We just got home at 2 a.m. this morning from our flight home from Ireland. We left Saturday 23 November and arrived back to Atlanta 30 November…and getting to the house early 1 December (the joys of living 2 hours from the airport). We travelled using Globus Tours on a Southern Ireland tour. Our guide was Julianne and our driver was David. They were both fabulous. Julianne was able to tell us Irish history and stories and just had a wide array of information for us, while David maneuvered a huge Globus tour bus through places I probably would be nervous to drive my mini van. Between all the airline travel and transfers and all the walking during site seeing, we walked over 35 miles! Make sure if your going to Ireland, pack comfortable waterproof shoes! My feet are still a little sore from our big walking day, Friday in Dublin of almost 10 miles!
Our tour had a total of 44 people including me and my husband. We actually met people that even live about 45 minutes from us. People ranged from age 8 to probably in the 60s-70s.
Our tour got off to a bumpy start with a delayed flight leaving us to miss our connecting flight in London. We were supposed to get to Shannon about 11:30 a.m. but didn’t make it until 5:30…so we lost out on the daylight for exploring in Limerick, but explored instead at night. This was the most unpredictable part of the trip.
Once we were there, Globus had arranged all hotels and tours and some meals were included. When we arrived at each hotel, our keys were handed to us (no waiting or checking in) and our bags were carried to our rooms. Every hotel was nicely appointed, clean and everyone was very friendly. A full Irish breakfast was offered every morning at each hotel before our touring as well.
Globus tours require great punctuality. Everyone was on time, except when a few younger travelers accidentally went down the fire escape stairs and got stuck…so we had to wait a few extra minutes for hotel staff to get them out. And yes we all gave them a hard time, all egged on by their mom and dad who also were traveling with us.
The first day of touring we started in Limerick and hubby and I were lucky to get there front seats as we were early to hop on the bus. Globus though, has a fair seating policy, so they rotate your seats every day to ensure no one gets stuck in the back for the whole trip…good for everyone, bad for me who gets motion sickness in buses when I can’t see where I’m going. Driving the Ring of Kerry, was very curvy! I eventually found a pharmacy and got some motion sickness pills, but they don’t have Dramamine in Ireland, so if you get motion sick, I recommend you bring some non-drowsy Dramamine, so you don’t miss out on a single bit of everything you see as they are driving.
There were also option excursions three of the evenings. You could have prepaid before, but a lot of folks just waited to until the day of. Either way, all three were very enjoyable. There was a medieval castle banquet, Country Irish pub and a night at Taylor’s for an Irish night of dinner, music and dancing.
We also added an additional day on to the end of our tour, so our last day in Dublin was on our own. It was a bit overwhelming as there was so much to see. But we squeezed in almost ten miles of site seeing in one day.
The weather in Ireland is unpredictable. You can see four seasons in one day. Everyday during our trip was between 8 and 13 degrees Celsius. I actually only wore a long sleeve shirt/sweatshirt and a rain jacket for the majority of the trip. I had brought thicker jackets, wore the first day, but was too warm. I did however wear gloves and a hat most days as well. An umbrella is an absolute necessity as well as waterproof shoes.
We checked the weather everyday, but most days the weatherman failed us. Some days were foggy, some rained, some just drizzled and we actually had two mostly clear days as well.
This trip was absolutely amazing and we saw a ton more than we could have traveling on our own. With the personal driver, we were free to drink wine or Guinness and have no worries of having a designated driver!
We will definitely be using Globus again in the future. It really took a lot of stress that you can experience with travel logistics, because they handled it all.
Make sure to check out my other blog posts for pictures and more info on all the sites we visited.
Please comment if you have any experience with Globus or any other Globus family of brands.
XOXO
-S