3-Day Southern Ireland Tour Including Galway and Kerry from Dublin

We booked the 3-Day Southern Ireland Tour Including Galway and Kerry from Dublin with Paddywagon which turned out to be the worst decision ever. On Day 1, we followed the instructions set out in the tour details which asked us to check-in at Paddy's Palace 15 minutes before departure. The departure was supposed to be at Paddywagon Tours Ltd and the departure time stated was 8:00 AM. We reached Paddy’s Palace at 0730 only to find out that that’s where Paddywagon Tours used to operate and they’ve moved since. The people in that building asked us to wait in the road opposite instead, which seemed like a very odd and random place to meet up. We saw a group of people who looked like travellers there so we went over and asked if that was the correct meet-up point. They said that it was the correct place and they’ve asked many different people too because it was just that unclear, like how do you even mess up such a simple yet important information. However, we thought it was quite risky to wait by a random road so we went over to Paddywagon Tours which was about 15 mins away to see if we could ask someone about this. After rushing over to Paddywagon Tours like mad, we saw so many travellers like us (about 50) just standing outside, which led us to think that was actually the right place to meet. To make sure that it was the correct pickup point, we asked a female staff from Paddywagon Tours who didn’t know anything and asked us to ask the bus drivers who parked their buses by the road INDIVIDUALLY. After asking 3 bus drivers, the last one asked us to ask a male staff called Sonny/Sani (guy in orange shirt in the first picture, don’t know how to spell his name). When we explained our situation regarding the different check-in point and asked politely about the correct meet-up point, this is his exact response: “That’s your problem!”. Imagine him saying that in front of the whole group of people, who were in a similar situation as us and waiting for their turns to ask the same thing. We felt very humiliated and absolutely disgusted by his rude attitude and behaviour towards their customers. Surprisingly, (or maybe not so surprisingly?), when someone from the UK asked him about the same thing, he was smiling, being very polite and courteous. (We are international tourists if that’s not obvious). Why hire this kind of racist morons when you are operating a tour agency which obviously attracts international tourists mainly? By the way, this tour costed 1500 EUROS, fun 😊 To make things worse, the area outside Paddywagon Tours where everyone was waiting was in complete disarray and shambles, due to how disorganised Paddywagon Tours was. Not a single staff was doing the obvious thing to take names and check number of travellers etc. They also didn’t bother to group people into different tours, which may seem understandable if there’s overlap between different tours but imagine this: When a different bus arrives outside, everyone rushes to the bus driver asking the tour that the driver is operating. This was a back-and-forth process and one bus even forgot to stop outside Paddywagon Tours and just went on. You can see the second picture for an example of this. Eventually we got on the bus at 0840 but there weren’t enough seats. The driver, maybe acting on the instructions of the tour agency, had the audacity to ask if anyone wants to GET OFF the bus. One lady volunteered because she commented that it was a SHITSHOW, to which the driver agreed. We ended up departing at 0900. It's just baffling how a tour agency that’s been operating so many years didn’t seem to have any organisation and customer services skills whatsoever. That just straight up ruined the first day for us. To make things worse, the driver said that the mic was broken, through the mic no less 😊! We passed by all those places without knowing their history. We didn’t even know what we were looking at and just alighted the bus when all other tourists did to take photos etc. We had to keep asking the driver regarding how long we are stopping at each location, what we are doing, what’s the plan etc. We could move up a little to hear more clearly but there’s obviously only so many seats available. There was pretty much no commentary through the mic throughout the 3-day trip and the driver only spoke out loud, expecting the whole bus to be able to listen to him clearly, with the engines running and people talking in the background. The whole trip was pretty much the driver fetching us to all these stops while talking to those in the front row seats only. It seems that the only thing true about the statement “100% Irish Tour Guides” in the tour ad is that the driver is indeed Irish. There were also some other issues like: - Asking us to be punctual at one stop but ended up being late himself for 15 minutes - There wasn’t much information on what to do when we were in Galway and we were asked to Google or talk to the locals there to find out Oh before I forget, to make the tour more interesting and full or surprises, below is a list of things that were different to what’s advertised in the tour: - No free Wi-Fi on the bus - 2 breakfasts instead of 3 - We passed through Adare but didn’t even stop there. We were most excited about this given the description on the ad: “We will enjoy a stop at one of Ireland's most picturesque villages - Adare with its fabulous thatched cottages which line part of the village's broad main street , renowned for being regularly voted Ireland's tidiest town. It is known for its beautiful stone buildings, medieval monasteries and ruins.” Maybe Paddywagon Tours doesn’t understand that tours like this are usually considered by others are “trips of a lifetime”. It’s just infuriating how we paid so much money for this totally unenjoyable trip. “AwArD wInNiNg PaDdYwAgOn, WoRlD fAmOuS tOuRs Of IrElAnD” “OuR tEaM oF lOcAl TaLeNtS aRe PaSsIoNaTe AbOuT tHeIr HoMe CoUnTrY aNd ThEy WiLl PrOvIdE yOu WiTh StOrIeS tO lAsT a LiFeTiMe” What an absolute terrible joke.

