Mary Gibbons Newgrange Tour - Tourist Trap

Interesting. 6 months before Covid, we had one day in Dublin before our RS tour and took the Mary Gibbons tour. I felt like we were paying for convenience of transportation; and it seemed like what we had expected. We aren't quick to usually jump on these types of day trip tours; often opting for independence, but we did think it was perfectly fine.

We have taken 3 Rick Steves tours, and never on one of three has Rick been our tour guide, so I don't think we were necessarily expecting Mary herself to lead the tour. But, of course who else would it cater to, other than tourists? I guess it depends on how you value time and money. Saving $200 but not not really because renting a car costs money; then having to go pick up a car rental and return same day wouldn’t have been worth my time or money and relying on the public transportation schedule wouldn’t have been ideal in my book. It was sort of out in the middle of nowhere. But everyone is different. And as you said, with having young children with you, flexibility and independence would have been more important to you.

Bummer that it turned out to be so disappointing for you and your family.

Unfortunate you were disappointed and dissatisfied. Did you make time to convey this to your guide?

Have you done any tours before anywhere or was this your first experience?

Curious why you thought Mary would be your guide.

By definition a Mary Gibbons tour would not be a tourist trap.

Disneyland Paris is a tourist trap.

I'm really not sure why this company would qualify as a scam or tourist trap. It would seem from their website that the guided tour will pick you up, take you to the included sites, stop for lunch at your expense, and return you to the city. No where did I see that Mary would conduct the tour in person, or that the bus guide would conduct the tours himself at the sites? I don't think RS claims that Rick will lead every tour. And I'm pretty sure Mad Max doesn't either. When you take a day tour you are paying a premium for the convenience of having someone else provide transportation, entrance tickets and guides. So what did this company fail to provide?

Portski7, it sounds like you had a frustrating day. and the tour wasn’t what you expected. We took this tour a couple of weeks ago in June. I’m posting my experience here not to be argumentative, but to hopefully add some balance.

Transportation: we were picked up and dropped off at the same spot on Upper O’Connell St. She did ask us to be there 15 minutes before departure, and that seemed reasonable. We loaded a few minutes early and left on time.

The Tour: Mary herself was our guide. She provided historical context and commentary on the way to the Hill of Tara. At the Hill of Tara she walked us to the gate and gave some orientation as to what we’d see. Then we were on our own for 45 minutes. At Knowth and Newgrange we were with the OPW Guides only (who were excellent). Mary explained that since they are strictly controlling the number of visitors to those sites, private guides were not permitted to accompany their groups. Seemed reasonable.

Lunch: When we arrived at the Newgrange visitor center, we had at least 90 minutes to go through the exhibit and get lunch in their spacious cafe (if we wanted lunch). Again, Mary oriented us when we arrived and made sure we knew where to meet the OPW bus that took us to Knowth and Newgrange. They had a very specific system with colored wristbands. She was available near the exhibit area and later in the cafe if we had questions. There was no stop at a farm with weird sandwiches. That sounds disappointing. Maybe it was a timing issue with the entry tickets for Howth and Newgrange?

Schedule: we had plenty of time at Hill of Tara, IMO. At Newgrange and Howth, all visitors were at the mercy of the OPW guide schedule. So it’s not like visiting independently would have given you more time at Knowth or Newgrange.

Although we could have driven ourselves to these sites, I was glad to have heard Mary’s historical commentary. And it was nice to leave the driving to someone else for the day. I hope you were still able to enjoy these amazing sites!

Thank you portski7 and Barbara G. for taking the time to post detailed reviews. I am taking the tour next month and always appreciate reading other travelers' experiences, good and bad.

Good trip?

We did the Mary Gibbons tour in 2019. We were picked up across the street from St. Stephen’s Green and dropped off a few blocks away, all within a short walking distance from our hotel. Mary was the tour guide and very knowledgable and gave a very interesting commentary during the tour. We were told at that time that only certified tour guides were able to obtain tickets for the entry into the Newgrange structure because of the deterioration that is occurring. I don’t consider myself as having only half a brain and thought the tour of Newgrange and several other sites well done, informative and worth my time. And as someone else mentioned above, as a veteran of numerous RS tours, I have never expected that Rick Steves would be leading a tour just because his name was on it but how nice if he is.

