Belfast Excursions

[swedish girl]

I would like to do an excursion of Belfast Highlights and Hillsborough Castle. The excursion from the Royal Princess is already sold out. Does anyone have any suggestions? Thanks!

[GradUT]

I can't help with getting to Hillsborough Castle. (I'm assuming the Royal Princess is in port when the castle is open. The open days are quite limited.)

 

However, for just a tour of the city, I highly recommend doing the City Sightseeing Open Top Hop On/Hop Off tour. We did this a few years ago when we visited our daughter who was doing a study abroad program at Queens University, Belfast. If you don't get off anywhere, the tour takes about 2 hours. That gave us enough time to have lunch in a snug at the Crown Bar Saloon (which is owned by the National Trust), have a walk through the Botanical Gardens and do a bit of shopping in the CBD.

 

Another often recommended tour of Belfast is with one of the Black Cab tours. I chose not to do one of those tours because I had heard that you can get stuck with a partisan cab driver and I wanted a non-partisan view of the city. I have to say that our guide on the City Sightseeing bus was very even-handed in his tour commentary. I have no idea if he was Protestant, Catholic or neither.

 

I highly recommend pre-booking a snug for lunch at the Crown Bar, if possible. It's a lovely place and our lunch was delicious and reasonably-priced.

 

City Sightseeing: http://belfastcitysightseeing.com/

 

Crown Bar Saloon: http://www.nicholsonspubs.co.uk/thecrownliquorsaloonbelfast/

[AZbeachboy]

I would suggest you go to the ports section and check. Then you are not limiting yourself to just this section and probably have more luck getting information.

[cruisefan2012]

Your ship will dock in the Titanic Quarter

 

Having visited Belfast many times - I think its a fantastic city

 

I highly recommend the City Tour bus, also a visit to the Titanic Museum

[gdlamberth]

Another option is to check out Tours By Locals at

 

http://www.toursbylocals.com/TBL/WebObjects/ToursByLocals.woa/1/wa/mapclick?region=39&area=57&wosid=aNt8vPpmORBtkhsQWWFIRM

 

We've used them in three different ports over the years and have had good luck. In Belfast last year we did a variation of the Giants Causeway tour on this page (individual guides will tailor your itinerary to meet your desires).

 

Greg

[timetravler]

Four of us did the City and Giant Causeway tour by Allaster. He was the PERFECT tour guide. He uses vans so they hold I think 6 or maybe 8 people total. Anyways the first thing I loved about Allaster is he actually called us at home within 24 hours of our e-mail. You can then request to go exactly where you want to go. If you can find a few others to join your tour then price becomes very reasonable. The exact name of the tour company is:

CITY AND GIANT CAUSEWAY TOURS. Highly recommended