Coach time on Best of Ireland
For our 14th Tauck tour we have booked the best of Ireland. While I understand that land tours do require some coach time to get us from point A to point B, I am not interested in spending hours on a coach, even with the frequent stops Tauck builds in.How much coach time is involved in the Best of Ireland tour? How is it for those of us prone to motion sickness? Thanks in advance for your insight.
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There are a few curvy, narrow roads (Ring of Kerry? No switchbacks like the Alps & Dolomites tour) but nothing that should result in motion sickness unless you are extremely sensitive. This is not a "Yellow Roads" tour.
As to the amount of time you will spend on the coach. You can easily compute mileage and time using Google Maps and the itinerary. Then add in a 30 min. restroom stop (longer if it is a meal stop) every 2 hours or so, to see the longest uninterrupted time you'll likely spend on the bus.
I went back and looked at my daily schedule and most bus time was 1-2 hours except for the scenic drive like the morning on the Antrim Coast and the Ring of Kerry.
I'm prone to motion sickness but never had a problem. Only one lady on our tour did and most days she sat in the TDs seat (the second row where the TD parked her stuff). She didn't use it. No idea if the woman took Dramamine or any other selfcare.
I don't remember the couch time being excessive either, but I actually enjoyed it on our Best of Ireland trip. Ireland is gorgeous. There are more colors of green than you would think possible and I loved watching the countryside change. I think being able to see the land helps you understand the history and the people. The coach drivers are also incredibly skillful. You will not believe the roads they can maneuver such a large coach down.
Totally agree with what others have said. Other than the Ring of Kerry day, couch time wasn’t bad at all. We had several people in our group who mentioned that they tend to get car sick but none actually did. Up front seating is available to anyone needing it but our tour director constantly rotated everyone’s seating position so nobody was ever stuck in a specific seat. Our tour director also made sure we made plenty of stops which in my opinion were perfectly timed. None being just pull-over on the shoulder kind of things. Always scenic and/or shopping and/eating opportunities.
Ooooh, oooh, Mr TD, I might get car sick, can I sit in your seat at the front of the bus during the tour??
Tauck stresses there is nothing that will make you be able to sit up front all the time.
Just returned from the two week tour of Ireland. We were on a regular tour and only had 28 people. Three of them didn't want to rotate to the front which made the rest of us guaranteed a front row seat at least once. Our tour director did not take a seat away from the passengers. He kept his things at the back of the bus and sat in the tour director seat next to the driver. When we had a local guide, he sat in the back. I think this is preferable way to handle the situation. I've always thought that it didn't make sense for the tour director to use one of the more preferable seats for his/her paperwork.
Not to gloat but...we had the best weather you could imagine. Very little rain and when it did, with one exception, we were in the coach or the hotel. We also saw some beautiful rainbows at the Aghadoe Resort.
Our tour director made the trip more special for those who are not part of this group by keeping some of the activities as "surprises". He didn't tell us in advance about the boat ride into Galway. Nor did he mention the sheep dog exhibition or the stops at some of the neolithic burial areas.
A tour guide makes or breaks a trip and we had a good one.
During your drive of the Ring of Kerry did your TD or guide point out Skellig Michael, a mountain peak island in the Atlantic about 8 mi. from the nearest point of land? The scenic (view) point was 13 miles past the monument to St. Brendan the Navigator in Cahersiveen and just a mile before the Loher Stone Fort. It is an interesting place in both history and modern culture. Google it.
How about Dunluce Castle which is not far from the Giant's Causeway. It is another historical and, with some help from CGI, a modern culture point of interest?
Monument to St. Brendan:
Skellig Michael:
Loher Stone Fort
Our director did point out Skellig Michael. Knew the story since my brother and his wife had been there last year and took the boat ride to it. We also have some family history connected to Cahersiveen. My sister-in-law's uncle was killed in an ambush there in 1922. He was fighting on the side of Michael Collins. The family gathered there last fall to commemorate the 100th anniversary of his death.
i was impressed with the neolithic tombs we saw. One was the Poulnabrone Dolmen (a portal tomb) in the Burren. Besides the tomb, I found the rock formation of the ground to be equally impressive. Earlier we had stopped at the Creevykill Court Tomb on the way from Enniskillen to Galway.
I read Mike H's blog about his trip and found that a number of the smaller places we stopped at either as a rest stop or for lunch differed from the places he visited. The places appeared to have more history or scenery attached to them.
There are lots of minor, hidden gems that there just isn't time to see- Dunluce Castle, Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge, etc.. We mentioned both to our TD so she had the driver to a drive-by. I already knew about Skellig Michael from research I did about Star Wars filming locations, so I was all prepped to see it.
I don't know if we were told the story at the time, but I took these photo after we stopped at the grave of W. B. Yeats at the church in Drumcliffe, County Sligo and drove along the coast on the way to the Balleek factory. I don't remember if we were given any details at the time, but I thought it interesting so took photos researched it when we got home.
According to Wikipedia it is Classiebawn Castle. The property has quite a history and changed hands several times. The current baronial mansion house was built in the mid-1800's. It was cleared and remained vacant from 1916 to 1950. In July 1939 in was inherited by Edwina Mountbatten, who, with her husband Admiral of the Fleet Louis Mountbatten made several improvements, installing electricity and a mains water supply. After his wife's death in February 1960, Mountbatten, the last Viceroy of India, spent his summers there until his death when his boat was blown up off the coast of Mullaghmore by the IRA in August 1979.