Taking the Heart of Ireland tour or not?

This does not answer your question directly about the Ireland tour, but I can share my experience with the Heart of France Tour if it helps you get a better idea of the experience.

Dining: We had a few group dinners, but many times were on our own to find the small places you speak of. When we did have group dinners, most of the time we had the entire restaurant to ourselves. So they were not large commercial places where we ordered off a menu, but smallish local experiences curated just for our group.

Tour stops: As far as arriving outside of normal “tourist” hours, not necessarily. An exception was our overnight stay at Mt St Michele, where we arrived as everyone else was leaving. We had quiet streets, a private dinner, and an early morning tour before the next crowds arrived…so memorable! I really don’t remember feeling overcrowded at any site, though. We traveled in September, so perhaps be careful about which tour dates you choose…pick a “shoulder season” week rather than a peak season one if you are worried, just as you might if you went as an independent traveler.

But there were other advantages to traveling with a group. “We’re going to the Louvre. Do I have to navigate the subway on my own? Nope here’s your ride ticket, follow me. And now we’ve arrived…here’s your skip the line ticket…enjoy your visit.” “We’re going to Normandy…just get in the bus…we have arranged for one of the best guides in the area to lead us around and give you all the history between stops. And you don’t have to navigate anything on your own.” To my husband, this was a true VACATION.

Invaluable insights: In addition to convenience and ease, the guides give you so much information on the history of what you are seeing, and even the French way of life. IMO, nothing beats “traveling with a local.” And the tour may arrange some cool experiences you wouldn’t get to do in your own, such as our wine and cheese tasting under a giant old tree at a vineyard.

I know I sound a bit like a salesman. Actually, I don’t think a tour is for EVERY trip (for instance, we will do London on our own.) But we covered a LOT of area in France without driving or having to arrange and research everything on our own. You won’t know if it’s for you until you try it. And seven days seems like a short commitment of time to find out.

Edited to add: don’t forget to plan on some extra days on your own before and/or after your tour. We went to Paris three days early and went to some places not covered on the tour (and had time to adjust for jet lag before the tour started.) For instance, with the Heart of Ireland tour and flying into the Shannon airport, I would suggest a couple of days in Galway and/or an overnight on an Aran island before meeting the tour in Ennis.)

Thank you so much! That was very helpful!

"I'm trying to determine if going on tour with 24 people yields a beneficial travel experience."

Hi Pete and welcome!

It does for me. There are tour companies that do smaller groups than 24 or so but 24-28 worked fine for me on the 12 RS tours I've taken. I've also done 13 Road Scholar tours of similar sizes. Well, the 1st Road Scholar tour was about 35 and I realized right away that was too large so I choose their smaller groups. Right now I'm currently traveling with a company that has a max of 10 and I like that as well. Believe it or not I was worried when I started traveling with them as to whether 10 was too small! What would happen if one of the other travelers was a "pill" (as Mama used to say) or worse...what if "I" was the pill? It's worked out well and I'll continue to travel with groups adding on independent time before and after.

Since you are planning for 2027, is that something that is holding you back from the Best of Ireland tour? It's excellent - I did it a long time ago but enjoyed seeing the highlights.

I've never been in a restaurant chosen by a Rick Steves guide that had other bus tours there. And yes, often the guides choose the restaurants and have relationships with the staff.

The plus about the RS tours are that the guides and drivers are excellent. You don't have any faffing about trying to find parking if you are driving to some of the more out of the way places the tours visit. You are dropped near your site or hotel and head in while the bus driver pulls away to park in a distant lot and hoof it back to the venue. You get the best explanations of history, culture, geography etc, often with things that I might miss on my own.

In cities (not particularly on the Ireland tours) the guide also does a transportation lesson for those of us who have never lived where there is public transit!

And yes to extra days on your own!

(and yes to the wine tasting at the vineyard under the oak tree on the Paris and Heart of France tour, lol!! heart heart)

I agree with everything jannypanny said. My wife and I went on the Best of Ireland tour in 2024. It was great. We went April 26 thru May 02. We never had any problems with overcrowded sites like Cliffs of Mohr, or even Dingle. Don't know when your tour is, though. The hotels were very nice, some even more plush than we expected. Food, as jannypanny said, was not in giant restaurants, but in rather small places, mostly we had our own room to be served in. We really enjoyed our tour, and the people, and the food. The Murphy's Stout was excellent, of course.

You would need to decide which it is you want… because they are two wonderful travel concepts but not the same experience. The 7 day Ireland is a great tour to try as a first group tour. We’ve done 3 RS tours after thinking we might not be tour people. They are very well done.

You are certainly right that a 24 person tour is different than the type of travel Rick started with - himself and a pal, or a VW bus full of young people who pinched every penny til it squeaked. What he's done really successfully is to keep the experience as similar as possible while scaling up. The group dinners aren't in small, tight pubs unless they have a separate room for us, but tour guides (or his guidebooks) help you find those tiny places for when you aren't with the group. When they sightsee, the guide often gets the group rolling early to be there when the place opens. Over the years, the company has apparently upscaled hotel choices just a tad, so shared bathrooms are nearly non-existent, and carrying your luggage up several flights of stairs has generally been replaced with handy elevators.

We took the two week Ireland tour several years ago, and loved it. No anxiety about driving on the left, on tiny roads. A guide to get you places and give you lots of background, but also time each day to wander on your own and make your own choices. Not everyone loves tour travel, but you probably will.

I agree with what everyone has said about the pluses of the tours, including exceptional guides and drivers and freedom from the stress of self driving and finding parking. On our last tour our guide actually changed the schedule a couple of times so that we arrived places late afternoon after the crowds had come and gone.

However, we just returned from 18 days traveling in Ireland on our own and the one difference that really stood out to me was how many wonderful and lengthy conversations we had with locals. Including a 2 hour conversation with the man sitting next to me on a train from Belfast to London, and a long discussion with a local couple in Dublin sharing the counter with us at an excellent fish and chips place. We never had that degree of connection with locals on any of our tours, even though there were plenty of dinners on our own. Maybe there’s just a different vibe when you’re traveling as a duo….or maybe we just got especially lucky on our most recent solo trip.

You may be able to experience the best of both worlds if you’re able to build in some solo travel time on one or both ends of your tour. (I should add that even though we were traveling in May, tourist season had not yet started outside of Dublin, and the fact that there were relatively few visitors everywhere we went could have also contributed to the number and quality of our interactions with locals…)