Here is a list of some of the most common questions about our
award-winning tours and our answers
Essential Ireland Tours is operated by 'Essential Ireland Tours & Travel ltd.'
Our tour-company is 100% owned and operated by our co-founders, Stephen McPhilemy and Patrick Wade. Patrick is an Irish-American entrepeneur and Stephen is 100% Irish born and raised and is Ireland’s leading Tour-Guide.
If you are ready to make a reservation, you can simply click here and pay with your credit or debit card.
We offer regular departures on our signature itinerary - the 1 week Essential Ireland, 'Wild Atlantic Way' Tour and have frequent departures for our famous 'True North Tour' and our luxury 'Castles & Classics' tour.
Tours start in March, just in time for St. Patricks Day!, and our last tour runs in mid-November, just after our big Halloween festivities and before dear old Ireland begins to hibernate for her mild winter.
If you have further questions you’d like to ask before booking please email us at info@essentialirelandtours.com
CANCELLATION POLICY
(for the full policy and Terms & Conditions, click here)
We take a small deposit for every Tour, and this deposit is non refundable.
Then we offer a payment plan and one month before the tour departure, the balance must be paid in full.Once this final payment is made, no refunds are possible in the unlikely event of a need to cancel (so please have travel insurance in place).
Note: Regarding our ‘Castles and Classics’ tour, the same rules apply except it is a three month cancellation-notice period instead of 1 month.So 3 months before the tour departure date, the tour must be paid for in full and no refund is possible in the unlikely event of a need to cancel.
If you have any immediate questions regarding this policy, please send us an email at info@essentialirelandtours.com
We offer 2 types of tour. We have a ‘never-cancel’ guarantee.The first type is a tour that you can just click and book right now on this website. This tour-series has set departure dates. It is a tour for a small group of 16 people who are all diverse members of the general public.The second type of tour is for small groups of travellers who are already connected in a group or family and want to travel together on an ‘Essential Ireland’ Tour without other members of the general public joining. Prices for these tours are dependent on your requirements and numbers on the group, a quote can be attained by emailing info@essentialirelandtours.com
You will meet travellers who are fun-loving professionals, who lead busy lives and who want to unwind and enjoy the best experiences Ireland has to offer in a defined space of time. We appreciate that time is your biggest commodity in life and we guarantee not to waste your time on second-rate attractions and touristy-shopping visits.The attitude of our travellers is they want to see the essential Ireland, thats why they choose to travel with us. Our travellers wish to learn the local history and discuss politics, and just as much they also love to party with locals in some of the best pubs in the world and enjoy food and music experiences they will remember for the rest of their lives.
The majority of our guests are from 25-75. Though we do not have any age policy on tours. All ages are welcome. (note: we do not normally accept under 14’s on our regular departure tours, but we occasionally make exceptions. We can always welcome children on our specially designed tours for private groups and families).
Stephen McPhilemy, our co-founder and Irelands leading Tour-Guide is the 100% Irish expert and Guide on many of our tours. Stephen is very loyal to his mentor and dear friend, American TV travel personally Rick Steves, and led over 250 Ireland tours for Rick and 'Rick Steves Europe Inc' before taking a retirement in the summer of 2024 with the best wishes sand blessings of Rick.
In the event that Stephen cannot guide an Essential Ireland tour (as he may be on the road guiding one of his private tours) , we provide a guide from our hand-picked team of Irish tour-Guide veterans, trained by Stephen and who guide in his unique style - a passionate, intelligent and fun insight into their beloved Ireland. Local experts and local guides: One of the highlights of our tour itineraries are the quality of the local guides and experts we will introduce you to each day. It is imperative that you meet different local characters, male and female, with different Irish accents and fresh outlooks on modern Ireland.
We guarantee that you will.
Essential Ireland chooses to be a smaller niche tour-operator with emphasis on small groups and a limited number of departures. Generally we choose to organise only between 15-20 tours per year.
Dinners and lunches are not included on tour, we estimate aroun €250 should suffice to call all your lunches and dinners if you choose to dine in restaurants, but we will be happy to make recommendations for pubs (and markets) where you can dine Wonderfully for much less . We offer so many value-for-money extras that your spending on tour can easily be minimal and limited. Unless of course you decide to treat yourself to some of Irelands best restaurants and pub-food each evening before enjoying creamy Guinness and fine Whiskey in the musical pubs into the wee hours, which is entirely your perogative, life is short!
We are a cost-effective VIP style tour and strive to save you as much money as possible while not reducing the quality of experiences. For example on our 7 day/6 night Tour here is what is covered and what you would need to pay for.
Included in the cost of your tour -
All entrances and activities.
ALL of them. Be sure you read the small-print with other tour companies and their pricing. Every authentic and excellent experience we offer is included in the price, there are no optional extras for you to pay for later. We would rather be skinned alive and rolled in a bathtub of salt than introduce a surprise cost to you whilst on an Essential Ireland Tour. Our Tour Members are our guests and our friends. That is a sacred bond.
All breakfasts.
Each day, a fine hearty breakfast is included, choose from cooked gourmet feasts of sausage, eggs and bacon; and healthy fruit concoctions, homemade muesli and porridge and some divine Irish breads (some of which you will have the opportunity to help bake!)
