Galway Tour Company

This tour was part of our Vacation Package I booked through Funjet Tours.
The tour didn’t start off good. The tour information provided by Galway Tours instructions stated to meet across from the Westin Hotel at the FexCo. We did and were early. A van arrived which we thought would be our tour, no the driver said that tour meets down at the Cinema about a fifteen minute walk away. So we walked down there and didn’t see a bus and we waited until pass the pick up time. Afraid the guy had given us bad information we walked all the way back or ran actually to the Westin Hotel to call the tour company.
The guy who answered the phone at the tour company was the biggest a$$hole ever. He told us it was pass the cinema, we had five minutes to get there, and the bus would not wait for us. He doesn’t know why the instructions say meet at the FexCo, nor does he care about anything.
The concierge grabbed us a cab and we speeded to the new place, the bus was still there and there were two seats open for us.
This bus just takes you to Galway Tours in Galway. The driver doesn’t tell you anything about the area or even talk.
Once in Galway we get the actual tour bus and driver. We headed for the Cliffs of Moher.
First we stopped in Doolin for lunch. Which was good. Then on to the Cliffs of Moher. The weather was rainy and terrible. We got a break in the weather to see the Cliffs, but it was brief. With the bad weather came heavy fog.
We then headed out to view the landscape of the Buren. After that we headed back to Galway to the Galway tours depot for a hour, then back to Dublin.
I would of rather taken a day trip directly from Dublin to the Cliffs of Moher. They definitely need to get the meeting point ironed out.
I wouldn’t recommend this company or tour from Dublin.

Booked the Cliffs of Moher tour, but the tour stops at a number of other interesting and beautiful stops as well. Well balanced and thought out. Our tour guide was fabulous (I want to say PJ maybe…), can’t remember the name unfortunately. Funny and informative about all the stops. Great tour.

Great tour! Our guide PJ was knowledgable, informative, helpful (for other Ireland suggestions), funny, and made the tour that much more enjoyable. I could go on and on but you get the point. Awesome.
The tour stopped at very interesting places along the way. I couldn’t ask for a better Cliffs of Moher tour. Thanks!

On Monday of this week we took the new Aran Islands & Cliffs of Moher Tour including Cliffs Cruise. What a FANTASTIC experience! The company had us picked up at our B&B and taken to the bus station. Our bus left promptly at 9am and our guide, Paul, was THE BEST! You really know when someone loves what they do and Paul definitely does. He was extremely fun, personable and knowledgeable. Everything was timed perfectly to ensure maximum enjoyment of the day and to avoid crowds as best possible. Paul had checked the weather, the sea conditions and even the UV index for the day!
The tour of the island was great — you could stick with Paul (where you can learn cool things), or go off exploring on your own. Nice to have the flexibility since different folks like different things. Then, off to see the cliffs — FROM THE WATER!!! JUST WOW! Not everyone gets to experience from that perspective, so it was extra special. One note of caution, however — if you want to sit on the top of the ferry in the seats, there is soot coming from the smoke stack… so bring something to wipe the seats down with and be aware you may get lightly dusted. Small price to pay, in my opinion. :)
The lunch stop in Doolin was efficient and tasty! No complaints there! Then, to the top of the cliffs where we had about an hour and half to explore on our own. Breathtaking! I have vertigo so there were a couple of dizzy moments, but you can get as close to the edge or far enough away as you like.
Lastly, Paul offered us the option of the slightly longer drive home along Galway Bay since we had a particularly gorgeous day and stopped off to show us the limestone cliffs and give us more photo ops. As we arrived back in Galway he dropped everyone off as close to their accommodations as possible. Great care from start to finish! And, really, a fantastic deal for 45 Euro per person!

Loved the tour. Our guide (Aiman, sp?) was also the driver and he was very attentive and knowledgeable. He was very specific with details and gave us a specific time on when to return to the bus. Some tourists however, seem not to pay attention to the driver’s instructions and while everyone was on the bus, patiently waiting for those individuals, we lost some valuable time. So you really can’t blame the tour guide. He counted all the people before leaving a tour spot to make sure he had everyone on the bus.
Anyway, the tour was amazing. The Cliffs of Moher, The Burren, the small villages (including Doolin) were such a treat! Loved the farm animals too!
All in all, excellent tour!