First off, our guide Damien was amazing! This review does not reflect him as a guide- he was knowledgable, friendly, and a fantastic driver. But head office was highly disorganized and non-responsive. I've never had a tour company not respond to a customer (they even saw the Facebook message). Tour lists a dinner and 3 breakfasts, where in reality, it's 2 basic breakfasts. Noone had any clue about the dinner or 3rd breakfast. We were dropped off in Galway by ourselves and without a guide. It's a very independent trip. No recommendations or sites to see or anything. We were also told that we'd be staying only with PaddyWagon guests in our hostel. I specifically asked this prior to booking. But they stuck us with a few other random people in the hostel. Just terrible communication with the PaddyWagon company. You get what you pay for I guess but we overpaid considering its false advertising especially with the meals being included.

This tour was wonderful and good value, driver Aaron who was also our guide was very friendly and helpful and gave us plenty of information, he was very knowledgeable on the local areas

I am a solo female traveler from California and I had the best time. I stayed in the hostel, have to say, I had not stayed in a hostel in over 25 years. The people I shared the room with, were amazing and the group that ran the hostel in both places were awesome! Our driver Frank was excellent, funny, and he shared the history of area we traveled. The people on the tour were enjoyable as we all got along with each other and had fun. I wanted to thank the entire team at PaddyWagon for making this a memorable trip and sharing the beautiful country of Ireland with me. I would highly recommend this to anybody who wanted to explore Ireland in either a group or solo. JUST DO IT! I am so happy I did….

I really enjoyed this 3 Day tour around Ireland. We saw beautiful scenery; had a lot of stops to take fantastic pictures; and enjoyed the commentary from the bus driver.

Let's take a quick look at all aspects of this tour: Pickup - This was my biggest complaint. The pickup information given is INCORRECT and tells you to wait at the tourist office near the Molly Malone statue. This office is around the corner from the statue and when you wait there you can't see nor hear anything going on at the statue. Luckily someone in the tourist office saw us there with luggage and came out to tell us that they don't pickup at the office, they pickup at the statue! Had we waited at the office only a few minutes longer, we'd have completely missed the roll call at the statue and missed the entire tour we booked our Ireland trip around. The tourist office says they've been asking for over four years to have the tour company update this and they haven't. I can only imagine all the people who have missed tours by standing in the wrong spot!! Boarding/Bus - The bus was awesome. Very comfortable, air conditioned, USB chargers, WiFi, and a washroom for emergencies. We spent a lot of time on the road, and it was the perfect coach for doing this in. My only gripe here is seating. Unlike other tours I've done, they don't make an effort to seat single travelers together, so all the singles took window seats and there were several couples on the bus who had to be broken up in order to find individual seats on their own. This happened every single day of the three days and I felt really bad for all these couples who paid a lot of money for the tour and had to spend most of their days on the road sitting completely apart, unable to share in all the amazing sights together. The tour company needs to make an effort to ensure couples can sit together and that their solo travelers don't hog all the good seats and rows. Overall Tour - we had a good mix of ages from young to old, families, couples, and solo travelers on our tour. The sights we saw were amazing and breathtaking, arguably some of the best places I've ever been to on this earth! Ireland is beautiful and this tour will let you spend three days soaking in all that beauty from all the best spots and attractions on the route taken! Another minor complaint here is that a lot of us wished there would have been more narration from the driver - it felt like there was so much more to learn about everything we were seeing and everywhere we were going, but narration was usually rather light, and also sometimes a bit too repetitive. Maybe a dedicated narrator and tour guide would be better?

We had plenty of time to see galway, cliffs of moher, baby cliffs, waterfall, killarney, and the ring of Kerry. 3 day was just the right amount of time. Accomodations were better than expected. Met a lot of great people on the bus and in town. Thank you Alex for a great experience

Our guide (Alex) was a great host. He got everyone to mix and as a result, everyone had a great time. There were 39 people on the bus. About half were in their 50's and half in their 20's. There were young women travelling solo, a family with teens, and about 8 nationalities. We felt like part of a family by the third day. I will definitely recommend it to my daughters - both in their 20's.

We really enjoyed the 3 day tour with Frank! He was a great guy and very accommodating. The boat ride at the cliffs of moher was a real treat! The only problem was no hot water on the 2nd night B&B (Randy Leprechaun) Otherwise it was a very nice trip.

Lovely tour with very decently priced too! Many places visited in 3 days. Our guide, Lee was a perfect gentleman who briefed us well . Will highly recommend.