Private tour companies in Dublin, Cork, Belfast and Bruges????? Must see???

Hi! We are looking for first hand recommendations for the best private tour companies in Dublin, Cork , Belfast and Bruges. Also looking for must see/ favorite stops in all of these places. Thank you!

Interested to know too for our Sept sailing!

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Hi! We are looking for first hand recommendations for the best private tour companies in Dublin, Cork , Belfast and Bruges. Also looking for must see/ favorite stops in all of these places. Thank you!

Dublin, the HoHo Bus is great, it takes you to all the key places. Catch it near Trinity College.

Belfast, Odyssey Tours was great. We did the Giant's Causeway, Rope Bridge and tour of city.

Cork, we found an inexpensive private tour on line, saved over the ship.

Bruges, we did the ship's tour that include Ghent as well.

Hi! We are looking for first hand recommendations for the best private tour companies in Dublin, Cork , Belfast and Bruges. Also looking for must see/ favorite stops in all of these places. Thank you!

Dublin: Did the HOHO bus. Bought timed entry tickets beforehand for the Kilmainham Gaol which has limited entrance so is not offered to larger tours. Very interesting as it was central to the late 1800/1900s political history of Ireland

Cork: ECoach/Butler tours. Blarney Castle (very crowded but the grounds are beautiful even if you decide not to climb the stairs to kiss the Blarney Stone), lovely Kinsale village for lunch. Short stop at Charlesfort. Very reasonable price.

Belfast: City and Causeway Tours with Alistar. If Alistar isn't available, ask for David who was beyond wonderful. REALLY impressed with this company. Alistar called me from Ireland to personally explain his tour offerings! David was our driver and guide and took us to out of the way places we never would have seen otherwise. If you are a Game of Thrones watcher, he knows all the filming spots. He even took us to the Peace Wall in Belfast and let us sign it. Amazing day.

cityandcausewaytours@gmail.com

There are some really lovely places to visit in Cork other than Blarney. If you are doing a private tour you can ask to visit these instead. Probably a lot less crowded too.

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Gougan Barra, in West Cork. There's a lovely pub and cafe a short walk from here plush a gift shop. Very close to Glenn Gariff & Bantry too. Depending how long you have in port you could go to Garnish Island too (a botanical garden ).

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Wow. How beautiful! Thank you!

Gougan Barra, in West Cork. There's a lovely pub and cafe a short walk from here plush a gift shop. Very close to Glenn Gariff & Bantry too. Depending how long you have in port you could go to Garnish Island too (a botanical garden ).

 

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Thank you for your recommendations mmendations! Where did you buy advanced tickets for the Kilmainham Gaol, online?

Dublin: Did the HOHO bus. Bought timed entry tickets beforehand for the Kilmainham Gaol which has limited entrance so is not offered to larger tours. Very interesting as it was central to the late 1800/1900s political history of Ireland

Cork: ECoach/Butler tours. Blarney Castle (very crowded but the grounds are beautiful even if you decide not to climb the stairs to kiss the Blarney Stone), lovely Kinsale village for lunch. Short stop at Charlesfort. Very reasonable price.

Belfast: City and Causeway Tours with Alistar. If Alistar isn't available, ask for David who was beyond wonderful. REALLY impressed with this company. Alistar called me from Ireland to personally explain his tour offerings! David was our driver and guide and took us to out of the way places we never would have seen otherwise. If you are a Game of Thrones watcher, he knows all the filming spots. He even took us to the Peace Wall in Belfast and let us sign it. Amazing day.

cityandcausewaytours@gmail.com

Thank you for the suggestions!

Dublin, the HoHo Bus is great, it takes you to all the key places. Catch it near Trinity College.

 

Belfast, Odyssey Tours was great. We did the Giant's Causeway, Rope Bridge and tour of city.

 

Cork, we found an inexpensive private tour on line, saved over the ship.

 

Bruges, we did the ship's tour that include Ghent as well.

Thank you for your recommendations mmendations! Where did you buy advanced tickets for the Kilmainham Gaol, online?

