Paddywagon Tours Reviews 98

I was so excited to go on their cliffs of moher and Galway tour.. but it turned out to be a great disappointment and a horror show. And i'll tell you in great detail why:
They leave their tourists at the destination (they do this very often and laugh about it). Even if a tourist's bag is in the tour bus they wont hesistate to leave you, they dont care if you get stranded in cliffs of moher or die. They dont bother to call you before leaving even when they take your contact details. They are lazy and unorganised.

They don't provide a proper itinerary and show the bus leaving timings on an a4 cartridge paper like in kindergarten. They have the means to whatsapp and email but they are quite privileged to work hard.

On 14th July 2024 they left me and my friend at cliffs of moher which was the last stop of the tour. Me from India and my friend (a student from Salvador).
Their website states they leave cliffs of moher at 4pm but that day they left at 3:40pm. They dont take in account if someone might be hurt on the tour or lost, they just simply (pardon me repeating) leave you.

They might try to gaslight me, but the truth is me and my friend saw the bus leaving in front of us while we watched in disbelief. It was raining on that day so we couldn't catch it by running after it.

Right after this, we called up their desk and the lady was not even making any attempts to help us, she kept repeating like a robot "i am sorry I cannot do anything about this".

I had to catch my flight the next day, and after listening to my dilemma the desk person's behavior (guess what?) remained as apathetic as can be.
I managed to get my bag with the sole help of my friends. Otherwise these people don't care what happens to you.

They are fake polite, dont be fooled by their polite demeaner. They don't like foreigners especially who are on the slightly darker skin side.

Me and my friend took another tour bus back to Galway, the driver took 10 euros each and after that we catched a citylink to Dublin. (20 euros each)
They don't provide the driver's contact detail in case you need to coordinate with them in case of such an emergency and they even refuse to provide the bus number, which in my case could have been very helpful while retrieving my bag.

Outside of this horrible encounter, the tour still sucks..
1) Galway at 8am, is nothing but a ghost town, most cafes open late. You'll just end up eating fusion food at some random restaurant or watch some morning birds.
2) they only give 45 mins to grab a lunch, no flexibility, even if the restaurant is overcrowded ( which obviously means one will need to wait till they get their order)
3) I have all the proofs of this incident and call recordings if anyone were to ask me I'll be happy to provide more details.

I'll be far away from recommending these horrific people to anybody. They are a disgrace to humanity.

My husband and I booked a bus tour from Limerick to Dingle. Here's the thing - the whole experience felt super disorganized. First off, there was no itinerary, which meant we had no idea about the two surprise stops in Killarney. Then, at one of these stops, there was a massive communication breakdown. The driver told us (me and my husband) to meet at the Kilarney Coach Park in 45 minutes, but with no details and multiple Coach Parks, it was chaos for tourists like us relying on Google Maps! Needless to say, we totally missed the bus to Dingle. And again, I had to call them back to know where and when to get the bus back to Limerick, because they don't offer an itinerary, and they know they are wrong!

Furious (and frankly, we missed Dingle on a sunny day!), we emailed the company asking for a refund or replacement tickets. But they just kept brushing us off, saying other passengers managed to find the bus. Seriously?! Isn't clear communication and customer service supposed to be a priority for tour companies?

Honestly, based on this whole mess and the bad reviews I've seen online, it feels like they just see tourists as a quick buck and don't care about repeat business. Here I am, living in Ireland for a year, and they treated me like a disposable tourist! I even have the emails to prove I tried to resolve it, but they just kept shutting us down.

We were scheduled to take the Giant’s Causeway day trip from Belfast today but were ridiculously screwed over. We arrived at the pick up spot roughly 9 minutes early just to see the tour bus already pulling off. I ran up to try and flag it down just for it to keep driving. We were then approached by a tour guide, Rachel, who said not to worry, there’s another smaller bus waiting for us down the street. We made our way over to the bus just to find out that it was full, aside from one seat. One out of the four of us waiting to board were able to claim a seat while three of us were left outside. We were reassured that the bus we saw pulling out earlier was going to come back for us shortly, but after 45 minutes it was nowhere to be found. We called the company and were told the bus isn’t actually coming and it was our fault we missed it. When we corrected the reality he had to “call to verify” that our story was correct. Alas, he was told we were telling the truth and then only offered us a refund, not a solution. We had to find our own way to the Causeway despite booking this tour several weeks in advance.

