Paddywagon

...IS IT?
**************
Paddywagon is a tour operator of Ireland, starting from Dublin.
They offer different tours, all inclusive.

CONTEXT
***********
I personally did the 6 days tour of Southern Ireland.

WHAT KIND OF TOURS ARE THERE?
******************************************
They propose tours of:
- South Ireland (3 & 6 days): 3 days tour: parts of the 6 days tour
...for me. I complained to Paddywagon about that, and they reimbursed the equivalent of 1 day. I was surprised they did… But next time I want to tour Ireland, I’ll consider another company.
Irish people and the landscape are lovely, though. I mean I will definitely go back there.
If you are interested by tours, I reviewed another tour I did (of Scotland this time, and this one was perfect) with Macbackpackers…


Hope ... more

WHAT IS IT?
**************
Paddywagon is a tour operator of Ireland, starting from Dublin.
They offer different tours, all inclusive.

CONTEXT
***********
I personally did the 6 days tour of Southern Ireland.

WHAT KIND OF TOURS ARE THERE?
******************************************
They propose tours of:
- South Ireland (3 & 6 days): 3 days tour: parts of the 6 days tour
6 days tour: Guinness Brewery, Cork, Blarney stone, Galway, Dingle, Cliffs of Moher and the Ring of Kerry tour included. 2 night stay in magical Killarney, the perfect chance to relax and explore. Your guides are truly wonderful Irish characters and experts.
- North Ireland (3 & 6 days): 3 days tour: parts of the 6 days tour
6 days tour: Belfast, Giants Causeway, Historic Derry, Donegal, Galway and loads more besides. Also overnights in Westport and the fishing village of Ballintoy.
- They also propose a jump on / jump off option, some Ireland tour deluxe (in B&B), and finally a North & South Ireland tour (6 days)
All the tours Include accommodation, breakfasts and entrance fees.

THE PRICE
*************
Around £100 for a 3 days trip, and £180 for a 6 days trip. You can check in detail the prices on the website: http://www.paddywagontours.com, or call them on this free phone number: 0800 783 4191.

ORGANISATION OF THE DAY
********************************
It is meant to be 9-10am 'til 5-6pm.

THE ACCOMODATIONS
**************************
The accommodations are backpackers hotel (=dormitories). There are around 6 to 8 beds per room. You can sometimes request for a twin room if you are with your partner, but for a little extra. They were quite nice in southern Ireland, clean and tidy, with good and helpful staff.

THE GUIDES
***************
They are driving the tour bus and showing you stuff around
Well. Where to start? I only did one tour, as I explained before. I unfortunately had a crap guide.
This guy was quite nice, but he wasn’t a good guide at all.
The first day he got lost in Dublin (what a great start)… Then he began to sing. And he sounded like a pop idol’s reject. He sung as if he was in a boy band, and man, that was terrible (if only that was the only terrible thing…).
Then he was telling us anything about the history, nor the legends of the land. For a tour guide, that’s not good. That made the trips between the sites we were visiting terribly long. I got bored on the bus.
Then in the evening, when our day touring was over, we were usually going to the pub. We could find our tour guide there already pissed. Then when we were going back to the hotel to sleep, the guide was still drinking with his buddies. 6 days like this, can you imagine? And finally one day, we were meant to leave at 9am, but no trace of our guide. His phone was turned off, no way to know where he was or what he was doing. Around 12, he finally turned up. This delay of course ruined our program of the day.
When we were asking the guide about the bloody Sunday, all he did was giving us a book to pass through the bus, because he apparently couldn’t be bothered telling us about it (or he didn’t know).

Hum… well, that was one of the guides… I hope the others are not as bad. During our tour the guide told us he was fired (after the no turn up episode)… so our tour was his last… so he began to tell us how badly he was paid and began whining about his condition.
Anyway, at the end of the tour we learnt that he was employed again, with a pay rise (apparently they are short of guides)

THE SITES
*************
The sites we visited were wonderful. Very pretty. However, there is a lot of driving between each site, which can get really boring.
We usually stopped between 10min to 1hour on each site depending on what we were seing. If it was just a spot to take a picture, it was 5 minutes. If it was to visit a castle it we stopped 1 hour to 2 hours.

THE BUS
***********
They usually use small buses (Mercedes ones), but on my tour it was a big bus, and felt less cosy and intimate. But it was comfy. The buses have radio and CD player (which can be a problem, when you don’t want to listen to savage garden’s CD the teenager of the back passed to the driver, or my Tenacious D CD)

THE PEOPLE ON THE TOUR
*********************************
I toured Ireland last October, during the mid term. A lot of teachers on the tour (loads of girls as well). The average age was around 22; there were a couple of 18 years old, who were quite bitchy to each other, and sometimes annoying. But the atmosphere was OK. I met a couple of nice people there.

MY VERDICT
**************
As you can imagine, it is impossible for me to stay subjective on this one. I wasn’t happy at all with what I got. The tour guide was crap, and as I’m spending my 6 days with him, it ruined everything for me. I complained to Paddywagon about that, and they reimbursed the equivalent of 1 day. I was surprised they did… But next time I want to tour Ireland, I’ll consider another company.
Irish people and the landscape are lovely, though. I mean I will definitely go back there.
If you are interested by tours, I reviewed another tour I did (of Scotland this time, and this one was perfect) with Macbackpackers…

Hope this helped you.

You are welcome.

J…
 

...less