Dublin Shore Excursion: Hop-On Hop-Off & Rail Transfer

First the good. It was nice there was an agent available when we left the ship, even though it was early. He was extremely helpful and friendly. The drivers were knowledgeable and provided good information and some humor. Now the bad. I understand traffic issues cause delays but we had waits that ran from 10 minutes to almost 40 minutes. On our last experience the driver told us his shift was ending at 4:00 but there was a bus at the first stop that was going to wait for us so we could continue. When we pulled up the other bus had left. The driver told us the next bus would be in 45 minutes which would have been too late to make it back to the ship. This left us, and several other parties scrambling to get back to the ship on our own.

The train station was across the street from the cruise terminal. Very quick & easy to change our voucher at the train station for a pass for the return train ride from the cruise ship port to Dublin. The DoDublin hop on hop off bus stop was across the street from the train station. DoDublin gave excellent commentary and covered a lot of Dublin, you got 2 routes for the same price.

Learned so much about Dublin. Loved the ride, Tour Guide and City. We highly recommend this Tour especially with so much to see and so little time to spare!

Very convenient to see the city of Dublin but the train situation was a bit of downer overall. It was great having the included ticket, allowed us to skip a long line of ticket purchasers. However, it was at least 30 minutes until the train arrived, so as one can imagine when you have 3,000 people coming off a boat and a lot of them are riding that train it makes for a very crowded and uncomfortable ride. I know the HOHO company has no control over rail service, and maybe they don’t run as frequently on Sunday when we were in port, but I almost scrapped the plan and went back to the ship. However, we made it. Full disclosure, never rode the bus as I found it just as easy to walk. But I saw them conveniently positioned all over town and seemed like no one would have had to wait long for a ride to the next stop. So as long as you’re aware that you may wait for the train for a bit (though no wait at all on the return trip 👍) it’s a great way to navigate Dublin.

The tour guides are awesome! Besides giving you the history of the areas, they sing Irish songs and everyone joins in. Such a wonderful experience and will recommend this company to everyone!!