Review: EF Go Ahead Tours' Highlights of England, Scotland, and Ireland

We’ve traveled a few times on guided group tours, I’ve gone with some girlfriends on EF Ultimate Break tours and Rick and I did a guided tour with Go Ahead back in 2018 on our Barcelona, Southern France, and the Italian Riviera tour.

We enjoyed that tour way back when and when we got home we got a travel credit of $100 and we put that toward the Highlights of England, Scotland, and Ireland tour with the plan to go in June 2020…

I’m sure you can guess that that did not work out as planned.

We decided to get a voucher for the amount we’d paid and we could use that for a future trip which ended up being the same itinerary just in September 2023 instead.

I’m happy to report we’ve finally crossed Scotland and Ireland off our travel bucket list and finally did this tour that we’ve been waiting to go on since before we were married five years ago!

Why group tours?

Just like any form of travel, group tours are not for everyone but they can also be great options for travelers!

One reason I like booking group tours is when we’re doing multi-country tours and I’m not in the mood to figure out trains, planes, and automobiles on our own. Most of the trips we’ve done with groups have been to several countries as it just makes it easy to hop on a bus and be taken to a new destination.

We also are planning a group tour to Japan in 2024 as it’ll be both of our first times visiting Asia and I’d prefer to have a guide. Otherwise, we’ve started to discuss unless we’re doing multi-country tours, we can navigate these trips on our own in the future.

Some benefits of booking a group tour:

Organized transport: Like I said, there are some destinations that I’d rather just let someone else figure out how to get us from Point A to Point B and I can just enjoy the ride.
Off the beaten path places: Another thing Rick and I agree on with these types of tours are that we have stops in small towns or places we wouldn’t normally plan to visit on our own. Like on this tour we stopped in Kendal in Cumbria, which we probably wouldn’t have gone out of our way to visit if we were on our own. But it’s definitely neat to visit some of these smaller stops.
Mix of free time and organized activities: I also like that these tours know why people are visiting the cities we do and make sure to include stops to the important sightseeing stops or attractions while also giving us free time to explore on our own. Like this tour included Edinburgh Castle, Blarney Castle, the Cliffs of Moher, and so on, but also gave us time to do our own thing. I like the inclusion of the major sites as I don’t have to worry about buying tickets and getting the timing just right as so many attractions are moving to a timed entry system.
The tour director: Lastly, it’s always nice having a tour director who organizes everything and takes charge of the day’s plans. Plus, the directors know what to recommend and what to skip so you’re not wasting your precious time in each stop along the tour.

The Go Ahead tour review

We chose this tour due to its itinerary as we wanted to see a variety of places in Ireland without worrying about figuring out how to get to all these places on our own.

The Highlights of England, Scotland, & Ireland itinerary:

Day 1: Overnight flight
Day 2: London (2 nights)
Day 3: London (sightseeing tour & free afternoon or paid excursion)
Day 4: Train to Edinburgh (2 nights) and included dinner
Day 5: Edinburgh (sightseeing tour & free afternoon)
Day 6: Liverpool (1 night)
Day 7: Ferry to Dublin (2 nights)
Day 8: Dublin (sightseeing tour in the morning and free evening or paid excursion)
Day 9: County Kerry (2 nights) & a stop at Blarney Castle
Day 10: Sightseeing tour of the Ring of Kerry
Day 11: Dublin & the Cliffs of Moher
Day 12: Flight home

So, we did change the itinerary just a bit! The tour officially started on Monday, September 4 and we figured we should fly out early to acclimate to the time change and add on a stop to our tour. I know, we were very ambitious.

We contacted Go Ahead and asked instead of flying us to London on Monday, could they fly us out to Paris on Friday instead? We just had to pay for the change in airfare otherwise it wasn’t a problem. We also obviously had to pay for our own accommodations in Paris and then get ourselves to London to join our tour group. No problem!

It worked out really well for us as I could finally get Rick to Paris for a weekend and then the Eurostar to London is super easy to navigate.

I was so excited for this tour’s itinerary as we got to go back to London but then see all new places in Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. Again, I like this style of travel when we’re visiting multiple countries.

