Day trip recommendations - Dublin and Belfast

Visiting the Cliffs of Moher from Dublin is a VERY long day. To see cliffs. With 1000s of other people. There is plenty to see in Dublin, including a bog body at the archeology museum (a good book for the 13yoa to read in advance of this visit is Bog Child by Siobhan Dowd). Another good choice is Newgrange (staying in nearby Drogheda puts you a short bus ride from the airport).
The Giant's Causeway is also a long day, but at least your kids will get to see and climb on something extremely cool. If you can sort the public transportation for GC, Dun Luce (very cool for kids), etc, then you should 100% do that. The big bus tours (Paddywagon, etc) can't go to Carrick-a Rede (and nor should you unless you are 100% sure neither of your kids will pee their pants from fear). Also, you'll be on your own timeline. Did your 10yoa kid watch Game of Thrones? The Dark Hedges are just trees, some of which are dying/dead. Don't bother.
Similarly, I can't imagine a 10yoa child wanting to tour the Titanic Museum. I'm almost 60, and I don't want to see it, either. Unless they are super into shipbuilding, I'd give that a miss. EPIC and the Jeanie Johnston are more accessible for that age.

Thank you, G3rryCee for your recommendations.
Noted that visiting the Cliffs from Dublin will make it a long day! Will check out other options, including the ones you suggested.
Yes, The Giant's was a choice so that the kids can climb on something & walk around. Will be mindful there too. Thanks for confirming that big buses won't take us to Carrick-a-Rede.
10yr old is not yet allowed to watch Game of Thrones. I was imagining the whole circuit - The Giants, Rope bridge (if possible) Dun Luce and Dark Hedges as full day of exploring different sites...combination of walking plus bus ride.
The Titanic museum was my choice. I know its not fun for kids, but I felt like visiting while I am there. My husband does not want to go, not too keen :) so I will probably drop that.
Thanks.

We spent a week in Ireland, taking advantage of a return flight from Croatia that had a layover in Dublin, anyhow.

We visited Belfast, along with a private day tour (loosely based around Game of Thrones) that included The Giant's Causeway, Dunluce Castle, several beautiful viewpoints, and could have included Carrick-a-Rede Bridge, had we so chosen (but my husband does not like heights). It was a great day. (We took Aircoach from Dublin airport to Belfast, BTW.)

We also spent a few days in Dublin and did a couple of day tours from there.One of them included Blarney Castle. Yes, it's very touristed, and it wasn't our focus when we booked. It was part of a tour that also took us to the Rock of Cashel, which I very much wanted to see. However, I was pleasantly surprised with how much there is to see and do at Blarney Castle, especially for kids, so you might want to consider a tour that includes that, even if you don't care about lining up to kiss the stone.

Anyway, here's my trip report, in case you might find it helpful: https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/trip-reports/countryside-castles-and-celts-croatia-and-ireland-trip-report-part-2-ireland

If you are going straight from the airport to Belfast, the easiest way is the direct Aircoach. However, I don't have personal experience with it as we always fly to Belfast directly.

I'm very bad with heights but do not find Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge scary at all, so don't let that put you off. It's a fun experience. There are lots of tours that will take you there as part of Antrim coast circuit, and will give you time to cross back and forth on the bridge.

I loved the Titanic Museum, I wouldn't be so quick to count it out. I could have spent a lot longer in there than we did. Right next door to the museum is the SS Nomadic, which was a tender ship for the Titanic and (I believe) the only remaining White Star Line vessel, which you can also visit. It spent time as a bateau mouche in Paris for a while but has been restored to how it looked in Edwardian times. If you want more specific Belfast recommendations let me know, we visit regularly.

Thank you, BB. Thanks for sharing your trip report. I will read it and may reach out. Thanks again.

Thanks, Cat VH. Noted - Aircoach it is.
If you can suggest 1 or 2 tours that include Carrick-a-Rede, that will be great.
Thank you - I'd like to hear your Belfast recommendations since you visit regularly. Appreciate it!

This is the tour I took that stopped at Carrick-a-Rede, tho unfortunately it looks like it's just a photo stop now: https://allensbelfastbustours.com/products/giants-causeway-tour-itinerary

I wonder if perhaps the tour buses no longer stop there and my info was out of date, in which case I apologise!

