A friend of mine is taking her first trip to Europe and touring Ireland with this company. I looked up the hotels and they are just ok. I wonder about the buses, are they comfortable. Or really any information I can find. I've never been on an organized tour, so I'm no help. Thanks for your time. Sincerely, Joan

Actually I think I did that particular tour last April which pokes into Northern Ireland with a stop in (London)derry and the rest in the Republic.

The coach is comfortable...Cosmos tours rarely have restroom equipped buses not that you would necessarily want to use it and yes there are stops every 2 hours or so....

As noted the hotels are ok..certainly their clean and more than just basic with the exception of one which was in a beach town whose name I forget right now.

Cosmos tours do not include all that much outside a basic orientation drive in each major city; everything else is extra. This helps account for the slightly lower prices as compared to Globus and/or Trafalger. Example, they drive by and leave you off at Blarney Castle but it's up to you whether you wish to purchase admission to Blarney Castle and go up to kiss the Blarney Stone...admission is included with Trafalger and Globus but extra with Trafalger. Now some think this is terrible others like the idea of picking and choosing what they want to do.

On a scale of 1 to 10 I would rate the food on the tour of included meals at about 7; not gourmet but far from the worst either. Meals were not included in Dublin and as I remember Killarney.

Ireland's road system are still somewhat primitive and narrow, not many motorways and quite frankly I personally would not feel all that comfortable driving those roads so you sit back and leave the driving to the driver and the guide explains everything and that's good.

You see the same exact sites on this tour as with the more expensive tours and the hotels are really just a place to sleep so it's more or less a personal matter.

Will you feel rooked at the end of the tour? Probably not...you get what you pay for. Are there tours that provide more luxurious accomodations and food? Yes but at a price.

On the whole, they're okay if you know what you're getting and don't expect luxury. And I don't mean this as damning with faint praise. It's just a matter of what you want to spend your money on....at the end you will have seen the highlights of Ireland they promise you see and that was important and satisfactory to me.

typos...doggone I wish this board will let you edit and it's hard for me to edit with the preview my reply.

I said "admission is included with Trafalger and Globus but extra with Trafalger" the last word in that quote should be Cosmos....

Also at one point I wrote their and should have said they're.....

Probably others that I haven't seen yet.

Thank you, thank you, XYZ123, I'll copy and paste this messaqe to my friend. It really sounds fine to me. I was worried more about the comfort of the buses. Did you spend more then one night any place beside Killarney and Dublin? I'm telling my friend she is going to see places I haven't in my eight trips. I tend to go real slow. I think she and her sister will have a great trip. Thanks again, XYZ. Joan

As I remember, you can check the itinerary, we had a 2 night stand in Slago or was it Sligo....the 2nd day was when we did the excursion into Northern Ireland with a quick walking tour of Derry and probably the only Irish Chinese tour guide you would ever want to meet who was a total hoot...the coach was fine.

Thanks again XYZ, sounds very good to me. I bet that was fun in Derry. Regards, Joan