Before You Go,  Blog,  Experiences,  Uncategorized

Should You Take a Bus Tour? (Our Experience in Ireland)

July 15, 2018 /

When Sean and I first talked about taking a bus tour around Ireland, we were a little hesitant. On any trip we’d taken previously, including our first trip abroad, we had done it all on our own. We picked where we would go, chose our own places to stay and found our own way around. To us, that’s what “real” traveling was. It was getting lost in a new place and learning the language. It was becoming immersed in the culture. We had this preconceived notion that a bus tour would take away from that feeling of truly traveling.

Since doing the tour, we’ve come to agree that our minds are a bit more open to the idea of taking more tours. Although we definitely felt like tourists traveling around in big coaches with cameras in hand, and although we still love to do our own thing when we travel, we found there are actually a TON of pros to taking a bus tour while traveling.

We broke down some of the pros and cons so you could make the decision for yourself that’s best for you. So far, we’ve only toured with CIE, but after our experience, we’re sure we’ll end up trying some others out as well when we’re not in Ireland. 🙂

So, let’s start with the PROS:

Pros of Taking a Bus Tour

  1. It’s a package deal.
    By doing a bus tour, you’re not only purchasing your transportation and a tour guide, but you’re securing a place to stay each night, a couple of meals per day and entrance into anything you stop at. By booking with a tour, you’re saving the time it would take you to book each of these items individually. We chose not to, but you can even book your flights with them and have transport from the airport arranged.
  2. You stay in nice places.
    Our room at the Clontarf Castle Hotel

    When we book on our own, we typically choose Airbnb’s. We like booking on this platform, but staying in 4 star hotels is pretty nice too, you know? Every place that we stayed was somewhere we would not have booked for ourselves on our own, but left us feeling totally pampered. My personal favorite was our first stop in Dublin – The Clontarf Castle Hotel. Holy Smokes.

  3. You’re very well fed.
    Guinness chocolate cake… YUM

    Something you will not do on a (CIE)bus tour is go hungry. In fact, quite the opposite. Everyday we were given two meals, one breakfast and the other usually a three course dinner. Plus complimentary drinks and the lunch we would buy on our own. We were very well taken care of, and both of us came home a few pounds heavier.

  4. You don’t have to plan.
    Of course with a tour, you have an itinerary. Which means you don’t have to do any of the heavy lifting when it comes to your trip. The schedule is already set, and you just have to sit back and enjoy the ride.
  5. You meet more people.
    Not to say that traveling on your own, you won’t make friends. But being part of a tour, you’re instantly connected to 20-40 people. And being with them for a set amount of days, you make “memories that will last a lifetime”.
  6. You do things you normally would not.
    Wool sweaters in the making at Triona Designs

    There were plenty of times on our tour that we thought we weren’t going to be that interested in something. Like touring a pottery warehouse or watching how wool sweaters get made. We were more set on the big ticket items like the Cliffs of Moher. But some of these smaller activities proved to be super interesting and actually helped us learn a lot more about the people, history and culture of Ireland.

  7. You learn a LOT more.
    Michael O’Hara – our guide and 7th generation farmer at O’Hara Homestead

    Just like by visiting less touristy locations, having a guide helps you learn so much more about the country than you would probably pick up from a book. Plus, we had not only our driver as a guide, but guides around Dublin, Glassnevin Cemetery and the O’Hara Homestead that taught us so much as well. It added a lot to our overall experience in Ireland to learn from them.

  8. It’s cost effective.
    Our first stop on the tour provided some beautiful views

    By booking as part of a tour, you’re securing yourself a major discount. Not only are you staying at nicer hotels and being fed for a lot less than you might on your own, you’re also provided entry into any stop you make along the way. Be it a tour of the O’Hara Homestead or inside of Belleek Pottery, we were able to go in and take these tours that, had we booked these items individually on our own, would have cost us more.

So, as you can see, we found PLENTY of good things that came from choosing a bus tour. But as with everything in life, there were some cons that came along with it as well.

Cons of Taking a Bus Tour

  1. You’re on a schedule.
    Slieve League In County Donegal

    Whether you like something or not, you’re on a schedule and unless you want to get left behind, you have to stay with your tour group. In some places like Slieve League in County Donegal, this was particularly frustrating. The cliffs were absolutely stunning, and yet we only had half an hour to do any hiking or sightseeing of them. Whereas on our first big day on the tour, we spent about 3 hours in one site that we honestly could have gone without stopping at.

  2. You are restricted by your group.
    This happens in a couple of different ways. We got lucky and had a pretty good mix of ages in our tour group, but we definitely passed some coaches along the way full of senior citizens. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with seniors that want to travel, but if your group is older, it’s just a fact that you’re going to be slowed down a bit on your journeys – at least if you’re in your 20’s or 30’s. Whether it’s more bathroom stops or taking longer to get on and off the bus or lagging during guided tours – You’re confined to who is in your group and the speed/activity level of each person.
    In a similar way, whether it’s seniors or not, you will always have the people that are last to get on the bus. This wasn’t a huge issue with our group, but imagine you really want to get to Galway early to explore the shops before dinner, but a family was half an hour late to show up back on the bus after the last stop. You’re going to be behind on schedule, which cuts into what you have time for later.
    The last thing I’ll mention about this subject is bathroom stops. The tour needs to accommodate for people needing to stop and use the restrooms, so we had to stop every 2 hours when we were driving between destinations. This gave us a little less time in each place we went, we felt, because had it just been us, we’d have sucked it up and tried to make it the whole drive without really stopping – in order to get to our destination sooner.

    View from the bus on our drive around Ireland

  3. You are less active.
    This may not bother some people, but it was kind of a big deal for us. Doing the tour, you’re on a bus a lot of the time and therefore not really active. Even when we stopped at different places, it was mostly standing, not a lot of walking around. Granted the hotels do have gyms,  but a lot of them we found close early and don’t open until we have already left in the morning. We didn’t feel like we truly got any activity in until the end of the tour when we were back in Dublin on our own and walking around everywhere.

 

So overall…..

Our tour guide: Dominic

We really enjoyed taking the bus tour with CIE and would definitely consider doing one again in the future. Especially as first time visitors, we found that the tour provided us a lot of cultural/historical information that really added to our overall experience. We felt like it was a great value for what we had paid and that everywhere we stopped, aside from maybe one location, was worth our money. We met a lot of great people, both locals and tourists just like us. It was nice not having to worry about renting a car or buying gas, but instead just sitting back and enjoying the ride. If we went again, we would definitely just be sure to review our itinerary and find the one that works best for us, which I feel like we did do on this trip as well. There were a lot of options when choosing which one to take, but we found that the Irish Explorer 9 day, 8 night bus tour was pretty close to a perfect fit for us. We’d highly recommend to anyone to give CIE or any bus tour a try next time you’re traveling.

 

 

What do you think? Have you taken a bus tour in the past? How was your experience? And if not, do you think you ever would? We’re curious to know your thoughts! Let us know in the comments below!

 

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