And I might add that on numerous tours throughout Europe there have places where our tour guide was not allowed into the site with us.

A good point about my previous tour experiences, and for added context, we've not done many tours. We did a Jack the Ripper tour in London, and Haunted Pub Crawl in Charleston, SC USA, and thats all I remember off the top my head. I usually search these things out and do my own thing.

To answer why I was expecting that Mary herself would give the tour; I don't think I read a single review before our trip that mentioned anyone else giving the tour and the website doesn't either. Under "Description of the Day" it says "Mary Gibbons has a wealth of experience guiding people." She was also personaly communicating the arrangements via email. Also, I wasn't really upset that Mary didn't give the tour herself, I just wanted to provide clarity for someone else in the future. I even read one review that said Mary was overwhelming and that they jumped off the bus at their earliest convenience to get away from it. Martin was great for what he provided and seemed VERY knowledgeable.

To answer why I was dissappointed in the service I recieved; to me, the website "Description of the Day" reads as if you're getting a more in-depth, personalized tour of the sites for your money. Perhaps the detail I missed or didn't understand was that I was purchasing a "bus tour" of the sites and that really just meant they would provide us a bus to take us there and some Ireland history on our way.

The "Description of the Day" also mentions "skipping the line," "guaranteed access to the Newgrange monument," and "entering the passage chamber." Well, we didn't skip ANY lines. We were treated exactly the same as anyone else visiting. ANYBODY can get the access we got to Newgrange, and ANYBODY can enter the passage chamber by purchasing direct through OPW. No clue what could be considered "world-renowned" about that. There is absolutely NO mention of your guide leaving you and OPW conducting the tours of the sites.

A more accurate "Description of the Day" would have been "There are 3 locations in Dublin we will pick you up at, you'll get interesting commentary during the bus ride, you'll take the standard every-day OPW tour of the sites, we'll give you 30 minutes to visit the Newgrange Farm (which is open to the public for this very purpose) at your leisure to buy a convenience store cold sandwich and feed a lamb, and we'll bring you back to Dublin near St. Stephen's Green, but won't attempt to get you back to where we picked you up."

As far as confronting our guide about my disappointment, no, I did not. First off, I do poorly with confrontation. Second, I didn't feel as if it was his fault, after all, it's not HIS name on the tour, he didn't promise me anything. Lastly, I feel as if I am a person of integrity and expect the same from others. I feel the description on their website is at best misleading. I'm not going to get in an argument with them about what they meant or didn't mean when they sold me the service. I paid my bill, I own my experience, and it's mine to review. The bottom line is, I feel like I was misled and anybody who would intentionally do that to someone doesn't have the integrity required to have an honest conversation about it anyway.

OPW did a GREAT job, we enjoyed them VERY much. I completely understand that no "private" tour guides are permitted. However, from Mary's website, I feel I was misled to believe that a "private" tour is exactly what I was purchasing.

And no, it was not a total loss. We still saw the monuments, we still made memories, and my wife, Tara, who's grandfather was from Anglesey and LOVES this kind of stuff got to check it all off her "bucket list". Like I said, I just would have liked to have read a review like mine to make better plans for US and OUR situation, we would have arranged our own transportation and itinerary.

I removed my "think for yourself" and "half a brain" comments, in retrospect those were a little harsh and off target. Sorry about that.

It wouldn't hurt to let Mary know what you found disappointing in an email to her. Glad you didn't confront Martin, as certainly he's just doing his job; and it would have accomplished nothing except maybe he would have dropped you off outside of Dublin instead of near Trinity College or St. Stephens. Just kidding!

FYI in future when you see mention of "skip the line" in reference to admission to a site, it only means that you skip the lineup at the on site ticket office. Any advance purchase ticket (not a voucher) is essentially a skip the line ticket. That doesn't mean there won't be a line at security or at the entrance, or within the site, depending on the crowds.