I had a disappointment with the Blarney Castle, Rock of Cashel & Cork tour that I participated on 19/05/24.

When we arrived at our first stop, the Rock of Cashel, at 10:40 AM, we were informed that the site was closed due to the visit of the President of Italy, who would be there until 2:00 PM, making it impossible for us to visit. This event and the subsequent closure were clearly announced on the official Rock of Cashel website, indicating that the information was publicly available. It is concerning that Paddy Wagon did not verify this information before selling the tour. As a result, we missed out on a highly anticipated part of the experience. Only 10 minutes were added to the time allocated for the other locations, which was insufficient to compensate for the missed visit. Consequently, we neither visited the Rock of Cashel nor had the benefit of spending additional meaningful time at the other sites.

In addition to this issue, I would like to highlight that although the bus was noticeably new, the WiFi did not work, contrary to what is advertised on Paddy Wagon's website and brochures. Furthermore, the air conditioning was also non-functional, making the journey uncomfortable. Passengers had to manually open and close the overhead air vents in an attempt to make the trip more bearable on a day when the temperature reached 21 degrees Celsius.

These issues resulted in a significant detriment to the overall tour experience, and I feel that the tour did not deliver on its promise.

The Paddy Wagon Tours never provided an appropriate compensation or rectification for the inconvenience and disappointment caused. I sent emails and they never replied!!

We were both very happy with the whole trip to Glendalough. Our guide Rory was very nice and seemed like he really enjoyed doing his job! He was also full of knowledge about everything we came across during the bus ride. The sights were so beautiful! Like taken out of a fairy tale. I can only recommend others to take the trip!

For the most part, I enjoyed the tour that I booked which was the overnight to Belfast, Giant's Causeway and Dark Hedges/ Dunluce. I have to attribute this to Frank, our day 2 driver,who was very personable and not only kept us on schedule but managed to arrange for the Black Cab tours that had been missed the day prior due to the marathon.

The issue occurred on the first day of the tour. The driver was surly from the start greeting people with "if you stuck your phones in my face you're not getting on the bus." We made it to the Titanic Experience and then he was dropping us off at accommodations for the night. I had booked the backpackers ticket which meant a mixed dorm in a hostel. The expectation was that at worst there would be multiple females and males sharing bunk beds/individual sleeping pods. When the driver announced we were getting upgraded to hotel rooms, it seemed like a pleasant surprise until he paired me into a room with a stranger (male) that had joined the tour last minute. I expressed concern that we would be in a room alone together and he quibbed,"you'd have been rooming with him anyway." I explained that being in a group dormitory with the accountability of multiple other people in a shared space was a very different dynamic than 1 on 1 in a hotel room but he was only interested in being done with his day and he left.So I ended up staying on my phone chatting with loved ones all night to stay awake and feel safe.

The gravity of the situation seemed to have escaped the Paddywagon driver. Changing the accommodations and not allowing an option to choose a safe alternative sleeping arrangement, creates a potentially unsafe situation where anything could happen and they are putting people at risk. I firmly established boundaries and was fortunate that male assigned to the room was respectful/aware of the discomfort with the situation. It could have turned out very differently, especially if it had been a younger, less experienced/less confident solor female traveler placed in that situation. Like it or not, if a tour company puts a vulnerable person in a 1 on 1 situation in a hotel room with someone that decides to take advantage of the situation/is an opportunistic predatory type individual, that company is responsible for whatever happens behind closed doors.

What do you mean "pride of Ireland" pure nonsense. Nobody asked the rest of Ireland. Also calling it a paddy wagon is wild considering the history of that name

In general trip was good, Ireland is very beautiful country. The driver Paul was also good, polite and not loud. Calm music in the bus. For lunch I recommend a seafood dish, very tasty and filling.
The only thing I didn’t like was the organizational aspect. 80 euros per person is quite a lot of money and everything was really good, but we didn’t get to the Titanic Museum, simply because we didn’t have time. And it's really frustrating because I pay for the tour, but it turns out that I won't get somewhere. This is weird.

