Paddywagon Tours Avaliações 

We booked two tours with them and we wish we knew before... Absolutely awful

Drivers were late, forced us to eat to a restaurant we all did not want then instead of staying in Cork for 1h30 we stayed only 30 minutes

Please don't let this company ruin a day of your vacation! As you'll see from the other reviews, when things go right, they're fine. But when it goes wrong it goes VERY wrong. This was our experience:

After hurrying my family out of our hotel to arrive promptly at 8:10 AM for our tour of Glendalough, we arrived and were told that it was overbooked and that we couldn't go on our tour. The driver even said to us that "they do this all the time" hoping someone doesn't show, so this is their standard dishonest business practice. The tour manager offered us a full refund and an afternoon tour free of charge, which we mistakenly accepted.

After rearranging our entire day because Paddywagon intentionally overbooked the tour, the afternoon tour traveled to Glendalough in a 100 degree Fahrenheit bus without functioning air conditioning or a tour guide. When we arrived at Glendalough, very late, the replacement tour guide gave us no direction and told us to walk to the upper lake. This was not a tour, but an overpriced bus ride without A/C.

When we got back into Dublin, my wife and I attempted to visit the Paddywagon office near O'Connell Bridge and the two young men at the desk told us there was no one to call and pretended as if they couldn't send an email from their computer. We emailed customer service the same day request a refund of the tour (as well as cancelling a future tour we had scheduled) and never heard back. We are now filing a complaint with the tourism board and disputing the charges with our credit card company.

Don't make the same mistake we did! There are so many tour companies in Ireland, you don't need to roll the dice with a dishonest company like Paddywagon.

We took the Belfast tour to a Giants causeway and our driver was late. He was called in at the last moment. We knew this because he complained incessantly about it. He kept cursing and had these weird, repeated sighs in the microphone, He yelled at us for talking, had no idea where he was going, and chastised a couple who were five minutes late. He obviously had problems with England because he made it clear many times. At the end, he told us his old job was selling drugs to kids. What a crazy, uncomfortable tour. The part that was fun was the kinship the rest of the group had. Everyone was making jokes….it was straight out of a movie.

We had a day earlier and we were on Richard O’Brien’s Paddywagon Bus. He was so incredibly skilled driving and being our tour guide. We were on his chills of Moher Trip. We laughed and we met so many people from other countries. It was a long trip, but honestly wish it had been longer. Thank you Paddywagon for hiring Richard, I wish I could give him a 10 review but gave him 5 stars. Thank you paddywagon Richard for a wonderful fun filled day. Regards to all

We did the cliffs of moher tour, it was a good trip but the tour guide spoke for way too long about some depressing history of ireland aswell as the IRA, which went on for about an hour and was literally exhausted from it not to mention feeling depressed after it.

Absolute disgrace of a company. Driver did not turn up. Whole day wasted. Were left waiting for an hour withiut being informed. No refund. Have to try and get money returned. No apology. I am ashamed of this being Irish and seeing how this Irish company treats people. Do not book a tour with this company

This is so much more than just a sightseeing tour. Last week our group had the pleasure of being guided by Gerry. Not only is he an excellent busdriver, he is also a remarkable tourguide, historian and in fact a comedian. He took great care of everyone, went out of his way to make it an interesting and unique experience. Us four Dutchies had the BEST time, saw so many wonderful things and we learned so much. I usually get nauseous quite quickly during bus rides but I was completely comfortable the entire trip. I'm so glad we booked with Paddywagon. Do yourself a favor, book the Giant's Causeway tour from Dublin and -if you weren't already- prepare to fall deeply in love with the Emerald Isle!

We recently returned from Ireland, where we went on a few tours with your company (from Dublin).
We would like to point out one driver especially Gerry (though all have great knowledge).
His wit, driving skills and historical knowledge made our all day tours very enjoyable.

This tour easily under promised and over delivered!
We saw more sites than expected, a surprise dinner, a bus-on-ferry crossing of the Shannon River, and good accommodations.
Our driver/guide, Cash, kept us well-informed, in good spirits, with great recommendations for food, drink, and shopping. Optional additions included a boat trip to view the Cliffs of Moher and a horse & carriage ride in Killarney.
When the chef didn't turn up to cook breakfast the morning after Daylight Saving Time kicked in, our B&B host and Cash jumped in to cook all of us a full Irish, and it was delicious...and they kept us on schedule, bravo!
I would do another tour!

The Paddywaggon tour from Dublin to The Giants Causeway and Belfast was excellent. Beautiful sites were seen. The coach driver/tour guide, John, made the experience one to remember, he was hilarious, friendly, very knowledgeable and a fantastic singer. We would gladly sit on his coach for another 13 hours one day in the future.