We did this tour in Sept. 2022. I am sorry that this did not live up to your expectations. We stayed at Buswell’s Hotel and the pickup and drop off were very convenient to that hotel. Like you, we have taken a couple of “big box” tours and have only done so when it is the most convenient way to visit a place when we are short on time without renting a car for a day or figuring out complicated public transportation. We were satisfied with this tour and what we saw. As a previous poster noted, we had lunch at the museum cafe which was fine. We felt that there was sufficient explanation of what we were seeing and did not need more in depth analysis. It was a very full day. Would I recommend this tour? Sure for all of the above reasons listed.

I have to say I took this tour in June this year and my experience was EXACTLY as portsky7 has described theirs. And my impression was the same.

I am not upset or anything - and wouldn’t have posted a negative review. But it was quite disorganized with both pick up and drop off, and at the end of the day, I felt that I had not gotten out of it the expertise I expected and had had what I like to call “a learning experience”.

In my case, I had a car for 3 weeks and could have gone on my own. So basically what the tour did was save me the trouble of reserving and buying my time slot tickets. That is not without value - it was just far less than I expected. The sites themselves were amazing and the OPW guides very good.

If you don't need someone to drive you to/from the sites, do yourself a favor and be your own tour guide with your own itinerary, you'll come out ahead.

I cannot argue with this conclusion, based on my day. But I did meet some very nice people.

I have not done this tour, but have looked at the website because of this review.

I have to say I would have very similar expectations as you from reading the website.

It calls itself Newgrange Tours by Mary Gibbons, and nowhere that I can see says that Mary Gibbons does not lead each tour personally. Unlike Rick's tours where we all know he can't personally lead every tour as he has a dozen or more simultaneous tours across Europe in season, I assume but don't know that Newgrange is one tour each day.

The Lunch arrangements are vague on the website, but I wonder if something went wrong that day. But if I am paying a premium I might reasonably expect a better lunch experience.

I too don't understand why she needs to know your hotel name or why there can't be the same 3 drop-off points as there were pick up points.

While I think "tourist trap" is a very strong descriptor from you, from what you say I would have had the same disappointments as you from what I read in this review which to me does show a disconnect with her website,

From a personal point of view I start with a presumption that I go to anywhere under my own steam. Traditionally Newgrange has been hard to get to without a car (probably why I haven't gone there on my Irish journeys). Now that the service bus from Dundalk has been hugely improved by Transport for Ireland (and connects with the train) to me it is now relatively easy to get there independently by car. Yes I would have to make my own reservations, but it would reduce the overall cost of the day by around 1/2.

I say "relatively" as you do need to have a base knowledge of planning a journey by public transit. Like many such tours around the world the value in the premium for simplicity (or a lack of knowledge) is not there for me.

€75 a person these days is not really a lot for what is included. Everything is so expensive, especially coach/bus hire. For that price I honestly wouldn’t expect more than you got. It would have probably been more expensive to hire a car for the day when you factor in that you’d need a child car seat and fuel costs. It would also have been quite time consuming to arrange and on the day.

Thanks for sharing your experience. We took a couple of bus tours from Dublin in 2016 and 2019 (not the Mary Gibbons ones) and had similar experiences with the pickups being by 3 hotels needing to be specified at registration, and then the drop-off at the end of the day being at a different place. I wonder if it was due to city traffic rules. For both tours, I got what I expected based on their descriptions. However, I can see how the Mary Gibbons tour may have felt a bit overstated.

Funny story - the 2016 Paddywagon tour was a fine day except the bus broke down on the highway in Northern Ireland. We spent additional unplanned time in Belfast while they got us a replacement bus and got to explore the Crown Bar which was cool. But, when we returned to Dublin, we were so late that the driver told us he had missed his city-mandated time to drop us off at the initial drop-off location. So he let us off by a (seemingly to us) random youth hostel. My daughter and I looked at each other and had no idea where we were. But then she pointed to "the spire" (the giant spike statue) far in the distance and were able to follow it back to our hotel. There are some humorous negative nicknames for the spire but we chuckle remembering it helped us out that day.