We just contacted Mary Gibbons Newgrange Tours and they have no availability on either of the dates which could work for us in May. Unfortunately we are only in Dublin 3 full days and 2 partial days, and only have availability on the weekend. Has anyone visited Newgrange and Knowth with a tour other than Mary Gibbons (not sure if there actually are other tours)? I don’t want to go to the trouble of renting a car or making the trip via bus/train/taxi combo. But if there are any other decent tour options, I’d like to explore them. Thanks!
I would consider Hilltoptreks - we did both the Mary Gibbons and the Hilltoptreks Newgrange tours and found both of them valuable for different reasons. Hilltoptreks used a much smaller bus and we already knew the driver from previous treks to Glendalough, etc. He was colorful and talkative but probably not quite as good as the guy who conducted our Mary Gibbons tour. Frankly we were expecting Mary and were somewhat disappointed.
We were quite happy to travel to Monasterboice on the Hilltoptreks tour. So, actually there are 2 items I preferred about Hilltoptreks. It does book up faster considering the coaches are likely going to be small. Our Hilltoptreks Newgrange/Boyne Valley outing was really a small group - just 16 people.
https://www.hilltoptreks.com/day-tours-from-dublin/day-tour-of-newgrange
Ruth, have you looked at booking your tickets yourself and renting a car for a day if you can’t find another tour availability?
Other than Hilltoptreks, I didn’t see anything except private tours. But if you can get an entry time and can get there, the sites themselves are guided by staff. For everyone equally.
Thank you both!
I had another idea, but am struggling to figure out if I can get it to work. We’ll be spending 3 nights in Belfast at the end of our trip, then returning to Dublin (reservation at an airport area hotel) for the night before an early morning flight. Assuming we can get tickets for Newgrange and Knowth for our final day in Ireland, we could take the train from Belfast, get off at Drogheda, and take a taxi to/from the visitors center. Return to Drogheda and then take a bus to our Dublin airport hotel in the evening. The only (major) problem with this plan is that there doesn’t seem to be anywhere to store luggage at either the train station or the bus station at Drogheda. Any ideas for this?
We could also spend the night in Drogheda and travel by cab or bus to the airport the following morning. But that would mean a very early start (probably 5:30 a.m. for a cab and earlier for a bus) and a lot more stress …versus a quick shuttle ride from the hotel to the airport.
Or take the bus #163 from Drogheda Station to Newgrange at 0900 returning at 1220 or 1540.
Bus #101 runs from Drogheda to Dublin Airport at 2am, 3am, 4am, 5am then every 20 minutes.