Dublin City Tour, Dublin

For a general orientation to the city, or as a means of getting from location to location, the City tours are great.
Explore Dublin at your own leisure with your 24 HR ticket.
See Dublin's top visitor attractions on this great 90 minute tour including: Guinness Storehouse, Phoenix Park, Dublin Zoo, The Irish Whiskey Trail at the Old Jameson Distillery, Christ Church Cathedral, St Patrick's Cathedral and much, much more!

Dublin Bus, the local bus service company, has a regular 'Hop-On, Hop-Off' tour that takes you past pr near most of Dublin's best-known sites. The entire tour lasts about 1 hour and 15 minutes, but you could stretch it out for the entire day with various pauses. The ticket is valid for a full 24 hours, so there's no need to rush yourself.

The bus drivers keep up a running commentary, and it can be fun to compare their styles - from the squeaky-voiced driver to the fellow who liked to sing, to the one who gave us a wonderfully detailed dip into Dublin's history.

The tour costs €12.50, which seemed a little steep at first but I think we got our money's worth, and enjoyed the views from the upper deck.

You don't need a ticket in advance (although you can): just show up at one of the special stops and the driver will give you a ticket.

CITY SIGHTSEEING

DUBLIN TOUR : 24 hrs. valid tickets! which is great, really hop on and hop off....

1. THE DUBLIN TOUR
departs Daily from Eason's O"Connell St.
stop 1
Lower Grafton Street stop 2

First tour 9.40AM then every 15 minutes until last tour 4.30PM

2. THE WICKLOW TOUR
Incl.Ballykissangel & Glendalough

A journey through the Garden of Ireland taking you first into the pretty village of Avoca (Ballykissangel) and then back in time to the 6th Century settlement of Glendalough.

Departure: at 10AM at the GRESHAM HOTEL.

3. THE DUBLIN BAY AND CASTLE TOUR
incl. MALAHIDE CASTLE

An afternoon adventure to one of the more famous Irish ancestral castles, saving the stunning views of Dublin Bay from Howth summit until last!

Departure: at 2.30PM at the GRESHAM HOTEL

In next tip I shall tell you about two more trips!

NOTE: advanced bookings required for trips 2 - 5 !!

Also operated by Dublin Bus, the Dublin City Tour gives you the flexibility of hopping on and off at anytime during a 24 hour period in which your ticket is valid. The full tour takes about 1 hour and 15 minutes and makes a total of 19 stops at popular tourist sights throughout the city. The City Tour ticket also gives you discounts to the tourists sights!

I didn't take this tour, because I prefer to walk, but I think it's a good deal especially if you aren't able to do a lot of walking.

1 more image

A great way to discover town and stop by at 24 places of intrest.
There are two lines, we drove with the green one. It brings you places like Dublin Zoo, Guinnes Storehouse, The Four Courts, Parliament House ecc.

When we arrived at Dublin airport we headed over to the Tourist Information Desk. We had already done our research and were pretty sure we wanted to get the 3 day Freedom Pass for Transportation. We picked up two (one for me and one for my boyfriend) for 50 Euro (25 Euro each) and the girl directed us where to go to pick up the Airlink bus. It saved us the 6 euro for the Airlink bus and provided us transportation for the next 72 hours from the time that we validated it. We found it was great to have for getting around to any of the major sites, or even for something to do when our legs were tired from walking. Also came in handy one night while we were out wandering and got "lost" (aka not paying attention to where we were going) and ended up at one of the stops - we were able to jump on and just ride around the city for a while.
On top of everything else, having the pass entitles you for a discount into many of the major attractions on the Hop-on Hop-off bus route (like the Guinness Storehouse). If you're not going to be in the city long enough to make the 3 day pass worthwhile, they also have a one day (24 hour) pass for 15 Euro each (another reason we decided the 3 day pass was worth it since we were in the city for 5 days). Though we did a LOT of walking, we were really happy with the pass and we definitely felt that it was worth the money that we spent.

3 more images

If you have 15 Euros and 2 hrs to spare, join the Dublin bus tour. The bus tour will pass through 23 places of interest in the city. You can choose to get off at any of the stops and re-join the tour later. I used this service to get acquainted with the city and stayed on the bus until it completed the entire loop. The life commentary was very enjoyable and that's another reason why I stayed on. The orientation trip has actually helped me to plan my next move i.e. where to "hop-off and hop-on" again. The 24-hour ticket allows me to hop on and off as often as I wish to and I don't have to worry about missing my bus because the next one is just about 15-20 minutes away.

The Red, HOP ON, HOP OFF busses and their live guides were great. One note of caution, they say one lap typically takes 90 minutes but these buses are subject to traffic congestion like every other vehicle. They have special lanes and priority in some place but not everywhere. I highly recommend them for information, convenience and edutainment but realize it might take longer than planned to get from A to B and it's not their fault.

The hop-on, hop-off bus is a great way to see (and get dropped off) at all the sites. You can stay on the bus for one full circle to hear the wonderful narration and then decide which places to get off on the next round. You want a bus with a live narration if you speak English. I was on a bus once that had tapes for other languages, and the tape was not synchronized properly.

We took the Guide Friday (double decker bus with an open top) tour of Dublin. The advantage to these is that you can get on an off during the day, so if you want to see things inside of Dublin that are a little too far to walk to, this makes it easier.

We got off at the Guinness store room, and ate lunch there. Hopped back on the bus and got off again at the zoo. Hopped back on the bus and finished the tour.