get through 3 courses and ther e was no coffee or tea served with our dessert. It has a lovely location, which somewhat made up for the lack of service.

We loved our tour guide, Brian, on the Scotland portion of the tour and we were disappointed that he was not allowed to continue with us on to Ireland. He was very seasoned and knew just the right amount of history and humor to add to make it simply deightful. Our second tour guide and bus driver, Cathal Clarke, was very nice but being a history major in college, had a tendency to provide way too much information.

The day we traveled from Scotland to Ireland, we at tharrived e Stena Lline ship ferry about 10:15 a.m. I'm not sure if we missed the ferry that was supposed to take us at 10:30 or not, but we had to wait nearly two hours on the coach before we proceeded onto the ship. Even though we were one of the first coaches to arrive at the port, we were one of the last to board the ship. By the time we got upstairs to buy some lunch, the ship restaurant was packed, with long line for food. We waited nearlly an hour in line to buy some hot lunch. Given our late departure from the Scottish port, we did not arrive at the Belfast Titanic Museum until nearlly 4:00 p.m. giving us only an hour and 15 minutes total to explore this wonderful museum. I'm not sure what went wrong that day but we spent way too much time traveling and very little time was left for the museum. Perhaps an overnight in Belfast would have been a better option.

We loved our evening at The Merry Ploughboy restaurant and the Bunratty Castle Medieval dinner. Both were topnotch and fun with the group.

We didn't realize until late in the first week that we were losing 19 of our 39 tour group members who only purchased the Scotland portion of the trip. We had 19 new folks join our bus and learned that some were on a 4-day Tastle of Ireland, some were on a 5-day and some were on a 6-day. Losing the folks we made friends with on the first half was very disappointing. And the group photo taken was with the second half of the group that joined us, taken at Moriarty's in the Gap of Dunloe. We would have preferred the photo be taken with the first group of those traveling with us in Scotland.

Overall, we were very pleased with the stops we made, the sights were visited, and the entertainment and meals provided. We chose CIE as they were reputed to be leaders in tours of Scotland and Ireland; however, we would probably not choose another
tour of other locations with this company.

Easy to deal with and quick responses.

Irish Gold struck gold

I want to let you know how much fun we had on the Irish Gold tour. Our tour guide Marian Kelley was awesome, she made us all feel welcomed from the moment we met her. Her passion for Ireland comes through, we enjoyed her stories, history and the extra details she put into the tour (We did the Gaelic Roots live show which was awesome). My only negative comment would be that I wish the larger more crowded parts (Galway and Dublin) could have been done on a week days instead of the weekend when it it so crowded.

But we had an awesome time.

Our tour was an excellent tour due to tour guide John Cunningham. He was very knowledgeable on the history every where we went. He seem every concerned on the well being of every passenger making sure each of us was well attended to.

Flights, transfers, hotels, experienced driver & guide.

Itinerary, Flights, transfers, hotels, experienced driver and tour guide

We had issues with the transfer taxis and the last hotel/area we stayed in. The area was not safe. Two of our people in our group was in a drugstore while it was being robbed. Other taxi people told us we were in a bad area and you could just tell. The taxi service could care less if they picked us up to and from airport. When we arrived in Scotland we waited an hour for them to send someone for us. One couple had to pay out of pocket to get a taxi on their own to get to the airport. They almost missed their flight. It was unexceptionable. We kept being told they were on their way. But never showed up. .

Brendan was fantastic

Brendan went above and beyond to give us the history of the different areas we were in. He was very helpful to allow us an opportunity to get in a round of golf. A true asset to your business

Fantastic trip, lunch and look around stops could be longer

Travel agent handled this

Great tour guide Sean; cared about each of his 25 travelers..

I would recommend them for taking care of details & small group travel. Didn’t like the first Clayton Hotel in Dublin due to no AC; Front desk didn’t bring a fan even when requested; location way out with no real restaurants/shops within walking & the first Hop on Hop Off Bus location is 30min walk away.. should have used Academy Plaza Hotel twice since it’s in a great location for restaurants & shopping and the Bus is right there!

Very well planned trip!

We would definitely recommend using CIE for an Ireland tour group. They have been doing tours for many years, and have the itinerary fine tuned to see as much as possible with a group. The hotels were 4 star places and the dinners included were great.

First trip abroad felt well taken care of

After a brief discussion with my agent Phyllis and told her what some things I wanted to see and do in Ireland she got back to me with a trip and even made sure my extra day was accommodated! Only thing different is maybe more time to explore some areas. I felt so pampered . Just had to worry what time I needed to get up

Patient
Easy and informative
Detailed cooperative

The itinerary was well planned. The tour guides were very knowledgeable. and communicated very well.

Great Trip

I handled most of the booking through the chat feature and it was a quicker way to do this than by phone because the wait to talk with someone can take some time. Everything worked well except the flight schedule could have been better. We had two stops going with a 5 hour layover on the first stop and a really tight connection on the second. There were only two stops on the way back but still a five hour layover. Everyone I chatted with at CIE was very helpful and professional.

Outstanding service and enjoyed the tour.

Recommend them for you travel.

We had a great time. Just a few things could be tweeked

We went through a travel agent