UPDATED! Bus from Dublin Airport to Belfast

We took the bus, sorry I don't remember the company, from Dublin city center to Belfast. We purchased tickets online to ensure that we would have a seat, as we were told that they do sell out.

Before we began the direct ride we stopped at the airport. Several hopeful passengers were disappointed because they couldn't get on the bus since they didn't have tickets. So I would recommend getting tickets.

Since you are arriving from Berlin you might be okay, but maybe not. Possibly someone else could answer this question. Are you checking luggage?

The bus pickup area is well marked so you won't have a problem finding your bus.

The bus ride is pleasant and the station in Belfast is well located. We had a great time in Belfast. Plenty to see and terrific restaurants.

Thanks Lynne!
Sounds like it would be a good idea to get the bus tickets ahead of time.

Don't forget you will have to go through immigration. So add time for that.

Getting tickets in advance is always good. But I have taken the bus from both services and it has never been a problem to have advance tickets.

Barbara: I have taken at least a dozen long-distance buses in Ireland but never the Dublin-to-Belfast route. I've also taken long-distance buses in England, Portugal, Spain and Poland.

In Ireland, I was never on a sold-out bus, even the popular Dublin-to-Galway route. There were seats on every bus I took. If you want to wait to buy a ticket, I believe you'll be safe. Like I said, however, I've never gone from Dublin to Belfast on a bus; I don't know if that route is different.

If you want the peace of mind of a reservation, I'm not certain how the driver would react if you miss your reservation and try to get on a later bus a couple hours later. Maybe he/she will honor, maybe he/she won't.

Overall, I like to book everything in advance, so your question is a good one.

Thanks for the follow-up replies!
We've decided to purchase tickets ahead of time with Aircoach, adding the Flexibook option for a couple of Euro each. That would allow us to change our booking up to one hour before the trip. So if our flight from Berlin is delayed, we could feasibly go online and change to a later bus. Also, I found in the Aircoach website FAQs that there seems to be an option to take a later bus (with seats available) if your flight is delayed. So we seem to be covered in a couple of different ways, and we are definitely 'book ahead' people.

We took Aircoach last month. The clerk at the kiosk outside said a few seats were available at 11:30 but couldn’t sell us a seat as we had to booked online 🤷‍♀️ … so we ran back into the terminal for wifi access and booked our seats. Our flight came in at 8:15 and we surprisingly could easily have made the 9:30 bus had we pre-booked. Immigration was extremely fast.

Marika, we also flew into Dublin a few weeks ago, plane stopped at gate at 5:00 AM, and at 5:45, we were sitting in a Flightlink bus that left for Killarney at 6:00. We paid the driver with a credit card. Amazingly quick customs/immigration.

Always great to hear how it all worked out, thanks for that Barbara G. Happy trails to you.