I’ve had my eye on Edinburgh for a while now and Rick has always wanted to see Ireland so this itinerary was the perfect compromise. We got a taste of Scotland and now know we have to go back and we got to see quite a bit of Ireland!

What we did on our tour

Here’s a high-level breakdown of each day of our Go Ahead tour, with our included activities and our use of our free time.

London

We started our tour in Paris on our own and planned to arrive on Tuesday, Sept. 5 in London to meet up with our group. Day one of these tours is always a travel day with an overnight flight so most people were arriving on Tuesday in the mid-morning or early afternoon.

Some in our group did the tour extension so they arrived in London on Saturday. We got into London around 1:30 and bought our oyster cards so we could take the tube to our hotel in Kensington.

We had some free time to freshen up before our welcome drinks and dinner that night. We met in the hotel bar and got a complimentary drink as Colin, our tour director, introduced himself and discussed some housekeeping items and went over the itinerary for the trip.

He handed out printed itineraries (we could also use the Go Ahead app to track our day-by-day activities), and our Vox boxes and headphones so we could hear the local tour guides while on our walking tours.

Then it was off to our included dinner at a nearby pub where we could get to know our fellow travelers. After dinner, Rick and I went out to another pub as it was a lovely night.

On our full day in London we started off at 8:30 a.m. with a guided tour of London by bus and got off at Westminster Abbey (the tour does not include going inside the abbey) and then walked through a park to get a spot to watch the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace.

Then, we had a free afternoon or London or we could have done the excursion to Hampton Court Palace (11:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.). Rick and I were fine skipping the palace and just enjoying London on our own.

We collected our stuff from the bus and made our way toward a pub for a lunch of fish and chips and beer while we planned the rest of our day. We had seen posters for the Back to the Future: The Musical show while on the tube and then passed the theater on our guided tour that morning and found there were tickets available that night!

We had originally planned to do a Jack the Ripper tour, but we can do that anytime we return to London so we canceled our tour and booked tickets for the show. I mean, our blog’s name is in honor of that amazing trilogy, we had to go!!

But, we had some time to kill between lunch and our show. I’ve always wanted to visit the Shard and saw some spots open for afternoon tea. So, we booked a tea time for two hours later!

We then rushed back to our hotel to change for the evening and grab our portable chargers and anything we needed for the night.

We then hopped back on the tube back to the Shard for our afternoon tea at Aqua Shard. They had a Peter Pan-themed set menu and it was fabulous. We both added a glass of sparkling rose to our order!

My favorite savory item was the sausage roll though the cucumber sandwich was also very tasty. The desserts were delicious and we had a chocolate cake, raspberry mousse and a shortbread cookie, a coconut cake, and super yummy scones!

After our tea, we walked across Tower Bridge where I snapped 100 photos and went to visit a magic shop Rick likes.

Then we strolled through London back to the theater district to see the show.

It was an amazing performance and they adapted it to the stage so well! I’m so glad we skipped our Jack the Ripper tour to see this show as it doesn’t look like it’s coming to Denver anytime soon.

It truly was a fabulous performance for us Back to the Future nerds and the special effects were mind-blowing. There were a few changes to the story but Rick and I both agreed they still work within the movie’s original canon and made sense as to why they were changed.

The rest of our group also went to the theater that night as our tour director had scored a deal on some tickets to Wicked.

Afterward we hopped back on the tube back to Kensington as we had to pack up for our train ride to Scotland in the morning.

Edinburgh

The next morning it was time to eat before boarding our train at King’s Cross to take us to Edinburgh! Of course we stopped for a photo opp at Platform 9 3/4.

We had to have our bags ready at 8:15 a.m. and our train departed at 10:30 a.m. and arrived in Edinburgh at 3:15 p.m.

We took the LNER train to Edinburgh and arrived mid-afternoon. We got checked into our hotel and then we joined Colin on his guided walk of Edinburgh which ended with a hike up Calton Hill to take in the amazing view over the city – and to try some typical Scottish snacks and drinks.

Colin lives in Edinburgh so it was great to get his perspective on what to do in the city and he gave us recommendations of pubs and restaurants to check out while we were in the city.