Yes, bought the Kilmainham Gaol tickets online. If you are on a HOHO bus, they pass by the Gaol and the staff outside will give a thumbs up or thumbs down if there are still timed spots open within that hour. Even though we had timed tickets for 1.5 hours later, we got off the bus and went in. We were not allowed to exchange our timed tickets or get a refund so we just paid again (for a shorter, cheaper tour) which freed up the rest of our afternoon so we were happy.

We did Princess's British Isles cruise in August 2015. Here are my recommendations.

We did this Game of Thrones tour out of Belfast: http://www.gameofthronestours.tv/ guide was wonderful, wish I could remember his name. Due to traffic we missed seeing the walls in the city of Belfast. Excellent tour. Only 6 of us.

Our Inverness tour was with Dave Fyfe, Inverness Tours. Also excellent, knowledgeable guide. Covered lots of territory in our 8 or so hours with him. http://www.invernesstours.com

Worse tour was with Rabbies Tours in Edinburg. The guide was not really a guide, we just drove around and around and around. While a group of us were at Edinburgh Castle he drove the remainder just around and around. After picking us up, we drove to a little seaside village and said he needed to take his break. Now--why didn't he do that when we were in Edinburgh? He could have dropped off the others at the bottom of the Royal Mile, pointed out things to see and taken his break then. Also, we stood out in cold, blowing rain, waiting for the guide. He was holding a sign, wrong name, a couple of us talked to him, no not his group, the person who arranged the tour finally called the company, who called him.

If you are looking for a transfer back to London with sightseeing on the way, we did the transfer with International Tours, included Stonehenge, Windsor Castle, and Salisbury. Drop off in front of our hotel. As we were the last to be dropped off, we had a nice tour of London too!

One of the many local beaches in Cork. Not exactly Miami, but I love it[emoji2]

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Only 30 min from Cobh & 20 min from Ringaskiddy

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Just curious .... why is it OK to state the name of tour companies that are OUT of the country? But we can't name US travel agencies within the US on CC?

For Bruges we did a ship's tour to Ghent for a riverboat tour. It was excellent and the scenery delightful. It was a very easy way to see a lovely city.

Just curious .... why is it OK to state the name of tour companies that are OUT of the country? But we can't name US travel agencies within the US on CC?

Because tour operators and travel agencies are very different things. It's OK to name tour operators in the US on the appropriate boards, too.

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I just got back from this cruise. We used About Cork Tours (Janice is booking manager) in both Cork and Dublin and they were excellent. We had a private tour for 7 hours in Cork for 330 Euro and 6 hours in Dublin for 280 Euro. You can tailor the day as you like and it was such a great experience. In Cork we went out to West Cork and saw scenery and small towns. In Dublin we went out to Wicklow and saw the main sites of Dublin.

In Dublin, we used Belfast City Tours and had Michael Doyle who was also excellent. it was 120 pounds for a half day tour up the coast in a London black cab. Again another excellent tour. Alot of people go to Giant's Causeway. Titanic Belfast is also a nice attraction but you can just take a taxi from the pier to see that.

Thank you for the information. How long was the game of thrones tour and did you feel that if someone hadn't seen the he show, they would Ike it too?

We did Princess's British Isles cruise in August 2015. Here are my recommendations.

 

We did this Game of Thrones tour out of Belfast: http://www.gameofthronestours.tv/ guide was wonderful, wish I could remember his name. Due to traffic we missed seeing the walls in the city of Belfast. Excellent tour. Only 6 of us.

 

Our Inverness tour was with Dave Fyfe, Inverness Tours. Also excellent, knowledgeable guide. Covered lots of territory in our 8 or so hours with him. www.invernesstours.com

 

Worse tour was with Rabbies Tours in Edinburg. The guide was not really a guide, we just drove around and around and around. While a group of us were at Edinburgh Castle he drove the remainder just around and around. After picking us up, we drove to a little seaside village and said he needed to take his break. Now--why didn't he do that when we were in Edinburgh? He could have dropped off the others at the bottom of the Royal Mile, pointed out things to see and taken his break then. Also, we stood out in cold, blowing rain, waiting for the guide. He was holding a sign, wrong name, a couple of us talked to him, no not his group, the person who arranged the tour finally called the company, who called him.