Truly a great experience and deal!
We booked the Cliffs of Moher/​Burren and Connemara tours, to get the deal on booking 2 tours.
There is nothing like Cliffs of Moher on Earth. Pictures do not do it justice. But by all means, take a lot! Also the 5000 year old Neolithic tombs were amazing.
My favorite part of the Connemara tour was the village of Cong. I wanted to see the Quiet Man village, and we had a great time scampering around in the Cong Abbey ruins. Connemara looks like how I picture Scotland, and our tour guide told us that «Braveheart» was actually mostly filmed in Ireland.
Tons of baby sheep and cows!
The tour came directly to our hostel to pick us up. You can also arrange for direct transportation back to Dublin after your tour. The guides were funny and informative! Each tour had the right amount of stopping for air and exploration and travel. You see tons of stuff.

There is probably no better deal in all of Ireland than the 11:30 Cliffs of Mohor tour from Galway Tour Company. Our driver, Paul Nash, was great at giving us historical and current context on everything from the Potato Famine, to the Irish education system. He also was able to navigate the shoestring backroads of the Burren like a champion. We only found out at the end of the trip that he was not only called out last minute to fill in for someone who was sick, but it was also his first ever tour!
The tour itself is great if you want to see the countryside around Galway Bay. You’ll get your share of rolling green acres of sheep and fields of stone. There are a few stops for amazing photo opportunities, and a great quick lunch in Doolin at O’Connor’s. You have two hours at the cliffs which is just enough time to get your fill. There’s a peaceful ride back and another chance for some photos.
It’s a great and comfortable way to spend the day and definitely worth more than you’re paying for it!

I don’t usually like organized bus tours when traveling, but without a car and with only a day to pack in as much as possible, my wife and I took the 8 hour Cliffs of Moher. It was a great choice. It’s an exhausting, speedy day, but the tour company packs in loads of stops that leave you with a good impression of this region in Ireland. It’s also a really good value, with the Cliffs of Moher ticket included.
Our tour guide, Gary, did an excellent job. In the evening after the tour we followed some of his recommendations on seeing local music and had a blast.

Was really excited to go on this tour, based on reviews on Tripadvisor. Though we were happy to be picked up near our BnB, it was over an hour before the tour began, after serveral bus changes. Was disappointed in the company’s handling of the situation. The main stops were excellent, but disappointed in the fact the driver was the guide. He told awful jokes, was quite boring, and the intermediary stops were ho-​hum. Lunch was pretty terrible. The Cliffs and Burren are amazing, however, so if you can overlook all the rest, this is a good tour to go on.

My friend and I booked the Cliffs of Moher day trip very last minute, but we could not have been happier that we went on this tour! We were picked up in the morning from our B&B in Galway, shuttled to the bus station, and then we were off for the majority of the day. You can’t beat the scenery! I feel like this is the best way to see greater Galway and the west coast of Ireland. Our tour guide, Eamon, was beyond accommodating and knowledgeable, even recommending books to me when I asked him about the fairy trees we learned about throughout the day. He stops frequently for pictures and really cares that you get the best experience while you’re in western Ireland. He was truly the epitome of Irish hospitality! Not to mention at the end of the trip he went out of his way in the tour bus to drop my friend and me off at our B&B. That service cannot be beat!
As for the tour, we went in early March and got the full effect of the changing Irish weather. Regardless, I feel like you get a thorough tour and nothing is too overcrowded, which makes the day extremely enjoyable. Do yourself a favor and book this tour to get the full effect of lovely Ireland and its people!