We toured from Dublin to the Ring of Kerry on 4/13/24 with Richard O’Brien.We thoroughly enjoyed the day! Richard was very informative,friendly,engaging, helpful and very professional. He even was able to “control” the weather that day and the rain stopped at each stop along the way!! We will highly recommend Richard and Paddywagontours to any and all friends and family who travel to Ireland.

I booked the Cliffs of Moher and Wild Atlantic Way trip from Limerick through Viator. They didn't operate the itinerary advertised, skipping out what should have been the most interesting part. The driver claimed this was because authorities had issued new restrictions on where coaches could turn around. The driver extended the stop in Bunratty, but even with an extended stop it was too short to visit the castle. Arrived back in Limerick 1.5 hours earlier than scheduled due to the omitted parts of the tour. I contacted Paddywagon with feedback and they refused to accept any responsibility for failing to operate the tour as advertised. Gosha, who manages their Viator inbox, has absolutely no customer service skills whatsoever. He replied like he wanted to start an argument with me and even called me the wrong name.

A group of six of us recently travelled to Giant’s Causeway from Belfast. The scenery was beautiful and I’d recommend a trip to Giant’s Causeway to anyone. Our only problem was our driver. He was most unprofessional in dress and manner. He actually sat with his feet on the dashboard while we entered the coach. He advised strongly not to go into the visitor centre at Giant’s Causeway- that’s a complete waste of money! He made a stupid “joke” about a Japanese couple while we sat opposite a Japanese/Chinese couple! Overall I was embarrassed for the foreign tourists onboard ie is this what Irish people are really like! I would not recommend any tourist to travel with this company.

The staff is definitely rude and improfessional. I feel very uncomfortable in the coach because of the terrible driving. We also had to stay in the highway for more than one hour while the driver didn't even try to explain. Will never reommend to anyone.

The driver left us stranded on a highway 80km from Dublin because he was in a rush to finish the tour early on Christmas Eve. Despite sending multiple emails, we received no response, and no refund was provided. Exercise caution when dealing with this company! If they eventually provide assistance, I may reconsider and update my review.

I would not recomand as we been ignored after disapointed tour, driver canceled one of MAIN atraction with no explainable reason, rude and cold way, I ask reason and he could not tell me and I make couple of phone calls and have couple of proofs we could reach destination with no ANY issue , he decided to save time even there was no delays, and cut one of main attractions what We paid for this trip! As well driver/guide to express his feeling about hate between irish and english people is rude and unprofessional to show. I e mail and been ignored, I called and ignored about same, there is nobody from Paddy company to contact us back about issue and they refuse to give any contact where customer can get answer on this behaviour, saying to wait e mail after I have been ignored sending e mails .. really bad..

Booked a trip from Cork to Cliffs of Moher. It said "stop at Doolin village for lunch and visit" and instead without announcing it earlier we stopped at a regular place for lunch. We also missed another stop because they told us it was not accessible (again, NOT advertised before). We chose the tour because of this particular program and they didn't even bother to change it on their stupid site! When I asked they told me "oh yeah this was before, now they changed it". So why fooling people like this?!

Went on a half day morning tour to Glendalough and Wicklow Mountains. Great trip, had er very nice guide/chauffeur called Alex who shared interesting stories about Ireland. Very beautiful mountains as well.

the tour was lovely, great service, thank you

Our cruise ship could not dock due to high seas so we missed the Dublin port. Contacted Paddywagon several times to ask for a refund. Paddywagon already had my money, so they did not even bother responding to my email! Poor customer service!!!!

The tour was made very special for me because of our driver/director of all useful Irish information.....Vincent.
He was so helpful and available to any concerns we had.
I would do the 6 day tour again if only we had the time.
Julie D.......Australia

Without going into too much detail, went on 2 day trip to north of Ireland. First day was good, hotel tiny and v noisy. Late pick up yesterday 28th august, could not get through to office on phone. Day was rushed, no time for scheduled lunch, stopped in Belfast on way home. Bus arrived in Dublin at 8.45 instead of 8.00 despite informing driver I had bus to catch to Galway. Missed my 8.45 bus, next bus at 9.45 full, got one at 10 which took 3.5 hours to get home but my main issue was my terrifying experience waiting along the quays on my own at bus stop and being approached all the time by people stoned and begging for money.