Ross B. | Ireland | March 2022
How would you rate your trip? 5/5
Who was your travel expert? Bridie
How were your accommodations? Great
What did you love? Lyrath Estate was great! Modern, beautiful, very nice rooms, walking trails. Really good breakfast. Live music in the lobby was fun. The Brooks Hotel was also very nice. The concierge, George, made us feel very welcome. Great breakfast. The HYDE in Galway wasn’t our favorite. Lots of street noise, and tiny rooms with hard to adjust heat (radiators). Royal Killarney was charming, but older. No wi-fi in rooms, ancient plumbing in bathrooms. Awesome breakfast.
Did everything go smoothly with your transportation? Yes
What did you love? Hertz gave us a great Volvo wagon that was a pleasure to drive. United flights were fine. They upgraded us to Economy Plus from Dublin to Chicago which helped a lot. Ground transfer from Brooks Hotel to airport was great.
What tours, attractions, or activities did you particularly enjoy? The private tour at Guinness Storehouse was a great surprise. Our guide Allen was fantastic. Cliffs of Moher were spectacular, but our favorite was driving the Dingle Peninsula. Ring of Kerry was great, but there were more clouds and fog that day.
What was your favorite part of the trip? Dingle Peninsula #1, but on our last day in Dublin we took the DART train to Howth and hiked the Cliff trail there. It was a gorgeous sunny day and we loved the scenery and village.
Would you travel with us again? Yes
How can we improve for next time? Can’t think of anything!
Any other questions or comments? Thanks for checking on the Jameson tour at the last minute! We opted to do some shopping in Dublin and watch the Masters in the bar at the Hairy Lemon (near the Brooks Hotel).
Tom M. | Ireland | May 2022
How would you rate your trip? 5/5
Who was your travel expert? Bridie
How were your accommodations? Great
What did you love? Locations and the variety. The host of all of the B&B’s were very helpful
Did everything go smoothly with your transportation? Yes
What did you love? Really like Donegal and getting to visit Northern Ireland
What tours, attractions, or activities did you particularly enjoy? Gobbin’s Walk, Slieve League, Hike up Torc Mountain, Beara Peninsula, Glengariff, Gap of Dunloe, Doolin, Inishmore, Galway Food (Aniar, Tartare, Are Bia, Loam, Kai and Ruibin), Achill Sound, Seaweed bath at Voya, Walking Tour in Derry with Martin McCrossan, Dunluce Castle, Giants Causeway, Carrick a Rede, Ulster Museum in Belfast and St. Michan’s Church in Dublin
What was your favorite part of the trip? Donegal
Would you travel with us again? Yes
How can we improve for next time? Needing to understand the parking requirements for each of the city hotels. Knowing about local festivals and possible access to local such as the web site: withlocals
Any other questions or comments? We loved the OPW Senior Card which we purchase on the first day for 30 euro. The OPW (Office of Public Works) card saved us admission cost and discounts at many places. We actually looked for OPW sites to visit. LOVE the Fairview Hotel in Killarney’s. The Fairviews location and that it was a family owned/run hotel made it special. The Fairview had the best breakfast of all the place we stayed. We want to go back.
Rosemarie A. | Ireland | May 2022
How would you rate your trip? 5/5
Who was your travel expert? Bridie
How were your accommodations? Great
What did you love? Each property was clean, comfortable and very welcoming.
Did everything go smoothly with your transportation? Yes
What did you love? The business class service on Aer Lingus is excellent! It was Bridie’s suggestion to fly with this airline. Our drivers from Kennedy Coach exceeded our expectations with their hospitality and knowledge.
What tours, attractions, or activities did you particularly enjoy? The visit to Inishmore was great and the trap and pony ride with Thomas Faherty was quite an experience. There were many wonderful experiences however the highlight was our driver Jay Galvin who took us from Galway to Killarney. The visit to Dingle stopping to feed the baby lambs was amazing!
What was your favorite part of the trip? Visit to Dingle
Would you travel with us again? Yes
How can we improve for next time? Bridie was very attentive and extremely helpful. There is not much to improve here other than a thought about perhaps sharing direct contact options for the traveler if possible. Due to privacy issues I’m not sure if this is feasible but we had a few hiccups with our tour vendors in Paris who did not know how to reach us.
Any other questions or comments? Due to Covid, our B&B in Killarney had to be moved to Ashville House. Accommodations were clean, comfortable and the breakfast was wonderful. The owners could not have been more gracious. Our trip would not have been as memorable had we tried to book everything ourselves. I am most grateful to Bridie was booking us with vendors in Ireland that provided the best experience possible. Thank you!
