Exquisite - The village of Cobh was incredibly quaint. We took the train from Cork which allows you to see the more rural areas in the south. Arriving in Cobh station was just a short walk to the village which is filled with colorful hillside homes and businesses. We strolled around town and then had a good workout walking to visit the striking St Colman’s Cathedral which sits on the hilltop and overlooks the enormous cruise port and shoreline. One suggestion would be to visit on a day there are no cruise lines at dock. This information is available online to see when cruise ships arrive and depart from Cobh.

Tour of Blarney Castle and Cork. - Excellent tour. John was very knowledgeable, polite and thoughtful. The Blarney Castle and Seven Sisters garden was an interesting area to see.

Choose this trip and asked for Tour guide John Todd. Nobody is better. . - John, was amazing. He kept us advised, informed, watched out for everyone. Polite, thoughtful. Colored jacket allowed us to see him when needed

Lifetime experience - The guides were simply amazing and responsible as well to name Peter . Journey by train and coach was a great experience. I found a great friend Mr Roberto from Washington, unfortunately didn’t note down his contact number. The tour was a great place to interact with people from different cultures. If you could please share Mr Roberto’s contact would be great. Highly recommended.

Saw rural Ireland - Quite the adventure! Train/bus across the south of Ireland. Got to Blarney Castle in time to meet a cruise ship, but still enjoyable! Peter and Paddy were great about keeping us all on the various modes of transportation and answered all questions!!!

Incredible - Loved the train ride! The weather was so cooperative!! Love Blarney Castle and the grounds. Just wish we had more time there.

Amazing tour guide John, Disappointing interaction with company - This was the second tour that I took this past week with rail tour Ireland. The first tour was to cliffs of moher and gallaway. There were no issues and tour was amazing. This review is about our second tour to blarney castle cork and Cobh. Our guide John was one of the best guides I have experienced around the world. He had so much knowledge that he shared about Ireland and where he was going. During the train ride he came around and explained where we were and what to see. The whole time on train he explained how we need to hurry when we get off train to get to bus because we want to get to blarney castle before it gets crowded. The other issue was there was a group of 8 people in our tour that did not want to goto the castle and though we were spending day in cork. When we arrived to Cork the bus was almost 30 minutes late (turned out the bus was picking up people from cork before coming for us). This caused us to arrive to the castle late and there was a 1.5 hour wait to see Blarney Stone. This shortened and ruined our visit. I complained to Viator about this. (Evidently they submitted a complaint and refund request). A female from the office contacted the tour guide and spoke to me during tour. She was rude and had all sorts of excuses. Her behavior ruined the experience. The rest of the tour was great. John our tour guide went above and beyond. I think rail tour Ireland should have atleast taken ownership of issue and apologized.

Rail tour Ireland - This was the second tour that I took this past week with rail tour Ireland. The first tour was to cliffs of moher and gallaway. There were no issues and tour was amazing. This review is about our second tour to blarney castle cork and Cobh. Our guide John was one of the best guides I have experienced around the world. He had so much knowledge that he shared about Ireland and where he was going. During the train ride he came around and explained where we were and what to see. The whole time on train he explained how we need to hurry when we get off train to get to bus because we want to get to blarney castle before it gets crowded. The other issue was there was a group of 8 people in our tour that did not want to goto the castle and though we were spending day in cork. When we arrived to Cork the bus was almost 30 minutes late (turned out the bus was picking up people from cork before coming for us). This caused us to arrive to the castle late and there was a 1.5 hour wait to see Blarney Stone. This shortened and ruined our visit. I complained to Viator about this. (Evidently they submitted a complaint and refund request). A female from the office contacted the tour guide and spoke to me during tour. She was rude and had all sorts of excuses. Her behavior ruined the experience. The rest of the tour was great. John our tour guide went above and beyond. I think rail tour Ireland should have atleast taken ownership of issue and apologized.

A different tour - The train ride was awesome Brian and Sean were great tour guides. A bit frustrated with the bus ride …. There were warning signs coming from drivers dashboard that appeared to be ignored by the driver until the bus came to a screeching halt on a hill. With an hour and a half waiting for another bus, our remaining tours were hurried . That was disheartening. I would welcome a bit of a refund for this tour.