That night we had an included group dinner at Indigo Yard at 7:15 p.m. After dinner, Rick and I checked out our neighborhood and went to one of Colin’s recommendations, Pickles, the wine bar. It was a cute spot and we each had two glasses of red wine.

The next day we had a free morning in the city as we opted not to do the excursion to Abbotsford House and Melrose Abbey (8:30 a.m. to 2 p.m.). I do think the abbey would have been neat to see, but Rick and I also just enjoy wandering through cities and seeing what we see as we stroll.

We took the time and wandered over to Dean Village for the picturesque views, then up toward Edinburgh Castle, and then down the Royal Mile while popping into some souvenir shops along the way as I was not leaving Scotland without some shortbread biscuits!

After walking along the Royal Mile, listening to the locals play the bagpipes and buying some Scottish souvenirs, we made our way to the end of the road to have lunch at The World’s End pub, where we dined on the traditional dish of haggis!

As soon as we had driven past The World’s End pub we knew we were going to be eating there at some point as I’m a huge Simon Pegg fan!

After lunch, we met back at our hotel to join our group for a guided tour of the city that ended at Edinburgh Castle. We had to be back at 2 p.m. as the bus was getting us at 2:15 p.m.

Our guided sightseeing tour was by bus and we drove around the city while learning about Edinburgh’s history before being dropped off at the Castle and walking around the grounds. We got some time to visit the castle, enjoy the views, and see the Crown Jewels.

I do wish we had had a bit more time to explore the grounds as I think we had an hour of free time there, but it goes by very quickly when waiting in line to see things or get into certain buildings.

After our tour of Edinburgh Castle we jumped back on our coach to go back to the hotel to change, get some more cash, and our chargers so we could head out for our ghost tour! The activity I was super excited about in Edinburgh as the city is supposed to be extremely haunted.

We didn’t have time for dinner as we were done at the castle around 4:30/5 and our ghost tour was at 6:30 p.m., but it was fine as we were sooooo full from our giant lunch.

So, we made our way back to the Royal Mile to meet up with our ghost tour guide and group.

On our ghost tour of Edinburgh we got to explore the Blair Street Vaults and Canongate Cemetery.

Some of the highlights from our Edinburgh ghost tour include:

The grave in a parking lot that’s used today
The story of half-hanged Maggie
The story of William Barton and his deal with the devil
The Blair Street Underground Vaults and the ghosts that reside there, including Jack, the cobbler, and Mr. Boots (AKA The Watcher)
A visit to Canongate graveyard
The story of Burke and Hare, the Edinburgh body snatchers and murderers

After our great ghost tour we made our way to Greyfriars Kirkyard to recognize some names from Harry Potter. We weren’t ready to turn in yet so we walked back up Calton Hill to see the view over Edinburgh at night.

We ended our evening at Keller which was just around the corner from our hotel and got a charcuterie board and some beers.

Liverpool

The next morning, we packed up everything on the bus by 7:45 a.m. and made our way toward Liverpool by way of some smaller stops for bathroom breaks, such as a stop in Kendal in Cumbria, which is famous for its mint cakes.

Most of the people in our group opted to do the Beatles museum while in Liverpool but Rick and I weren’t that interested so we just decided to Google what to do in Liverpool not Beatles-related.

We ended up booking a cruise on the River Mersey while learning about the history of Liverpool. The cruise afforded amazing views of the city, but the voice over was pretty rough and hard to hear.

So we mostly enjoyed our drinks and the views as we cruised the river for 50 minutes. The river cruise was only £12, so worth it even if we couldn’t hear the commentary.

After that we went for a ride on the ferris wheel that also gave us great views over Liverpool and the river we were just on.

After our ride on the Wheel of Liverpool, which was also £12 per person, we crossed the street to Royal Albert Dock and found this great wine and tapas bar and dug into some of our favorite foods from Spain!

To be honest, we were both a bit fish and chipped and beer’d out at that time.

So we gorged ourselves on sangria, croquetas, sardines, meatballs, and paella. It was amazing.