 

If you are looking for a transfer back to London with sightseeing on the way, we did the transfer with International Tours, included Stonehenge, Windsor Castle, and Salisbury. Drop off in front of our hotel. As we were the last to be dropped off, we had a nice tour of London too!

Thank you for the help. Did you feel like you could have done Cork on your own or was the tour necessary? Am I understanding this correctly, Did you use both About Cork and Belfast city tours in Dublin? We are looking for a tour 6 hours or less.

I just got back from this cruise. We used About Cork Tours (Janice is booking manager) in both Cork and Dublin and they were excellent. We had a private tour for 7 hours in Cork for 330 Euro and 6 hours in Dublin for 280 Euro. You can tailor the day as you like and it was such a great experience. In Cork we went out to West Cork and saw scenery and small towns. In Dublin we went out to Wicklow and saw the main sites of Dublin.

 

In Dublin, we used Belfast City Tours and had Michael Doyle who was also excellent. it was 120 pounds for a half day tour up the coast in a London black cab. Again another excellent tour. Alot of people go to Giant's Causeway. Titanic Belfast is also a nice attraction but you can just take a taxi from the pier to see that.

We are undecided about doing to Blarney castle. I am assuming it will take up the whole day and leave us very little time to see the rest of Cork. We aren't really beach people, what are the other must see sights in Cork? Anything music or movie sight related? Thank you!

There are some really lovely places to visit in Cork other than Blarney. If you are doing a private tour you can ask to visit these instead. Probably a lot less crowded too.

 

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Thank you for the information. How long was the game of thrones tour and did you feel that if someone hadn't seen the he show, they would Ike it too?

The tour itself was all day. Only my husband, of the six of us, had watched the Game of Thrones. Very interesting tour, lots of very scenic stops. The guide explained how the natural sites had been photoshopped for the show to make them appear still livable. Pretty much the same tour as the others. But our guide made it top notch.

We are undecided about doing to Blarney castle. I am assuming it will take up the whole day and leave us very little time to see the rest of Cork. We aren't really beach people, what are the other must see sights in Cork? Anything music or movie sight related? Thank you!

We stood in line 20 minutes at Blarney Castle and moved maybe 10 feet. We got out of line and walked around. Fun to watch the people kissing the Blarney Stone, but the stop was long but unless you ran from the bus the wait in line for the stone would take up all your time. A private tour would give you lots of flexibility.

We would be doing a private tour only for our family. But, I am assuming the line for the Blarney Stone will be just as long!

We stood in line 20 minutes at Blarney Castle and moved maybe 10 feet. We got out of line and walked around. Fun to watch the people kissing the Blarney Stone, but the stop was long but unless you ran from the bus the wait in line for the stone would take up all your time. A private tour would give you lots of flexibility.

We are undecided about doing to Blarney castle. I am assuming it will take up the whole day and leave us very little time to see the rest of Cork. We aren't really beach people, what are the other must see sights in Cork? Anything music or movie sight related? Thank you!

Culturally you could visit Cork City Gaol. Get a history about Cork. Then visit the English market, an undercover market opened at least 6 days a week in Cork city, if you are foody, they have lots of cheeses, bread, chocolates, coffee etc there.

If you want a more out door experience I would recommend west Cork. Gougan Barra, followed by Glengariff.

Both places have excellent cafes, gift shops, walks and stunning views.

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Thank you KerryinCork! Those are gorgeous pictures. Which spots where those taken in? We definitely like food and love to find quirky places off the beaten path to visit. Thank you for all of your help!

Culturally you could visit Cork City Gaol. Get a history about Cork. Then visit the English market, an undercover market opened at least 6 days a week in Cork city, if you are foody, they have lots of cheeses, bread, chocolates, coffee etc there.

 

If you want a more out door experience I would recommend west Cork. Gougan Barra, followed by Glengariff.

 

Both places have excellent cafes, gift shops, walks and stunning views.

 

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