My granddaughter and I need to travel Galway city to Tralee/Dingle, Sept 2022. In preparing to book, I have been reading terrible reviews about the current bus system in Ireland...late arrivals, problems booking online, condition of buses etc.
After reading these reviews of Bus Eireann; Dublin Bus (Big Green); Citylink, I'm wondering if we need to go the expensive yet reliable route of hiring a driver instead of taking our chances by going by bus?
Please advise! Thanks
Thousands of people around the country use the bus every day without incident. Those few who have a less than agreeable experience tend to feel the need to gripe about it on the Internet. You don't need to worry, use the bus and enjoy the trip.
Thank you!
I visited county Clare in June and used public transport only, it worked very well for me (I used Bus Eireann, Irish Rail, Dublin Express). I did find the Bus Eireann website to be a bit tricky – the “buy tickets” part never worked for me, and I kept getting a “no direct routes” error when trying to plan my route; however, the timetables and routes were accurate. I found it very helpful to have the TFI Journey planner app, it worked very well, and I used the TFI Go app to buy digital tickets for the bus – all that went fine. You can buy tickets on the bus too, but I liked having it ready – if you buy they ahead of time they are in the app and you activate them when you are getting on the bus. My busses were clean, drivers helpful, didn't always arrive right on time but no big issues (I didn't have any tight connections to make).
Thank you so much Sarah- your reply is most helpful. I have been having trouble with booking on bus sites as well. I will give the app a try! Blessings!
We used bus Eireann several times in county Cork and while it was occasionally a bit late, it got us around just fine. One issue we saw others have was that the bus got full (this was during a bank holiday weekend in a touristy area during a regatta) so people wanting to get on one or two stop after the origin were turned away, and there's only one bus per hour on this route, AND it was the bus that goes to the airport. So my advice is on the busier routes/times, just make sure you bake in extra time if you say, need to catch a flight or something.
