Ashford Castle or Glenlo Abbey Hotel?
Before booking, when I originally looked at trip itinerary, it said we would stay at Ashford Castle. I printed an itinerary when I booked and didn't notice until after that it changed to "Ashford Castle or Glenlo Abbey Hotel". I certainly hope we stay at Ashford Castle. Anyone that I know that has knowledge of Ashford says it is a very special place. I'm sure Glenlo is wonderful, too but, my heart was set. I guess we will have to wait and see. Do any of you have any preference?
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Ashford rooms were very nice but nothing extra special, but the castle interior, exterior and grounds, the arrival by boat, being met by piper in kilt, etc. were wonderful. See my photos at the the link. Many considered it to be one of the tour highlights. We had the choice of three restaurants, and had simple fare in the dungeon one night and a wonderful meal (I had a huge lobster) in Cullen’s at the Cottage the second night. We did not eat in the George V dining room (jacket required/provided).
I've not been to Glenlo but have looked at the photos and read the description. It looks and sounds very nice (5 star), but it still isn't Ashford. There are a lot of VERY nice estate-hotels in Ireland.
At the bottom of the Pricing and Availability page is the following quote:
Tour of May 8 will stay at the Shelbourne Dublin nights 1 and 2; tours of May 22, Jun 5, Jun 19 & Sep 25 will stay at The Merrion Hotel in Dublin nights 1 and 2; tours of May 22 & Jun 19 will stay at Lough Erne Resort in Enniskillen nights 5 and 6; tours of May 8 & 31, Jun 5 & 19, Sep 11 & 25 will stay at Glenlo Abbey Hotel nights 7 and 8; tour of May 17 will stay at The Malton Killarney nights 10 and 11; tour of Sep 13 will stay at Mount Juliet Estate nights 12 and 13.
All look good although I think the Westin was a better location than the Merrion. Glenlo has their Pullman Car restaurant which sounds interesting. Would be great if that was an option for dinner.
????? Are you talking about a totally separate listing for a 'Best of Ireland, Small Group' tour or just a small group departure in the pull-down of the Best of Ireland? All I see is the Best of Ireland with 6 small group departures in the Departure pull-down. There are approx 32 departures total for the Best of Ireland.
There is no "Best of Ireland, Small Group" in the tour listings.
As I posted above, for a brief time last summer, there was a totally different Best of Ireland Small Group tour page just like 'Classic Italy, Small Groups'.
When compared to a river cruise, all Tauck land tours are small group! : ) except for Africa, regular land tours have approx 44 people while small group tours have 24.
Oh, and obviously there is a forum for the Best of Ireland, Small Groups. It was created by Emily on Monday, May 22, 2017 2:33:06 PM
It could be a website issue because the area forums are gone!
When we did the Eng, Scot, Wales last summer we booked a regular sized tour but ended up with a small group. Ten couples plus a family of 8 that kind of kept to themselves - 28. Really liked the smaller group size, chance to get to know everyone, extra room on the bus, etc so that's why we picked it for this one. May change later depending on whether another couple want to join us and Tauck can't squeeze them into our tour date.
Hopefully Tauck solves the disappearing webpage.
It is really strange. Probably a coding problem- used the same address for both tours, or it could be associated with the disappearances of the area forums, or while working on the site they sometimes use a back-up that has errors. I knew I saw the separate small group tour last summer and Tauck Emily launched the the new (this) small group sub-forum so it must (still?) exist.
All I can say is I'm glad we went when we did because we visited Blarney Castle (touristic but still nice, even if you don't kiss the stone), stopped at the Waterford crystal factory (interesting tour even though the current company which is made up of Waterford, Wedgwood, Royal Doulton, Royal Albert and Rogaška is now owned by Fiskars Corporation the Finnish scissor company and the glassware is made in Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Germany.), and, of course, we stayed at Ashford Castle and Mt. Juliet. Lough Erne is nice enough, but it is just a relatively small golf resort plopped in the middle of the course on the shores of the lough (Rory McElroy is their 'traveling pro' whatever that means.)