We had about five hours total in Liverpool before we had to be back on the bus to head to Chester, where we were spending the night.

Our hotel in Chester was gorgeous and had a lively bar scene, so we dropped off our suitcases in our room and went downstairs to be social with the other travelers in our group.

Dublin

We couldn’t stay up too late though as we had to pack up and get ready for the ferry ride to Dublin! We loaded up our luggage on the bus at 8:15 a.m. and made our way to Holyhead to climb aboard the ferry over to Ireland.

On our way, we stopped at the seaside village of Llandudno to stretch our legs, get a snack, and use the restrooms.

After that stop we were back on the bus to continue our drive through Wales toward Holyhead.

But, before we got there, we had one more stop to make just for the photos alone! A stop at Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch! It’s the Welsh village with the longest name in Britain!

As you can see, the English translation is below which is “The Church of Mary in the Hollow of the White hazel near the fierce Whirlpool and the Church of Tysilio by the Red Cave.”

That’s a name right there.

After that stop it was onto the ferry to head over to Ireland! The Stena Line ferry took about three hours and I was glad I brought a few books with me. The ferry is large but there aren’t many that many communal spots. We first had to snag seats in the theater but finally we made another lap by the bar and found a table to sit at.

I can get seasick when we travel by water but this ferry is so slow that I didn’t feel a thing while onboard. All in it was an easy journey. Good to know if you want to pay in cash on board it was euros, not pounds.

We got into Dublin around 6 p.m. and got picked up by a new bus and new driver, Declan, who took us to our hotel in Dublin. Luckily our hotel had a restaurant inside so we could eat when we got there.

After dinner, it was time to check out Dublin’s nightlife and we headed off to the Templebar district for some beers and live music!

We found a great spot where a musician was playing a fantastic mix of ’90s and early ’00s jams as well as some traditional Irish pub music.

Of course we got ourselves some Guinness and sang along – at least along with the songs we knew! It was exactly what we were expecting on our first night in Dublin.

We also did go out on a night when Ireland was playing football against the Netherlands, and unfortunately lost, but we were in our green cheering them on anyway!

The next day, our full day in Dublin, we started at 8:30 a.m. with a guided tour of Phoenix Park before a guided tour of St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

We had time to get off the bus at the park, though it was raining so most of us just snapped some pics and got back on the bus. Then we drove over to St. Patrick’s and had time to explore inside the church and take our photographs.

After the Cathedral, we took a little walk to visit the Molly Malone statue. Poor Molly has been fondled for almost ten years as tourists will rub her bosom for “good luck.”

Sure.

Next up on our itinerary was a stop at the Guinness Storehouse at 11:30 a.m.! We had to go and get a perfectly poured pint at the Gravity Bar!

The tour was interesting and really went in-depth on Guinness’ history, production, and marketing for the brand. The storehouse is a museum meets tasting room meets restaurant venue. Rick and I have been to Coors over in Golden, CO and the Guinness experience blew the Coors one out of the water. It was just floor after floor of beer history and information.

Of course we made a stop at the tasting room where we could smell the different ingredients that gives Guinness its flavor and ruby red (yes, ruby red) color. Then we learned how to taste the beer, much like doing a wine tasting.

We continued our exploration a bit and went to get our free beer up at the bar located on top of the building and then we headed back down for lunch. We stopped at the 1837 Bar & Brasserie where Rick tried a different beer and I opted for a black velvet cocktail which was a Guinness stout mixed with prosecco. Not going to lie, it was damn good!

Of course we also got Irish coffees at the end of our meal. It was still raining out so we needed something to warm us up before heading back out into Dublin!

We decided to take one of the carriages back into town and that was a mistake. They told us one price and then asked us for something different at the end, so I would not recommend going with them no matter how fun the ride looks.

I was also dumb and didn’t realize we would need tickets to see the Trinity College library, and we’d been dropped off there. So we walked the campus a bit but then headed back to our hotel to rest up and freshen up before our dinner that evening.

That night we were booked for the Go Ahead excursion of a Traditional Irish Dinner & Show at The Merry Ploughboy pub, from 6-10 p.m.