The "tour" from Hell! - This is by far the WORST "tour" experience I have ever had. I use the word tour loosely, as it was more like a hostage experience! We should have been wary when we arrived at the train station to have the "guides" (another term I use loosely) inform us that they had "just" found out that there were rail repairs in process on our route, and we would have to disembark the train after only 45 minutes to ride buses (notice the plural!) to Blarney Castle. These railway repairs had obviously been going on for a while, as there were announcements all over the train station and on the passenger cars, yet there was NO attempt by the "tour" company to inform us that there would be multiple transfers and delays due to the rail works. If we had known how much this was going to extend the timeline of our trip, we would never have stepped foot on that train! Another issue was that the description of the tour is deceptive. Don’t believe that you are going to have a private rail car for your tour, or at least be "hosted" by your guide; instead, we got "strung out" amongst the regular train passengers, and our "guide" sat at the opposite end of the car from us (granted, that was where he could find a seat!). For the short train ride and long, crowded bus ride, were on our own to look at the countryside and figure out where we were; we used Google rather than have any conversation or information from our host. Our guide was obviously flustered by the rail/bus issues, and he spent more time "conferring with his colleagues" via mobile than he did engaging with his group the entire way to Blarney. Though it is not declared in the tour description, our group was joined that day by no less than 3 other groups from cruise ships that our "guides" were also responsible for delivering to a cruise liner in Cobh at the end of the day. These cruise patrons crowded the buses, causing numerous delays due to age and ability. I have no problem with cruise patrons, and realize that this demographic is generally older, but there was NO indication in the tour description that our numbers from Dublin would double with additional patrons we literally "picked up" along the way. These passengers added at least 1 1/2 hours in delays getting on and off buses and trains, both to Blarney and between Blarney and Cobh. Again, had we known, we would have never gone on this “tour.” After finally arriving at Blarney Castle (40 mins late, after making 3 stops for bus transfers and cruise patron pick up), we were handed a map by our "guide" and told to "have a go." There was no historical information given, no attempt to lead us as a group or show us the highlights of the Castle...all we were told was, "Oh good, the queue to the Castle looks shorter today, only an hour’s wait! By the way, we leave in 1 1/2 hours because we were late, and you should eat lunch here because there is no time later on." We maneuvered around the crowded complex (which my family nicknamed "Blarney World" for how commercialized it all was), decided we didn't have time to wait in line to kiss the Stone, found a place to eat, and then found the bus at the designated time. We were told we had a "hard leave" time at 1:30pm, but at 2pm, we were still on the bus at Blarney waiting for "lost" cruise ship patrons. (They had gotten on the wrong bus!) Finally underway, we were told we would then have less time at the Heritage Museum in Cobh, which was the place my family had most wanted to spend time (promised an hour on the itinerary)! There was no attempt by the driver or guide to abbreviate the "tour" (translate bus ride through traffic in Cork) to make up for any lost time; in fact, the traffic added more delay! During this drive through traffic, our "guide" tried to give us highlights and information about Cork, but mostly he forgot his own name. I knew more facts about Cork than he did, and I provided names/places from the back of the bus! Again, the "tour" description is deceptive, as we never got off the bus in Cork, we just circled around the river a few times so he could "hit the highlights" while the bus driver wrestled with traffic. After losing so much time with bus delays, traffic, and lost passengers, we ended up in Cobh with only 30 mins for the museum. We were then informed that another guide would take us back to Dublin, as our original guide was going on to Kilarney with a large part of the group. This new "guide" was rude, slow as molasses, uncommunicative and obviously there just to get paid, as he didn't engage with our group at all as we ATTEMPED to get back to Dublin. What proceeded was another horrific saga- train/train transfer, bus ride through traffic (causing another hour delay), delay on train platform for 30+ minutes in the cold/rain with no shelter...and then, the highlight of the day...the train running over something on the track in the middle of a tunnel, then coming to a complete halt in the dark! By this time, it was 9p, and we had not eaten since 11:30am (the time we had to eat at Blarney). The only food on the train was overpriced Twix bars and donuts on a concession truck, which we would have had to pay for. Our "guide" came up to us at this point and said, "apologies, folks!" at which time, I asked him if there was any way we could contact buses to transport us the remainder of the way back to Dublin). He shook his head and said "nope, this is Irish Railways for you" and made no further attempt to see to our comfort, make any arrangements to get us home, or apologize for the delays (remember, at this point we were already 3 hours past the original itinerary advertised by the company). Exhausted, hungry, and extremely disappointed about the day, I put my head in my hands in disgust. At this point, he YELLED at me, and said "well, what do you want ME to do about it??" The train finally started moving at 9:45pm, and we arrived back at the Dublin station at 10:30pm. Our "guide" made a minor attempt to get us in a taxi back to our hotel. We found our own (since he was walking at the speed of a snail), and finally got back to our hotel at 11p, only to find out the restaurant stopped serving food at 10:30pm. The trip is advertised as a 12-hour day, but it ended up being 16 hours due to the delays and gross mishandling by our “guides.” This horrible trip also impacted what we had wanted to visit the next day, as we were exhausted the next morning and had had no time to pack our things for our return plane trip. We had already purchased tickets to this planned/anticipated event, and lost money on that too. And these were just the “highlights” of the day. There was more that happened, but this has been long enough. Run as fast as you can away from this tour and don't look back.