Bus driver left us (2 ladies) in middle of nowhere as we were 5 minutes late from our group walk. Terrible tour bus driver. We called him the angry leprechaun. His name is Damien. We were stranded and bus driver left with our luggage and passports in suitcases and my Louis vuitton handbag. Needless to say we were shocked and scared. Another kind tour company came by and rescued us. 3 hours later we found our old bus that stranded us and retrieved our luggage. We did not want to rejoin that tour as the driver was a nutcase angry controlling soul. Who laughed at us when we found him again.
So we continued on the other tour bus! Basically ruined our day as we were extremely stressed from the experience and scared that the Galway tour company bus took off and left us stranded and stole our luggage and handbag! Lucky 3 hours later we got our things back. Those 3 hours without our things and luggage and handbags were extremely nerve damaging and scary. Do not recommend this tour company. They do not care about passengers or our belongings. As well as the bus driver was angry and nasty to us.
Called the company and asked for refund as it ruined a complete day for us in Ireland.

Awful tour! Our driver was far from pleasant and was hard to hear what he was saying most of the time. The coach was cramped and the seats were so low it was hard to see out the window. And to top it all he drove off and left us at one of the stops! The clock on the bus was 7 minutes fast so going by the time on my watch we apparently were late back to the bus! We were five minutes behind! Our luggage was on the bus with passports everything! It was the most bizarre thing to happen and were never informed by our driver that If we were a few minutes late we would be left! I would never ever recommend this tour! Besides that awful experience the tour wasn’t that great anyway and places we were supposed to stop and see he didn’t bother showing us. Don’t waste your time or money plenty other good tours out there! Luckily we made if safely to our destination thanks to some kind folks.

My partner and I were rather hesitant about booking a tour rather than driving around western Ireland ourselves, but the positive reviews (and the fact that we’d get twice as much done going with a group as we would trying it ourselves) led us to book the Burren and Cliffs of Moher tour. I don’t regret it for a moment. Desmond is a pure delight as a tour guide — you really can’t ask for more local than an Irish-​speaker from the Connemara Gaeltacht! His son drove the bus fearlessly from destination to destination. After a week of driving round Ireland myself, I was full of admiration — those roads are narrow, and I wouldn’t have wanted to try it with such a large vehicle through the rain.
The trip was well timed, allowing us to experience each site and explore a bit ourselves, getting the flavor of the place without feeling particularly rushed. Desmond did a great job of explaining context and history to folks with no background knowledge of Ireland at all (most of our bus were tourists) while still making it entertaining to folks with somewhat more knowledge of Irish culture and history (half my family still lives in Ireland). I was particularly appreciative of his ability to explain the poignancy of some of the post-​Cromwellian marks on the landscape without causing a political tempest in a tour bus. That’s an art!
This was our last day in Ireland, but next trip we’ll be back for the Connemara tour. I hope y’all have as good of an experience as we did.

If you have a couple of days for a trip outside of Dublin, many people default going west to the striking Cliffs of Moher in County Clare. Twenty years ago, I rented a car and drove through the southwest of Ireland through the Ring of Kerry and the Dingle Peninsula, and it was a lovely trip, but I missed the cliffs. This time, I was a bit more time-​constrained and not feeling as adventurous, but I was determined to see those cliffs. I’m not getting any younger, after all. Tick-​tock-​tick-​tock. So I decided to book the overnight tour on Galway Tours, a pretty good deal for just € 75, and defer the driving to someone else.
The downside is that you’re in a bus with a rather motley group, most relatively normal but a few screechingly loud, the most detestable being a Tennessee redneck family who sounded like the cast of «Deliverance». I think I could hear «Dueling Banjos» as they yelled out things like «Ah, look at them sheep, Ma… I want to take ‘em back to the farm!». With a 7AM departure from Dublin, it takes about 3−½ hours to get to Galway, including a midway pit-​stop in Athone where you get to hang out at a nondescript convenience store in a gas station. We switched buses in Galway to take the Cliffs of Moher part of the tour.
Although we were beating back heavy rains at times, the sights were worthwhile — Dunguaire Castle, the ancient Poulnabrone Dolmen in the Burren (where it was pouring cats and leprechauns), a lunch stop in Doolin, and finally the Cliffs of Moher (see photos). Lovely but terribly windy with the odd climatic phenomenon of rain shooting up into your face from the vertical cliffs. Unfortunately the trails atop the cliffs were blocked because of the turbulent winds, but the lookout points still made the stop essential. The tour ends around 6PM where I ended up in a youth hostel next to the bus station.
Not an accommodation I care to repeat — even though my unexpected roommates were quite nice and quite young. One told me it was nice to see a man of my advanced years taking advantage of the hostel. Gee thanks. I was left to my own devices in Galway that night, and the following morning, another tour guide took a group of us to Connemara where there was an extended stop at stately Kylemore Abbey (see photo). By the way, try the Irish stew in the café here. It’s delicious. Perhaps because the weather was marginally better and the tour group more bearable, I thought the scenery was more, well, scenic, on this leg of the trip.
We made stops in the colorful village of Cong (sounds Vietnamese, doesn’t it?) and the 14^th-​century ruin that was Ross Errilly Friary (see photos). If you go in the late fall like I did, the drive back is mostly in the dark where you arrive in Dublin around 7:30PM. All in all, it was a good trip with local driver guides that don’t sound as scripted as others. In hindsight, I probably should have provided my own accommodation in Galway, but that’s what I get for not reading the fine print on the site. If you are looking to take in the West Ireland sights in a non-​obtrusive way, Galway Tours is probably your best bet.