This was really fun as we got both live music, singing, and dancing! The dinner was a set menu and I opted for the cheese plate starter, the fish for my main, and the apple pie for dessert. Rick got the seafood chowder to start, chicken, and he also had apple pie.

The food was good but you’re really going for the entertainment and these guys and gals are true performers. They encourage audience participation for some songs and are all extremely talented.

Killarney + County Kerry

The next morning we were back on the bus at 8:30 a.m. and heading off to Blarney Castle, where yes, we did kiss the Blarney Stone!

I want to say we had two or three hours at the castle grounds so we had time to get in line to kiss the stone, check out the rooms of the castle (including the murder hole room), and walk the grounds and poison garden. We also had time for a little shopping and to pick up some lunch before getting back on the bus and heading off to Killarney for the night.

That night we had a group dinner near our hotel after getting checked in.

On our second day, we took a bus ride along the Ring of Kerry and made various photo stops as well as just enjoyed the stunningly beautiful scenery and many, many sheep sightings.

We checked out the Kerry Bog Village, had a stop for some shopping and complimentary Irish coffees, visited Sneem, and a few other coastal stops.

Our day included a stop at a restaurant with Ireland’s best known view (fog permitting). You be the judge:

I decided to try a seafood pie and Rick got a sandwich and some chips. We both got salads too as we were all set in the carbs department!

We explored a few more stops and enjoyed the rolling green hills before heading back to our hotel in Killarney.

Even though we had done the Irish Dinner & Show, Colin was also organizing a group in Killarney to see the Celtic Steps at 7:30 p.m. It doesn’t take much convincing to get me to a show, especially one that’s about dance, so we obviously asked for tickets.

The dancers at Merry Ploughboy were good, but the dancers at the Celtic Steps were another level. It was a fabulous show and makes me wish I was just as talented as those dancers!

After the show, Rick and I wanted to check out the nightlife there in Killarney and got dropped off in the city before the bus took everyone else back to the hotel.

We found a nice pub with live music and thought what the hell, we haven’t had enough Guinness yet in Ireland! We were at the pub for an hour to hour and a half before it was closing time and walked back to our hotel.

Killarney was very walkable! Again, I think our hotels were all pretty centrally located for anything we wanted to do with our free time and not needing public transportation or a taxi to get us there.

Cliffs of Moher + Dublin

On our last day of the trip we finally made it to the Cliffs of Moher!

We had about three hours to explore the beautiful work of nature and it wasn’t enough for me! I loved being able to walk the cliffside trails and we got extremely fortunate with our weather that day as it was sunny.

Everyone, and I mean everyone, that I’ve talked to who has been to the Cliffs of Moher warned me it would be windy, it would be cloudy, it would be rainy. It was none of those things when we were there the second week of September!

In fact, it was so warm I ended up getting some ice cream from the shop!

Afterward, it was time to head back to Dublin for the night before departing for home. We had our farewell dinner at the hotel which was ideal as we had a 5 a.m. alarm set the next morning for our flight to Zurich and then on to Denver.

It was hard saying goodbye to our fellow travelers! You would really have to go out of your way to not make friends on these types of tours.

Excursions

Go Ahead also offers extra excursions at a cost during the tour. We ended up only booking one on this itinerary compared to our last trip where I think we ended up doing all of those add-on excursions. The only one that caught our attention was the traditional Irish dinner, music, and dancing show.

Our time in London and Edinburgh were too short to want to do excursions when we had our own list of things we wanted to see and do, such as afternoon tea, the theater, and a ghost tour.

The tour director

Our tour director was Colin and he was fantastic. Truly fantastic! He was always engaging, friendly, and knowledgeable. He was also very communicative, even when the group was having technical difficulties with WhatsApp. Like Rick and I apparently went against their terms of service, as did a bunch of people on our tour (I still never got a real answer from stupid Meta what that was about), but Colin just made sure to communicate through the Go Ahead app as well.

He even added his own excursions to the itinerary (we just paid him in cash for his add-ons), and it worked out well as some of his picks were things we wanted to do anyway!