All accommodation.
All hotel costs are covered.
All tips.
All tips to local guides, bar-staff, servers etc ALL covered while on a tour activity or meal. If you are eating or drinking on your own time, you can tip at your discretion, which in Ireland is 10-15%. (Some guidebooks say tipping is not common in Ireland, this is nonsense).
Note: Our guide and drivers are well paid. But some Tour-Guests enjoy giving them a wee gratuity just to say an extra thank-you. If you wish to tip your guide and driver, it is entirely optional and at your own discretion, but because people often ask how much they should tip, our answer is - "maybe offer them the cost of buying them a pint of Guiness each.day, so say €5per day" :)
All transport:
All luxury coach travel, shuttle buses, taxis etc used for tour activities are paid for.
Lunches a
We provide 3 picnic lunches which will consist of a hand-picked artisan Irish cheese board (including Cashel Blue), cold meats, Irish home-made breads and fresh-fruit. This is served with a wine or a beer of choice. These lunches are fun and tasty and will save you money, and of course your most precious commodity - time!We provide 1 gourmet group-meal, this takes the form of a gala banquet served in buffet-style. We hire the services of one of Irelands award-winning young chef duos and we provide all the Irish culinary delights you can imagine. The Chefs will be on hand to talk us through all their creations and dine with us. 95% of the produce will be sourced within 20 miles of our waterfront dining-room. Live Irish music will be played by talented local musicians during our meal.
LUNCHES - we recommend €10-18per person for a hearty Irish lunch
DINNERS - we recommend €18-30 per person for a gourmet meal.
DRINKS - Drinks are at your own discretion, we do not encourage a drinking culture on our tours but we encourage a fun culture and many Tour-Members quite rightly find their fun enhanced with whatever tipple tickles their fancy. Our Tour Members are responsible adults and professionals, many of whom appreciate quality local produce, fine wine and craft beers and whiskies. Allocate €5-7 per beer and whiskey serving and €30 per bottle of wine, in the pubs and restaurants we like to visit and have fun in.
SHOPPING - Also at your own discretion. We do not encourage or try and coerce you to shop on our tours. However we do visit skilled and world-class crafts-people. Should you wish to do purchase quality gifts from them or support their local stores, then we will ensure you have ample free time to do so. But shopping will not be and never be a scheduled tour activity. Our guides and team are handsomely paid and proudly do not receive any kickbacks or commissions.
We handpick quality accommodation based on quality, location, and the best customer-service on offer. We like to provide a balance between 4 & 5 star Hotels and also high-quality Guesthouses, to give a variety of experiences, we also like to include traditional B&B's to experience life with an Irish family environment and world-class quality customer-service. We always like to remind guests that we “dont stay in generic big-brand hotels, we prefer to offer you historic and luxury homes of character.. that have housed Hollywood stars and withstood sieges”.
Yes, the price varies depending on the tour itinerary but a single-supplement is available for solo-travellers on our regular departure tours - our North of Ireland Tour, Wild Atlantic Way Tour and Castles and Classics Tour.
Alas no. We an only offer rooms for solo-travellers with single-supplements. However from time to time we do have tour departure dates that dont require an extra fee to room alone, email us to enquire.
Unless you inform us otherwise we will assume the person you are travelling with is your spouse, significant other (or lover!) and will allocate you a room with one large bed. Should you wish to have two beds in your room (in Ireland we refer to this as a twin-room), simply inform us. This will then be your room-type allocation for the duration of the tour. The twin room is subject to availability, but is generally available.
Yes we stay in Ashford Castle, the luxurious 5 star stately home of Lord Ardilaun (Head of the Guinness family) enjoy the Prince of Wales Bar, use the spa or leisure facilities and for optional evening dining there is the George V dining room (jacket required for the gentlemen, but dont worry - they will loan you one if you dont have one with you).
We travel in a Small luxury motor-coach. Normally the motor-coach we use has 30 seats. We make frequent potty-stops and are rarely will be on the bus for more than 1 hour, that would be our longest drive without comfort stop or an activity-stop. Our motor-coach is equipped with a fine sound system and we will play some wonderful Irish music at various times, and when we are not actually singing on the bus. Due to the small size of our coach, we can travel to sights, attractions and remote beauty-spots (on the Dingle Peninsula for example) that the large groups in their 52 seat buses can never imagine seeing.
ALL activities are included, you will NOT have to pay for a single activity on this tour. Every VIP activity from the Guinness Storehouse, to the Falconry Experience at our very-won 'Kingdom School of Falconry', to Killarney jaunting-car rides, walking tours with expert local guides, pub-crawls, music evenings etc
All included.
These activities are also optional in the sense that you do not have to take part, if you ever feel like staying out of an activity and resting or doing something else, that is absolutely fine and there will be no expectations off you and no questions asked. We are here to ensure you enjoy your holiday.
All breakfasts are included on tour each day. We dont include lunches and dinners on tour anymore (since mid-summer 2024) based on positive feedback from tour-guests who agreed with us that it was better to give our guests free time in the evenings to explore (and rest) and select their own meals based on our recommendations and based on their own budgets, tastes and dining-mood that particular evening.