The driver has been amazing making the drive enjoyable with songs and storytelling (he made us fall in love with Ireland). The Cliff of Moher is a must see (we have been also lucky with the weather).
The stops on the way (even if very short) help to cut a bit the long ride.
Very good experience!!
Stefano and Manon

My GF and I took a day tour on 10/24/22. Bryan was our tour bus driver. For the most part the tour was presented nicely however towards the end of the tour Bryan decided to start talking about his opinion about Irish politics. We sure didn't ask for his opinion to be broadcast on the Bus speaker system nor did anyone else on the bus. So instead of having a enjoyable trip we wound up having to listen to Bryan ramble on, VERY unprofessional.

Richard was our driver today and he was so much fun! We went to the Cliffs of Maher and his driving was excellent. His information was fantastic as we toured. Loved all the stops. If there were 10 stars available Paddywagon and Richard would get them!

I understand that some people may have had a bad experience, but my wife and I had a fine experience for our 40th wedding anniversary. Did the 6-day tour and loved it! Dan was a great driver, and everything worked out fine! - Jim

I'm afraid we did not al all enjoy our tour to Wicklow and Kilkenny. The audio was bad, the airconditioning malfunctioned (temperatures reached up to 33C in the bus and there was no water. A kid in the bus actually threw up), there was poor communication about lunch destination resulting in lunch at 15:30 in Kilkenny, and not being able to properly appreciate the town or the castle, we arrived back in Dublin more than an hour later than eta and, what I find most unacceptable, Paddywagon tours is not responding to any or my emails or feedback forms whatsoever. When I checked other reviews on Facebook, all my hopes of a refund or even proper response went away. I am utterly disappointed, they should be ashamed of how they advertise themselves.

Do not book this company!! Terrible customer service!
On our booking email there was no details about arriving at the bus stop 5-10 minutes early for our full day Belfast day tour. So we arrived on time (8:15am) and the bus left right in-front of us!
Absolutely terrible when people have paid good money to visit Dublin & for the tour. Our day was wasted and we were so disappointed to miss this experience
We have called the head office hundreds of times with no response.
It’s just terrible. The students who take free walking tours around the city care provide better customer service! More care should be taken.

The 3 day ireland tour was a total disappointment. There were multi day tours offered and most of them who paid for the tour weren’t sure which day tour they should group themselves into as there were hardly any knowledgeable organizers around to manage these different groups, resulting in a chaotic situation. The tour eventuality took off late but with not cheerful,keen and happy looking tourists aboard the bus. The driver of the tour bus wasn’t fulfilling his job duty either in providing information on the places that we visited. Just kept quiet most of the time. To worsen the situation, the microphone in the bus wasn’t working at all, thus the rear passngers couldn’t hear or make out what the tour bus driver was talking about. We passed certain places where we should have stopped but the tour bus driver just kept on driving. I have paid premium money, time and travelling half the world for this tour and is totally flabbergasted by the way this tour has been managed. If i have the opportunity to turn back time, I certainly would go for the Ireland tour but not with Paddywagon Tours. Total waste of my time and money not well spent is how i would summarize this tour.

Don’t recommend this tour agency! Very rude and disorganised! We departed late and there wasn’t any comments on the stops so wasn’t much of a tour as just passing by those places! Everyone keeps waiting for the bus till bus driver arrives then everyone is heading to bus driver asking is this the bus for the tour? Omg, no one from Paddywagon to assist us, could even see a lady cancelled the tour due to the same problems! We feel that the advertising of this holiday was misleading, the organisation poor and the cost too . If we known what it was really going to be like, we definitely not have chosen it.

We booked the 3-Day Southern Ireland Tour Including Galway and Kerry from Dublin with Paddywagon which turned out to be the worst decision ever.

On Day 1, we followed the instructions set out in the tour details which asked us to check-in at Paddy's Palace 15 minutes before departure. The departure was supposed to be at Paddywagon Tours Ltd and the departure time stated was 8:00 AM.

