Today, we had a tour of the Cliffs of Moher booked through Viator. It was a long, 12 hour, tour, so it started very early. We were to meet at 6:50am. We decided to walk to not be depend on bus schedules, and it was only about a 25 minute walk. We arrived a little unsure if we were in the right place. There was a big coach and a big group, but no signs. We were asking others, and others were asking others if they were going to the Cliffs of Moher. I could not find the company name in Viator; I definitely see the company name when booking. For the next tour, I noted it while online. The first official person and coach left saying that the next coach would be there in a few minutes. Fifteen minutes later and waiting in the cold, the next coach finally arrived, and we were on the list. It was not well organized; we heard them say that there were walk ups and a glitch with the Viator system. They were overbooked. We drove to the cliffs with no seat for our guide, and she offered a full refund for someone to switch tours to one that went to Kilkenny instead of Galway. We would have been willing to, but the people whose reservation got messed up and caused the overbooking volunteered (noting that it was not there fault, but that they would. Weird comment -- I don't think that anyone thought that it was their fault.)

Boarding, our driver, Billy, was seating people; this confused me at first. Normally, you just sit. Our guide later announced that this was our seat for the day; this was nice to avoid seat stealers like in Flam. The tour guide handled the snafu well. We had a great tour, and she shared a lot of good information.

The drive was beautiful, though I did not get great pictures from the bus window. Grazing areas separated by hedges; we also saw the classic rock fences -- built from rocks found in the field.

We drove by the Bunratty Castle.

A golf course. Since Ireland is so green anyway, a golf course is perfect.

Beach on the Wild Atlantic Way drive.

Then we arrived at the cliffs. We had two hours here. She gave us tickets that she noted had a QR code for some audio tours and that no one will probably look at the ticket. A Cliffs of Moher app that I downloaded before the trip worked, offline, with audio tour snippets. Look how pretty. Unfortunately, the hiking trail was closed at both ends, so we could not go very far.

The tower. There was a line to go up in it, which was longer when we came back. We did not go up.

Some sheep in the field nearby; besides cute, they were smelly.

One of the closed trail sections.

We visited the restroom at the Visitor Center. They had some displays. We had a snack outside. The Visitor Center was built into the hill. The Irish, EU, and Irish County flag.

After leaving the Cliffs, we continued northward and passed by Burren National Park. Very interesting landscape. We found some alpaca and more Burrens with the Atlantic Ocean.

We then arrived in Galway where we had an hour and a half. Here our guide noted that we needed to visit a restroom to not have a stop on the way back to time the traffic right. However, she did not advise where some available restrooms were, so I was concerned about this. The logical answer was at the restaurant that you went to, but we also did not have much time here for a sit down meal. We ended up picking a fast food fish and chips place and had hake and chips for 14 Euro and a beer (this was how it was sold -- one choice, not mentioning what it was). We missed it, but you had to buy the tartar sauce separately. Travis took some coins up there for some when there was a break on the line. They did have vinegar at the tables that he liked on the fries and fish. I thought that the fish and chips were just okay; Travis liked them better with the vinegar. We were able to use the restroom here.

Before lunch, we explored Galway. We found a weir with a cathedral on each side. We found a public water bottle filler, which was nice for a water refill on our long tour day. We did not find a water filler anywhere else in Ireland.

After lunch, we walked to one of the original gates of the medieval city and found the fun sign with distances to other places. A shipwrecked boat with swans and metal recycling and logging (maybe).

We arrived back on the bus. They warned us to be on time after each stop (despite the Irish not being known for their time keeping), so that we get to all the stops, not miss time at stops, and not get into a bad traffic pattern. Only at this time someone was late -- a group from Germany. The guide was already talking about having to leave them, and when they came at the last possible minute, they did know that they were late. Traffic was bad getting out of Galway; they noted that Galway had worse traffic than Dublin's.

The guide noted that she got the question of do they accept tips (I wonder if they actually got this question today or just some time before), saying that they did, and put a tip jar on the dashboard. We were prepared. Ireland is not a big tipping culture, and they were definitely lower pressure than guides in the U.S. or the Caribbean. The guide and driver were also sharing the tip since normally it is hard to have the right cash to tip them separately. I always try to ask them to share the tip, hoping that they have a normal split amount, but do not know how well that actually works out for them.

We were dropped off and walked back to the hotel.