Some of Colin’s excursions:

A ticket to Wicked in London (we actually did end up going to the theater that night but opted to see Back to the Future: The Musical instead!)
A walking tour of Edinburgh & hike up Calton Hill (he’s an Edinburgh local!)
The Guinness Storehouse & Gravity Bar
The Celtic Steps in Killarney

He also offered a few other excursions that unfortunately didn’t pan out due to low enrollment, such as the seaweed hot tub on our Ring of Kerry day and the Cliffs of Moher cruise due to weather.

Colin was always on time, energetic, and ready for whatever. He was a great guide and really made sure everything on our tour went as well as it could.

Accommodations

I did notice a change on this tour compared to our Spain, France, and Italy tour with Go Ahead. This time we stayed in more chain hotels, like Holiday Inns. It was fine, I just felt like our last trip we stayed at more boutique or locally-owned hotels.

Though, this change might be due to some of the travelers as people in our group complained in Dublin that the hotel didn’t have AC. Which the weather in Dublin wasn’t warranting the need of AC, at least in Rick’s and my opinion.

The hotels we stayed at:

London: Holiday Inn Kensington High Street
Edinburgh: Holiday Inn Express Edinburgh City Centre GAT
Chester (Liverpool day): Indigo Chester Hotel
Dublin: Cassidys Hotel
Killarney: Earls Court House Hotel
Dublin: Crowne Plaza Dublin Airport

All of our hotels offered breakfast each morning with most serving up a breakfast buffet or a continental breakfast with a limited menu for made-to-order eggs or pancakes. Most of the breakfasts also featured the standard hot coffee station that had americanos or lattes, so don’t expect our typical American drip coffee.

I really enjoyed the breakfasts at our hotels as I could make full English or Scottish breakfasts with beans, mushrooms, tomatoes, eggs, and bacon, and even black pudding at some hotels.

We were booked in a double room, so we often had the two beds pushed together in our rooms, and all of our accommodations were comfortable and provided what we needed. Minus one very important thing for me. For the life of me I cannot understand why only one of our hotels had both shampoo and conditioner.

This was a lesson learned for me as I was trying to travel light and did not bring my own shampoo, conditioner, and soap as every hotel we’ve been to offers those things. Every hotel we stayed at had soap. But there was at least one hotel that didn’t have shampoo in our shower. So, lesson learned that I need to bring my own conditioner next time we’re traveling through Europe!

I realize this is a total first-world problem, but it was something I just didn’t expect.

But, all the hotels were very nice and most were very centrally located. We never had a problem walking back to our hotels after a night out, especially in Edinburgh and Dublin. The only one that wasn’t in walking distance of much was our hotel in London, but the tube is easy enough to manage.

Transportation

The transportation between all of our travel destinations was handled all by Go Ahead.

Flights

Our flights to and from Denver were fine, though they are booking us on cheaper flights as I know there are direct flights from DIA to Paris, but they booked us on a flight that had a layover in Munich, which was fine honestly. We flew out from DIA at about 4 p.m. on Friday and arrived in Paris at 2 p.m. on Saturday.

But our flight home from Dublin made no sense. We flew Dublin to Zurich and then back all the way to Denver. So we left Dublin at 8 a.m., changed planes in Zurich, and landed in Denver around 4:30 p.m.

Go Ahead is willing to take any accommodations you have into account if you’re willing to pay for those changes, like seat upgrades or when we switched from flying into London to flying into Paris. You just have to call the customer service line and make those requests.

The reason we do book flights with Go Ahead is in case anything goes wrong, their customer service will handle our rebookings and getting us where we need to be. Especially with so many flight delays and cancelations happening across the board, I’d rather know we have someone in our corner who can take care of the airlines should something go wrong instead of stressing out about it ourselves.

Airport transfers

If you book flights with Go Ahead, transportation to and from the airport is included with that fee. You can also add on airport pick up and drop off. I want to say it was around $25 when we looked at it for our Barcelona trip.

Buses

The majority of the transportation on this trip is by bus, but that wasn’t a problem for us. Most of our buses had giant windows so you could see everything, snap some pictures, and just enjoy the ride.

All the bus drivers we had were great drivers, friendly, and funny. They also do a lot of work in getting our luggage stowed away when it’s time to drive to a new hotel.