We reached Paddy’s Palace at 0730 only to find out that that’s where Paddywagon Tours used to operate and they’ve moved since. The people in that building asked us to wait in the road opposite instead, which seemed very random and odd. We ended up rushing to Paddywagon Tours and to make sure that it was the correct pickup point, we asked a female staff from Paddywagon Tours who didn’t know anything and asked us to ask the bus drivers who parked their buses by the road INDIVIDUALLY. After asking 3 bus drivers, the last one asked us to ask a male staff called Sonny/Sani (guy in orange shirt in the first picture, don’t know how to spell his name). When we explained our situation regarding the different check-in point and asked politely about the correct meet-up point, this is his exact response: “That’s your problem!”. Imagine him saying that in front of the whole group of people, who were in a similar situation as us and waiting for their turns to ask the same thing. We felt very humiliated and absolutely disgusted by his rude attitude and behaviour towards their customers. Surprisingly, (or maybe not so surprisingly?), when someone from the UK asked him about the same thing, he was smiling, being very polite and courteous. (We are international tourists if that’s not obvious). Why hire this kind of racist morons when you are operating a tour agency which obviously attracts international tourists mainly? By the way, this tour costed 1500 EUROS, fun 😊

To make things worse, the area outside Paddywagon Tours where everyone was waiting was in complete disarray and shambles, due to how disorganised Paddywagon Tours was. Not a single staff was doing the obvious thing to take names and check number of travellers etc. They also didn’t bother to group people into different tours, which may seem understandable if there’s overlap between different tours but imagine this: When a different bus arrives outside, everyone rushes to the bus driver asking the tour that the driver is operating. This was a back-and-forth process and one bus even forgot to stop outside Paddywagon Tours and just went on. You can see the second picture for an example of this. Eventually we got on the bus at 0840 but there weren’t enough seats. The driver, maybe acting on the instructions of the tour agency, had the audacity to ask if anyone wants to GET OFF the bus. One lady volunteered because she commented that it was a SHITSHOW, to which the driver agreed. We ended up departing at 0900.

To make things worse, the driver said that the mic was broken, through the mic no less! We passed by all those places without knowing their history. We didn’t even know what we were looking at and just alighted the bus when all other tourists did to take photos etc. We had to keep asking the driver regarding how long we are stopping at each location, what we are doing, what’s the plan etc. We could move up a little to hear more clearly but there’s obviously only so many seats available. There was pretty much no commentary through the mic throughout the 3-day trip and the driver only spoke out loud, expecting the whole bus to be able to listen to him clearly, with the engines running and people talking in the background. The whole trip was pretty much the driver fetching us to all these stops while talking to those in the front row seats only.

Oh before I forget, to make the tour more interesting and full or surprises, below is a list of things that were different to what’s advertised in the tour:
- No free Wi-Fi on the bus
- 2 breakfasts instead of 3
- We passed through Adare but didn’t even stop there. We were most excited about this given the description on the ad: “We will enjoy a stop at one of Ireland's most picturesque villages - Adare with its fabulous thatched cottages which line part of the village's broad main street , renowned for being regularly voted Ireland's tidiest town. It is known for its beautiful stone buildings, medieval monasteries and ruins.”

Maybe Paddywagon Tours doesn’t understand that tours like this are usually considered by others are “trips of a lifetime”. It’s just infuriating how we paid so much money for this totally unenjoyable trip.

“AwArD wInNiNg PaDdYwAgOn, WoRlD fAmOuS tOuRs Of IrElAnD”

“OuR tEaM oF lOcAl TaLeNtS aRe PaSsIoNaTe AbOuT tHeIr HoMe CoUnTrY aNd ThEy WiLl PrOvIdE yOu WiTh StOrIeS tO lAsT a LiFeTiMe”

What an absolutely terrible joke.

I do not think I would recommend PaddyWagon.

I would like to make it clear that the first impression was very good and the trip was pleasant. Of course, at the time of departure we were slightly behind schedule: they had left back a customer and had to go back and retrieve him. However, it is clear that this was a physiological error and could have happened to anyone. Moreover, the guide also made the wait enjoyable-as well as the rest of the trip-thanks to his excellent sense of humor.

Anyway, the experience turned out to be bad only on the second day after the trip: I checked my bank statement - which, as is natural, takes a few days to update - and realized that PaddyWagon had charged me twice for the same tickets - that is, €133.77 twice.

I realized at that moment what had happened: when purchasing two tickets online for me and my girlfriend for a tour from Dublin to the Cliffs of Moher for the next day, the paddywagon Internet page had stopped working and informed me that the payment had failed; consequently, I repeated the ticket purchase process and, this time, the site page informed me that the payment had been successful. Therefore, as i realized after four days, I had paid twice for the same tickets.

I contacted the company the same day by e-mail explaining to them in precise terms what had happened, including with reference to our names, the dates of the online purchases and the trip, and the order number of the tickets. Despite this, not only did they never refund me the amount I had unduly paid, they never even bothered to respond to me.

I now read that on the Internet they describe themselves as "probably the world's best-loved tour company!" If you'll excuse me, I have my doubts: a company beloved by customers does not behave similarly with some of them.