Don't forget to each a very light breakfast on Day 4 when you drive the Antrim Coast- the lunch at Bushmills Inn is fabulous and you can top it off with Sticky Toffee Pudding!
Yup! Really strange! Almost totally booked, too. Of note, the regular "Best of . . " tour still shows 6 small group departures!? The area forums are still missing!
They may be missing but you can get to them and post by for example, click on the forum name at the top of the post, suck as Africa in a K and T one, or do a search. You can get to anything this way, although most new people posting will maybe not understand the forum well enough.
Yup and yup. I should have said the index of area forums was (and still is) missing. : )
However, if you want to start a "New Topic", after you do a search on a valid term such as "lion" for K&T, you must click on one of the search results or on the forum name in the topic path, e.g. "Travel Forums Home>>Universe>>Milky Way>>Mars>>Gift of Time?" You can also get to the particular forum page by first clicking the tour's 'Overview' tab then clicking one of the 'Travel Forums' topics on the right side of that page.
We booked this tour for May 2023 thinking we were staying in Ashford Castle. The itinerary still lists that as our hotel. But, the latest printed itinerary from TAUCK says we’ll be staying at Glen lo manor. Anyone know anything about this???
Stayed in Ashford Castle last September. Not familiar with the one you mentioned.
Unless things have changed again, only the Best of Ireland Small Group departures stay at Ashford Castle, unless they don't
Hotel changes are usually announced by e-mail or you can see them if you click on the specific departure on the website Pricing & Availability page for that tour you will get a pop-up box that looks like this:
Karen
Tauck occasionally has to change a hotel for a particular date due to a scheduling conflict. You have sympathy.
I'm assuming that you signed up for the Small Groups version. The large group tour has never used Ashford Castle.
Our Best of Ireland tour stayed at Glenlo Abbey and we enjoyed the stay. We traveled to the hotel by boat from Galway and were offered drinks while cruising on the lake. Best Irish Coffee. Our first night's dinner was in their Pullman restaurant which is actually two rail cars from the Orient Express. Quite the experience. The rooms, hotel and grounds were nice. My only complaint is we were in a heat wave with no A.C or screens on the windows. You should be fine in May.
I know everyone loves Ashford but we still had a fantastic tour and would do it again even if we were staying at Glenlo.
There are eleven Best of Ireland Small Group departures for 2023 - out of a total of sixty - that DO NOT/NOT include a stay at Ashford Castle for nights seven and eight. The alternate location is Glenlo Abbey - about an hour south of Ashford. Nowhere on Tauck's website and summary of accommodations are these distinctions made. To the contrary, a beautiful photo of Ashford Castle is splashed across the home page for all of the Small Group tours, and "Ashford" is listed on all 60 of the Small Group itineraries as if it is Belfast or Dublin. We discovered this lack of distinction purely by chance on our September 2023 booking. Ashford Castle is the reason we have booked this tour. Fortunately, we have time to postpone it and rebook for a date when Tauck will include Ashford Castle in the itinerary.
The Tauck website isn't good about highlighting these differences. The color catalog for European tours does say that the May 23rd and Jun 22nd dates won't be staying at Ashford. It also shows the price as $8690 vs $9190 pp. That's the first time I've seen a lower tour price recognizing a change like that. Normally it's just time of year differences.
Claudia - Noting the price change, would the stay at Ashford be worth an additional $500 per person?
We stayed at the Ashford Castle as part of our Best of Ireland tour. Granted, it was a very interesting and historic place, but the accommodations were far from the best on that trip. The towns claim to fame was the filming of John Wayne’s “The Quiet Man” and the hotel had it running on one of the stations 24/7. If you have ever seen “Reign” they use external shots of Ashford Castle in the show. As far as bagpipes and lake boat rides, the Tauck tours of Scotland ( land and Cruise) have much more to offer. They have changed a few of the hotels since I did the Ireland tour, but The Merchant, Lough Erne, Aghadoe Heights and Mount Juliet were all more interesting, luxurious, and enjoyable stays. One hotel does not make or break 2 weeks. On another note, while in Dublin make sure you take your own tour to visit the Stone Age site of Newgrange. It was one of the highlights of our trip. Also, Make sure you walk by the river in Dublin to see the Famine Memorial. This haunting memorial will take your breath away.