My favourite things in Belfast are: St George's Market, The Crown (a pub run by the National Trust), The Duke of York pub and nearby area, Ulster Museum, Botanical Gardens, and Cave Hill for great views over the city and to Samson and Goliath (the big cranes). For food, we ate at Darcy's recently which was very good, and the Deanes restaurants are also good: https://www.michaeldeane.co.uk/restaurants/

Hope you have a lovely time!

I must admit I've never been able to understand the attraction of the Dark Hedges which seem to trade on the Game of Thrones connection.

Carrick a Rede is only a photo stop only - possibly as there are limitation on visits by tour buses. It also takes 15-20 minutes each way to walk to the bridge and NT advise allowing 1-2 hours for a visit. This probably doens't fit into the time shedule the coach tours have.

I don't know why the Aircoach is the only operator suggested from Dublin Airport to Belfast. Just for once Rome2 Rio is correct- there are 3 operators- Dublin Express and Aircoach are the recent entrants to the market, Translink is the original operator and is the national bus company of Northern Ireland.
Dublin Express are an arm of National Express in the UK.

All have the same frequency of service. On the way back Translink is the cheapest at just £9- you have to book at least 60 minutes before departure to get that fare. Otherwise a fixed £16. Aircoach fares are dynamic, so it can make them the most expensive.

isn31c

I could be mistaken about this, so I'm happy to be corrected, but, if I remember correctly, we could not book Translink from Dublin to Belfast, only from Belfast to Dublin. I'm not sure if that applied only to advance booking, but I'm glad we did book in advance from Dublin, because the bus was full and those who hadn't booked ahead were left to wait and hope they could get on the next bus.

Anyway, in my case, I didn't suggest AirCoach was the only or best option. I said it was the option we used.

Just mentioning AirCoach because I have used it several times before (tho from Belfast International to Derry, so a different route).

Regarding Carrick-a-Rede, tour buses definitely used to stop there as part of the general Causeway Coast route, as that's how I visited the first time I went. However, this was quite some time ago so appears this has changed.

Not only can you pre-book Translink from Dublin to Belfast, but you can make a through booking on Translink to anywhere in Northern Ireland served by Northern Ireland Railways or the Goldliner express bus fleet (not by local buses).
So, for instance, you could through book Dublin or Dublin Airport to Ballycastle changing at Belfast Grand Central to a train for Coleraine.
Because the bus 402 is considered to be part of the express brand (the bus along the Causeway coast) you can through book from Dublin Airport to Balintoy (the stop for Carrick-a-rede rope bridge) or the Giant's Causeway or Dunluce Castle as examples.

As the 402 runs broadly every 30 minutes along the coast, generally a return booking to Belfast for £18, then a 1 day i-link ticket for £19 would be the cheapest option. But an I Link can either be bought at Grand Central on arrival, or on line and mailed to you- so a slight inconvenience factor.
Given an hour's notice you can even buy on line single tickets on the 402 bus service- say the Giant's Causeway to Dunluce Castle or Dunluce Castle to Balintoy.

Dublin City to Derry is another for instance- £17 pre bookable on the direct X3/X4 bus, or £16 from the airport, £23.50 from the airport if you change onto the #212 at Grand Central.

We used both Dublin Express and Aircoach between Dublin and Belfast, and both worked well. Might depend on schedule, they seemed interchangeable.
We also took a day tour with PaddyWagon Tours from Belfast to Giants Causeway, Dunluce Castle and Dark Hedges and I would recommend it. The tour was efficient and we enjoyed it. One thing to consider is that time was limited, and for example, it wouldn’t give your kids a lot of time to linger and explore at Giants Causeway in particular (if they like that). It was enough time for us to get to the stones and enjoy them for a bit, but maybe it would be different with kids.
The Titanic Museum was a lot more interesting than I thought it would be. Very slick, with interactive exhibits, kids might enjoy it, depending on their interests. It wasn’t a dusty old museum at all.
The Cliffs of Moher is wonderful to see, but I’m not sure I’d want to do it was a day trip from Dublin. I think the idea of spending a couple nights in Galway and finding a tour from there might be more enjoyable. Can’t recommend anything for that, as we had a rental car.