Natalie B. | Ireland | May 2022
How would you rate your trip? 5/5
Who was your travel expert? Bridie
How were your accommodations? Great
What did you love? I loved the locations of the accommodations in all of the five cities that we stayed. I was thankful that breakfast was included with each accommodation and they were wonderful breakfast. Each place was unique, comfortable, friendly and safe.
Did everything go smoothly with your transportation? Yes
What did you love? Nice comfortable car. Driving conditions were a little tricky at first since we were driving ourselves but we got more and more comfortable each day. We decided on short notice to book a tour around the Ring of Kerry by coach for the day and Bridie was able to set that all up for us with only one day notice.
What tours, attractions, or activities did you particularly enjoy? Hook Lighthouse (beautiful country and oceanside) Dunbrody Famine Ship, Waterford Crystal Factory tour, Cliffs of Moher, Ring of Kerry, Kylemore Abbey.
What was your favorite part of the trip? The scenery and the people.
Would you travel with us again? Yes
How can we improve for next time? We really had no disappointments.
Thomas C. | Ireland | June 2022
How would you rate your trip? 5/5
Who was your travel expert? Bridie
How were your accommodations? Great
What did you love? Park House – super convenient, nice staff, room ok
Great Southern Killarney – great location, great breakfast, nice room, excellent pool and facilities
Kingsley – location wasn’t great, but being on river was nice (we didn’t have the good view) and health club/pool was excellent
Shelbourne – 5 stars, great location, excellent food, fantastic workout area/pool, unbelievable suite – one of the nicest places I’ve ever stayed
Did everything go smoothly with your transportation? Yes
What did you love? Flying into Shannon was a great idea. In fact, I’d like to fly out of there too given how crowded Dublin was. Car was fine and pickup was easy. Honestly wouldn’t have wanted a large car with size of roads! I had the hotel in Galway send a driver to pick up Kathy and that worked well too.
What tours, attractions, or activities did you particularly enjoy? Too many to list – we did most of the things on the itinerary. Loved Galway, Connemara, especially Sky Road, Dingle Peninsula (Conor pass), the ring of Kerry, Blarney castle, downtown Killarney, and the Dublin Gaol tour.
What was your favorite part of the trip? Hard to say, probably the west coast highlights, but loved the towns and cities too.
Would you travel with us again? Yes
How can we improve for next time? Nothing, you helped us when I had to change flights for Kathy the day before. Just a note – Originally Crystal thought that I had to completely rebook her ticket ~$1800, but Aer Lingus said I only had to rebook the first leg since she would be returning with me and that saved a lot of money.
Any other questions or comments? We’d love to work with you again. It was a great trip.
David D. | Ireland | November 2022
How would you rate your trip? 5/5
Who was your travel expert? Bridie
How were your accommodations? Great
What did you love? All accommodations were clean and comfortable with extremely great hospitality. In particular, the Fairview in Killarney and the (what I assume were the) owners there were amazing.
Did everything go smoothly with your transportation? Yes
What did you love? No issues at all and no delays.
What tours, attractions, or activities did you particularly enjoy? Our entire agenda was right in line with what we had asked for. We enjoyed every location we visited and loved the flexibility in our plans to be able to pick and choose. We enjoyed busy travel days with worthy stops capped off by time in cozy pubs with welcoming folks. Very pleased!
What was your favorite part of the trip? The pubs! Killarney, Clifden, and Doolin were our favorites.
Would you travel with us again? Yes
How can we improve for next time? Nothing from your end. We’d probably skip Dublin and fly in and out of Shannon as we enjoyed that part of the country the most, but did enjoy getting to see Dublin once.
Any other questions or comments? Thanks, Bridie!
What tours, attractions, or activities did you particularly enjoy? Our entire agenda was right in line with what we had asked for. We enjoyed every location we visited and loved the flexibility in our plans to be able to pick and choose. We enjoyed busy travel days with worthy stops capped off by time in cozy pubs with welcoming folks. Very pleased!
What was your favorite part of the trip? The pubs! Killarney, Clifden, and Doolin were our favorites.
Would you travel with us again? Yes
How can we improve for next time? Nothing from your end. We’d probably skip Dublin and fly in and out of Shannon as we enjoyed that part of the country the most, but did enjoy getting to see Dublin once.
Any other questions or comments? Thanks, Bridie!