Sam, since we've never stayed at Ashford it's hard to fully compare but based on how much we enjoyed our tour and Glenlo Abbey I'd be willing to save $1,000. One of my concerns prior to the tour was missing out on the falconry demo but it turned out my husband had that at Mount Juliet. Not sure if that is still offered there - it's not on their website.
Like Mother of Poodles, we had extra time in Dublin - 2 nights - so we could book a full day tour of the sites north of the city not included in our tour.
You will never know how much Tauck pays for a room. I was shocked to see that a Superior room at Le Meurice, where we stay in Paris on Normandy, Brittany . . . goes for about $2100 - 2500 per night!!! We aren't staying extra days so I don't know how much Tauck charges for a post-stay there.
I will say Ashford was very nice, historic, with interesting interiors, but the rooms, while decorated nicely, were nothing special and about the smallest we had during our Best of Ireland tour. The arrival by water on Lough Corrib and being met by a piper and members of the staff were nice touches. (Also done at Mount Juliet Hotel)
The grounds and golf course were very nice. I managed to figure out a way to get to the waterside of the property to get some photos of the facade which is comprised of refurbished sections of the original castle and newer faux-castle sections which blended nicely.
AlanS - Would the Ashford Castle experience have been worth a $1000 to you and your wife (vs staying elsewhere)?
$1000 additional- NO!! A few hundred additional- maybe, depending on results of research on Glenlo Abbey. As always, it is not about the lodging, since we don't spend a lot of time there.
Thanks everyone for this discussion. It is helpful in determining the importance of Ashford Castle as a listed destination on the general itinerary. If there is so much satisfaction with alternatives and Ashford is not offered on every itinerary, I wonder why Tauck features its photo prominently and exclusively on the home page for the Small Group tours?
One simple reason, a lot of the minor details are not corrected on the website. The website is still not wonderful, many things are generic, especially the packing lists. It is not at all obvious until you probe on a particular date that hotels are different for certsin dates, or Tauck will send you a letter or email about a late change in hotels . It might be as simple as someone booking an entire hotel for a wedding or something like that. We once could not get the gift of time in a Tauck hotel because of that reason and had to stay elsewhere.
I thought Ashford Castle was wonderful although a bit over the top and a little quirky in some respects. I'm not sure I'd opt to stay there on my own at those prices. I'm glad our tour stayed there but I'm sure the Glenlo Abbey would be more than satisfactory and certainly a better price point.
Probably for the same reason, Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria still continued to be shown a lot in promo literature after the Ultimate Alps tour stopped going there.
We stayed at Mount Juliet last year on our own. Falconry was offered once a week. You could check with the hotel. They are very responsive. It was expensive. I believe Ahford costs more than that. We enjoyed a falconry visit in Dingle for only $15Euro! It was a small group and we got to feed and hold all the prey. https://milltownhouse.com/dingle-falconry-experience-milltown-house/
You may be able to find such an opportunity on your own.
Beautiful pictures AlanS!
This is the best!
Not sure if they still do this but early in our tour the TD gave us each a form to fill out listing activities at Mount Juliet. We were told to mark our top 3 choices and we'd have one paid for by Tauck. I opted for a massage and my husband ended up with the falconry demo. He didn't think he'd like it but turned out to be his favorite activity of the tour. He loves showing off the photo of himself with a small owl on his head.
Several years ago, Falconry was offered by Tauck at Mt. Juliet, but you could also book it at cost at Ashford Castle. Despite the occasional light rain that day, it was very interesting.
These barn owls supposedly liked being petted, especially on their forehead, like cats. They didn't purr, however.