Taste of Ireland

Our 1st trip to Ireland.

The purchase of the tour was very easy. Our only disappointment was that we did not receive the pre trip documents. We live in France/US so naturally the documents went to the resident where we were not at.

We arrived in Ireland very early and expected to tour without a nap until 4pm , when room would be ready. First hotel was far from a stop on hop on hop off bus

The tour was amazing!! Our tour guide was very knowledgeable and went above and beyond to make sure we had an amazing trip!

However the last hotel, the Academy Plaza Hotel was a let down after all the beautiful places we stayed at it was always in a bad area according to locals. Please thank about that for future guests.

Ireland 2022

For what we paid I feel it was a good value.

Overall Great Experience!

Overall I was quite satisfied. There were a few minor disappointments that I share in the hopes that CIE can continue to deliver an excellent experience to future travelers.

(1) there was a national bicycle tour scheduled that prevented us from touring the Ring of Kerry and seeing Skellig Michael. It seems strange that on the day we are scheduled to tour Ring of Kerry, we learn that we cannot proceed and would be touring Dingle instead. Clearly, CIE had access to the scheduled closure for months, as it was well advertised throughout Ireland. Why not tell your travelers in advance? We believed we were touring Kerry right up until that very day when our guide announced the substitution.

(2) CIE lost one of our bags at the end of our tour. We watched the driver load it onto the bus in Limerick. It was never delivered to our room in Dublin. The hotel staff was extremely helpful in calling CIE and trying to reach our driver but to no avail. We were a bit dismayed that when we filed the lost baggage claim with the trip insurance company, they demanded all sorts of documentation that has been difficult to assemble. We are back in the US and are trying to obtain paperwork from a hotel in Ireland to process a claim for this bag. CIE says they delivered all of the tour bags. The hotel says the bag never came off the bus per security footage. Insurance company says they need a form to be completed by the hotel. We, the travellers, did nothing wrong and yet we must pursue this process, which is rather maddening. I strongly recommend CIE come up with a better system of accountability on baggage handling. I also suggest CIE work with a more cooperative and helpful trip insurance broker. We paid the premium for insurance and the approach thus far has been to make recovery difficult. What is the point of trip insurance then?