I am just truly amazed at how skilled our bus drivers are at navigating these small streets with super tight turns, but they all do it like it’s nothing!

Do note that it’s a toss up if your bus’ bathroom will be unlocked and available to you. On some we could use the on-board facilities and some we couldn’t or it was difficult to unlock the door. But, the itinerary allows for quite a few bathroom breaks on bus-heavy days so it wasn’t really a problem.

Train

This trip did include a train ride from London to Edinburgh. You are responsible for getting your own luggage on and off the train though our tour director knew someone who worked for the train and gave him a tip to help us with our bags. Colin had all the connections!

Pace of tour

This tour is very fast-paced as you have a lot to see in two weeks! We were so, so glad we packed in carry-ons for this trip as we were changing hotels a lot. But, that’s to be expected when visiting four countries and cramming a lot of sightseeing in.

If the idea of spending one or two nights in a city before moving onto the next sounds too chaotic or challenging, this itinerary might not be for you. We were on the move a lot, but that’s what Rick and I were expecting. We’ll often use these types of tours to get a taste a place and see if we need to come back, like we realized with Edinburgh!

We knew we’d be moving around a lot on this tour and prepared accordingly by packing light and being able to pack up our room quickly.

Price of tour

Take our price of the tour with a grain of salt as we originally booked this tour in 2018.

Tour cost (per person):

Tour: $3,659
Flights (from Denver): $1,345
Trip insurance: $329

Go Ahead does offer other excursions and add-ons, though we only did one, the Irish Dinner and Show. Here are the excursions offered on this itinerary and their costs per person:

Windsor Castle: $119
Abbotsford House & Melrose Abbey: $99
The Beatles: History & Story Museum: $99
Traditional Irish Dinner & Show: $109

We did apply a few discounts, such as an online promo ($200 off) and our Club Go rewards ($100).

Inclusions: Group dinners

Some nights of the tour do also include group dinners, which can be great especially after a long day of traveling, we didn’t have to worry about finding somewhere to eat.

Colin was great on these nights as I do have a food allergy and he always made sure to pop over and let me know if I had to avoid any dishes on the menu due to my allergy.

I will say that we heard some complaints about these included dinners from other travelers. Were these dinner like eating at a Michelin-star restaurant? No. Were they fast food dinners? Also no! I’d compare these dinners to conference or wedding catering.

It was typically a set menu with three or four options for mains, sometimes a starter, always a dessert served with tea or coffee, and a complimentary drink, such as white or red wine, beer, or cider. You could get more drinks with your dinner out of pocket.

Here’s what Rick and I had during our included group dinners:

London: We both had the steak pie, London Pride (beer), and brownie with ice cream
Edinburgh: We both opted for a beer and both got the same soup starter, then I had the shrimp pasta, Rick had the cheeseburger and fries, and we both got sticky toffee pudding for dessert
Killarney: I started with a meat and cheese plate, then had the bacon and mash, and dessert was a coconut chocolate tart. Rick had the lemon sorbet, beef stew, and the same dessert. Rick had red wine and I had a cider.
Dublin (farewell dinner at the hotel): I had the cod, a cider, and salted caramel cake for dessert. Rick opted for the chicken and same dessert as it sounded fantastic, and it was!

Overall thoughts

Rick and I were able to check off most items on our bingo card of what the other travelers would say to us as we were the youngest couple on the tour. These tours tend to have travelers from the 50+ age demographic, but we also don’t mind being the youngsters. You’ll still make friends and many of the people in your group are excited to be there and enjoy traveling.

We’re booked on another Go Ahead trip in March to Japan and we’ve got our eye on a food and wine tour of Spain with Go Ahead that might be put on the schedule for 2025.

Like I said, group tours are not for everyone. But, we’ve enjoyed the ones we’ve done with Go Ahead and would (and will) travel with them again in the future.

We really enjoyed this itinerary as it was just what we were looking for in a guided experience and we packed a lot in during our two weeks in Europe, which is exactly what we wanted.

If you’ve got recommendations of other group tour companies we should check out, please let us know in the comments!