Dublin City Tour

Pollycat

Hi
Going to Dublin this Saturday for 3 days and want to make the most of it.

I've been researching on the internet and we've decided to do a 'hop on/hop off' city bus tour, taking advantage of the first departure at 09:30.

We want to do this:
stop 1: Kilmainham Gaol
stop 2: Merrion Square - for Oscar Wilde Statue, exterior of Heraldic Museum
stop 3: Guiness Storehouse
stop 4: Jameson's Distillery (anyone know if the chimney is still closed?). Walk to Collins Barracks for 'Decorative Arts & History'.
stop 6: St Stephens Green

Is the above too ambitious to do in one day?
We do appreciate that it will be a long day, but we're OK with that.
I guess I'm asking roughly how long tours of Kilmainham Gaol, Guiness Storehouse & Jameson's Distillery take.

We have the other stuff like Book of Kells, Dublin Castle, ChristChurch Cathedral etc planned for other days.
We thought this would give us a good overview of the city layout as well as taking advantage of visiting the furthest out attractions as part of the tour.

Thanks

Pollycat

Hi Dulgnoy
Thanks for the reply (I'm a bit unsure what you mean):

but about how much spend on it?

We plan on getting a 2 day Dublin Pass at €49 each but 15% discount if booked online and booking a city tour for €15.50 with 20% discount if booked online.

The Dublin Pass will give us free admission to a lot of places we want to visit as well as fast-track entrance.

Incapuppy

pollycat, dulgnoy is a spammer that has been reported (also posting as william007)

inaspin_3

I don't like spammers, ruining threads! Grrr. Pollycat, I have never been to Dublin but what you have planned sounds great, like you said though, maybe a long day, but if you can cope with that i say go for it. The only thing I'm thinking is that if some tours do take a little longer you may miss out on others? Like.... if you go to the Guiness Storehouse and end up enjoying the free tasting too much! I hope someone comes along that is a lot more useful than me! Maybe you could google each site and see if it gives you an approximate time you need there to see everything?

Hope you have a great time :beer:

Pollycat

incapuppy
thanks, I've now read his other posts.
What a dumbass.

inaspin
Our flight gets in at 07:30 Saturday morning and the Tourist Information Office at Dublin airport opens at 08:00 so we're planning to order our Dublin Pass online and pick it up from there.
As we did in New York, Hong Kong & Barcelona, we intend to 'hit the ground running' to fit everything in.

As someone has said that we should allow 2 hours each for Kilmainham Gaol & Guiness Storehouse, we wanted to get on the city tour bus as soon as we can (first one at 09:30).
We can't check in to our hotel until 2pm Saturday so we thought we'd do the city tour first as not only will it give us orientation of the city layout, anything we miss out can be rescheduled for another day if we really want to see it.

Depending how the time goes, we'll miss out Collins Barracks and Jameson's Distillery on Saturday and walk to them Sunday. Our hotel is fairly central, opposite Trinity College.

I've googled until I'm dizzy :rolleyes: and couldn't find any approximate times.
I've picked up lots of info re opening times and admission feed though.

Thanks, guys (apart from the stupid reply from Dulgnoy).

McAzrael

I should miss out the book of Kells regardless of how much time you have. I liked the castle tour and the Killmainham Gaol tour, but neither can be described as a totally accurate and objective telling of Irish history. If you go out to Killmainham then the art gallery is just across the road. Otherwise, Dublin is quite walkable.

I don't know how it stacks up moneywise with your other plans, or if you are planning on being back in Ireland again in the next year, but you can buy a Heritage Card for E21 each which gets you into all OPW (state) owned attractions for a year. In Dublin these include Killmainham Gaol and Dublin Castle, but not the Guiness Storehouse or Jamesons Distillery. You can pick them up at the attraction, but you have to ask for it in Irish. Details here: http://www.heritageireland.ie/en/Info/HeritageCards/ and here: http://www.heritageireland.ie/en/Dublin/

Edinburghlass_2

At the left hand side of the exit from the airport is a booth for Dublin Bus where you can buy a Rambler Family ticket, 11.50 Euros for the three days you are there on the city buses and your return to the airport using the airport express bus No 747. you don't need to have children to buy a Family ticket

http://www.dublinbus.ie/fares_and_tickets/daily.asp

I'm off to Dublin tomorrow and have booked the City Tour online, apparently the round trip takes an hour and a half should you actually wish to stay on the bus all the way round. Coupled with the Rambler Ticket bought at the airport this is cheaper than buying the city tour with an airport return which is offered on the website where you can buy the City Tour tickets.

zenmaster

I'm sure you will have a great time. The tour bus is excellent. We spent the first day walking (never again ).

Here is something for you to take to Kilmainham with you.

Pollycat

Edinburghlass
We looked at the Rambler ticket and decided that we wouldn't be travelling that much on buses to make it worth while.
The City Tour will take care of the furthest we'll go (Kilmainham Gaol), we would really like to go to the Botanical Gardens but are fairly sure we won't have time to fit it in.
We've also booked the City Tour online, we'll get the ordinary bus back to the airport, either from O'Connell street or the Central Bus Station, for €2.00.

zenmaster
Very moving, thanks. My OH wasn't too keen on visiting the Gaol but I particularly wanted to see it.

zenmaster

Pollycat wrote: »

My OH wasn't too keen on visiting the Gaol but I particularly wanted to see it.

Ha! I wanted to see it because of that song (which I learned from an Irish friend) and I dragged the others in my party along. They were a bit dubious but thoroughly enjoyed (if that's the right word to use in the context :rolleyes:) it and talked about it for ages afterwards.

We didn't go to the Storehouse because of the queues but if you have a Dublin pass I think you can walk straight in.

Have a good trip.

Diane65

Hi Pollycat
I've done all (except for :stop 4: Jameson's Distillery (anyone know if the chimney is still closed?). Walk to Collins Barracks for 'Decorative Arts & History') in one day and it was fine; we arrived in Dublin City at 10.00am and had to leave at 6.45pm so you should be able to do it no problem.
Have a lovely time.