Just returned from the tour. If you can believe it we only got about 5 minutes of rain while we were out and about. I expected it to be cool and rainy and it was just the opposite - what luck!
We had a great TD David Turner. We also had a very punctual group. People from Australia, USA, Canada, Hong Kong and Singapore - a great group of people. Our bus was full 40 people.
Highlight of the tour was the time we spent in Ireland - especially the Ring of Kerry. I just loved the beautiful scenery. So different from the flat plains that I see living on the prairies. Only down side was that my husband caught a cold on the trip. Since he wasn’t feeling up to snuff some days we opted out on some of the optionals (2 of the dinners).
In the end we ended up doing the following: Dinner in Edinburgh (Two Bridges), Blair Castle, Windermere Lake cruise and train ride, Dinner in Dublin, Killarney Ceilidh & dinner, Jaunty cart ride, Farewell dinner. Highlight was the Ceilidh & dinner in Killarney.

Thanks for the information, very handy. We are going in a few weeks time and are always looking for as much information as we can get. We are really hoping for some good weather like you had, especially for the Tattoo. As a matter of interest, how much extra would we have to budget for on the optionals for two persons?

Insight's recommendation for budgeting for optionals on this tour is on their website (see the Optionals tab for Britain and Ireland Explorer tour):

quote:

HOW TO BUDGET FOR OPTIONAL EXCURSIONS:
The final list of optional excursions to be offered during your tour by your Tour Director will be based on the descriptions and pricing featured in this leaflet. To help your pre tour budgeting we suggest you allow approximately £35 per person per day for optional excursions.

phil

Welcome home! I'm looking forward to this trip next month! Can't wait.
How were your hotels and food?

Crow Eaters: for the 2 of us the tours that we took cost us 349 Pounds. If we had signed up for all of the tours it would have been 644 pounds for the 2 of us. Hope that helps. We didn't go on the following: Scottish Cabaret & dinner, a tour of the Royal Yacht Britannia, Irish Cabaret & dinner, Liam O'Connor show in Killarney and the Cardif Castle vist.

Laj:
The hotels were fine - missed not having air conditioning in some of the hotels but we did have very warm weather. The meals were OK too - got a bit tired of the breakfasts the same no matter where you were. Standard British breakfast - eggs, grilled tomatoes, bacon, sausages, toast and cereals. All the dinners were 3 courses - a starter, main and dessert that you could choose from. Didn't get a lot of lamb - which suits me fine but some people were disappointed. On the whole trip we only had one disappointing meal. I think it was at Dooleys Hotel in Waterford. You also have try the haggis
All the eating esatblishments were very accomodating - we had a few vegitarians on our tour and they always had something to offer them.
Hope this helps.
Linda

I'm glad you had a good time (and weather) on your trip - we're off on Aug 8th for the same trip and looking forward to it.
Hoping the weather takes a turn for the better - I just read another post about the ghastly weather there right now.
How did you find the optionals that you did take?

Thanks again LROB57, info was most useful. Will try to do some research and see if there are any optionals which we may choose not to do.

Cheers