Taste of Ireland

Great trip on every level!

Wonderful organization and excellent value. Covered a lot in a short period of time. Guide knew a lot.

On behalf of my mother and I, overall, it was a good tour. The motor coach appeared it be an older model, and I got very sick a few days into the trip from the long drives and bumpy, curved roads. The stops should have been at least 30 - 60 minutes extra per each designated location (especially Cliffs of Moher and Blarney Castle. Also, the hotels were quite dated, and their breakfasts were okay, nothing exciting. Dinner at The Merry Ploughboy was a very long night...the show while entertaining, could have been cut down by an hour, and dinner was okay. One of the stops, Bunratty, perhaps could of been done away with, wouldn't of minded staying closer to the medieval banquet dinner venue (loved it), or another town closer to the Cliffs of Moher. The pit stop to Connemara Marble, that was also an unnecessary stop, there was no demonstration, the owner just spoke for around 15 minutes. but we enjoyed the tea and scones. Lastly, our tour guide David, he definitely knew a lot about his country, but we felt like he could have spoken some more on the history of Ireland, also how it came to be Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland. There were times he'd bring a place to our attention while driving, but by time we looked, we already passed it. The report cards we needed to hand in the day before, I believe purposely left off grading of the last hotel, Academy Plaza Hotel. This was the worst hotel of the ones we stayed in. The staff were unfriendly, and the location though close to Temple Bar, it was not the greatest place for us to be walking around. Our 4 hotels: Grand Canal Hotel - good hotel & location; Killarney Towers Hotel - old room; nice location, old hotel; Bunratty Castle Hotel - old room; quiet, not much to do there; and of course Academy Plaza Hotel - not recommended.

We enjoyed the majority of the key locations, and touring Southern Ireland and it's rich history. We loved the hop on hop off bus tour and checking out the Guinness Storehouse, and Book of Kells. Dublin is the place to be and I would definitely return there.

It was a good mother/daughter trip for us, just a few things that needed to be changed, but we enjoyed ourselves and the friends we made.

Tour Group was around 35 - 40 of us.

Thank you CIE Tours!!

Tour guide was great, kept us on schedule. Wish I had realized how much bus time there would be though.

Great vacation!

I put this on my facebook page.

Ireland was absolutely beautiful. I tried to capture the beauty through photos. I was more than excited to see the River Dance show (not part of the tour), party in Dublin and Killarney and listen to traditional Irish music. We ate every kind of comfort food imaginable. The Ring of Kerry was just stunning. We visited the Cliffs of Moher and watch a mid evil show Bunratty Castle. We even visited a sheep farm which was pretty cool and the Connemara Marble Factory. The people were more than kind as well and always enjoyable and funny. For the confused tourist, the streets are labeled and there is a joking debate between the Irish and Americans on who drives on the right side of the road. I highly recommend CIE tours. I hope you get Jim, our amazing tour guide if anyone decides to try it. He was fun, knowledgable about history, and funny!

Excellent trip, hotels were great, well planned.