Cliffs of Moher is a must see! Ask for Desmond! Hysterical! Best tour I have ever been on and worth every penny. I wish there was time to do Connemara.

Awesome student deal so that you can go to the Cliffs tour and the Connemara tour as many times as you want for 20 euro. Helpful if you have friends visiting and don’t want to pay over and over again. Most of the people working here are really nice (Desmond is a fan favorite) but the man in charge of the Connemara tour (one of them) was very strict about people talking which was a bit annoying. Great deals though!

For destinations out side of Dublin, you can’t go wrong with the beautiful Galway and her Cliffs of Moher. The only way to see this properly is with the Galway Tour Company (unless you have your own car and guide).
What I find amazing, is that these drivers know this whole trip like the back of their hand but yet they still seem to be having fun. They are great with giving you history and little stories about the area, in fact they are so good at it, you get the feeling like you are the first people they have told this to. Like you got to experience something that no one else has.
I can’t say enough good things about this tour company. Everything was easy, fun, comfortable and gorgeous. The kind of stuff that give you memories to look back as you get older. Our driver was hilarious and full of so much history. I would tell you more about the sites but they were too gorgeous to try to explain.
They pick you up in Dublin, you watch a movie (A classic with Sean Connery — Darby O’Gill and the Little People, It’s a favorite of mine), drop you at a bus terminal where you hop on the Galway coach bus, and then you spend the whole day driving and stopping around Galway. Of course also going to the main attraction, the Cliffs of Moher! Then they take you back. This so worth the money, which to be honest wasn’t even that expensive for all that you get.

As you may have gathered from the other reviews here, Desmond is the man. He’s crazy, kind of old, and borderline senile, but he’s a blast. The tour was really fun going from Galway through the Burren and out to the Cliffs of Moher. It was beautiful – definitely something you need to see if you can make it. Still, I’m guessing there are other tours and modes of transportation that will take you to the cliffs. Desmond really makes this tour worth it. Sure, he’ll babble on incessantly for hours, play the song Galway Girl 20 times in a row, and tell you about his leprechaun friend who sits in the front of the bus… but you’ll love every second of it. This guy is a legend.

I just spent 4 weeks in Ireland with a group of 24 College students. One of our best memories is still the Ghost Bus tour we took. It is one of those things that is almost impossible to explain, and what I could explain might ruin the experience for you.
Just know that if you want to see some sites, learn a few things about the area and have many, many laughs while doing it, Desmond is your man.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

I’ve never been on a full day bus tour before, but if they are all like these, you can bet I’ll be going again!
I woke up in the morning, decided to go on a tour and my hotel set me up with the Galway Tour Company. An hour later, Desmond Murray came to my hotel, grabbed me and we were off to the bus station.
Desmond shared information about all of the sites, sang songs, and kept us thoroughly entertained over a full day (8+ hours) of adventure! He’s a total classic! One of the highlights of the day was the pub he took us to in Doolin. Whatever you do, DON’T miss the fried brie!
The Cliffs of Moher were incredible and Desmond took such great care of us that the following day I took the Connemara & Cong bus with Michael and saw a completely different set of beautiful sites. I’m so glad I took these tours!