Trip Report: British Isles ABD, 23 July - 1 August 2024 (with some bonus days too!)

[MinnieInVA]

I thought I’d do a trip report for y’all for the British Isles trip my 14 yo daughter and I just returned from – it was fabulous, and I would definitely recommend it. This was our first ABD, and I’ve gotta say, it beat my expectations and then some. I’m pretty sure we’ll be trying another one in the future…once I save up a few pennies again! Here we go….

 

[MinnieInVA]

July 21-22, Day 1-2: Departure and arrival in Dublin

We opted to fly American from our home airport to Dublin, with a connection at DFW. I planned for a 3 hour layover at DFW, because that seemed like the smart thing to do during summertime (southern thunderstorms). Our flight to DFW ended up being an hour late (yay, only 2 hours in DFW!), but then our connecting flight to Dublin was delayed by 3 hours (boo, 5 hours in DFW!). We flew premium economy for our DFW-DUB flight as that fit far better within my budget than one of those lovely business class pods. It worked out all right for us. It was a bummer that our flight was so late leaving DFW – our planned 7 pm departure would have meant dinner on the plane was served at a reasonable time. As it ended up, our flight didn’t push from the gate til 10:30 pm, and we weren’t actually airborne til closer to 11 pm. My daughter and I opted out of dinner at that point and were glad we ate a meal at the airport.

We arrived in Dublin around 12:15 pm local time and waited all of 30 seconds in line to clear immigration. Luggage took longer, closer to 30 minutes before we got our 2 suitcases. Customs didn’t even blink at us as we walked by, and we quickly spotted our ABD driver. He kindly took over our suitcases and walked us to our ride – a Mercedes! All right ABD, you have my attention (ha ha). It wasn’t long before we arrived at the College Green hotel, our home for the next 3 nights. Loved the location, it was so easy to walk to a lot of the sights in Dublin! Our room was great, no complaints there. We were able to get into our room before 3 pm, for which we were very grateful. We settled in for a bit before we headed out for our Vintage Tea Tour I had booked for 4 pm. It seemed like an easy way to stay awake without expending a lot of energy – at that point, we were a bit tired. The tea tour was on a double decker bus, and I highly recommend it! Afterwards, we stopped by a Boots to pick up some essential toiletries that I didn’t feel like packing for a 2 week trip, then returned to the hotel. We punted for dinner and I ordered KFC from the store just across the street from the hotel. It got the job done, and we tucked into bed, ready to see more of Dublin the next day before our tour officially kicked off.

 

[MinnieInVA]

July 23, Day 3 (Day 1 of ABD): Dublin

We started off our day with the free breakfast buffet at the hotel – this was thankfully available at all the hotels we stayed at. We’d also gotten a welcome letter from our guides noting that they’d be in the lobby most of the morning. After we ate, we met Danny (!!!) and John from Ireland for a chat. We got a packet of meal choices for some of the meals we would get on the tour, to be turned that evening at the welcome dinner. They had a list of restaurant suggestions that I took a picture of, and then we were off to explore Kilmainham Gaol. I lucked out and snagged some same-day tickets at around 9 am – they go on sale 4 weeks prior and sell out quick, as I discovered. We took a taxi over to the Gaol, and took the guided tour. This was an amazing experience, highly recommended!



After the Gaol, we opted for the Big Bus Tour and rode around Dublin for a bit. My daughter had spotted Christ Church Cathedral on our Tea Tour the previous day and said she wanted to check it out. The Big Bus had a stop nearby, so we hopped off there. The church was very impressive and we were glad we stopped.


By now, it was mid-afternoon and we were hungry. We found a Centra 7-11 type store that also had a deli/coffee bar attached to it. We grabbed some munchies (we were always on the lookout for new-to-us treats and snacks!) and ate there in the store. We walked back to the hotel which was only about 10 minutes away at that point. We hung out until the welcome dinner where we met our fellow travelers (I believe there were like 36-38 of us on the trip) and enjoyed some lovely harp music. After dinner, it was off to bed to get ready for the first full day of our ABD!

 

[MinnieInVA]

July 24, Day 4 (day 2 of ABD): Dublin

We were told to be at the breakfast buffet when it opened at 7 am, and so we made that happen! Our group was out the door to our coach by 8 am with our local guide. We drove around Dublin for a bit, then arrived at the EPIC Emigration Museum for a pre-opening tour. We enjoyed this experience, then it was back to the bus to drive to the Teeling Whiskey Distillery. I am *not* a whiskey drinker, but the tour was interesting. There was of course a whiskey tasting, which included dark chocolate. The dark chocolate did improve the taste of the whiskey, but in the end, I remain steadfastly anti-whiskey.


After the distillery, we moved on to lunch at a pub, complete with some live Irish music. My high-school percussionist daughter got to help provide some backup percussion, and she thought that was pretty cool.

After lunch, we were given the option to do a walking tour of Dublin with the local guide, or go off on our own. I had heard the Book of Kells was interesting, and as Trinity College was literally next door to the hotel, it seemed like a reasonable thing to check out. I got tickets, and off we went. Personally, I didn’t find this to be a very interesting thing to see. It had an interesting history, but I certainly wouldn’t make an effort to see it again. The college grounds were more interesting to see, in my opinion.


My daughter and I decided to trek over to St Patrick’s Cathedral, about a 30 minute walk. It was also interesting to view, and afterwards we returned to the hotel to contemplate dinner.


We opted for a mediterranean place called Zaytoon that was not too far beyond Temple Bar. It was on the recommended restaurant list Danny and John had given, and it did not disappoint. After dinner, we returned to the hotel for the evening.

 

[MinnieInVA]

July 25, Day 5 (day 3 of ABD): Dublin to Belfast

We had our luggage outside our door on time and headed down for breakfast – we had another 8 am-ish departure planned to head toward Belfast. We hopped on the coach and we were off – the guides were great about having rest breaks around the 75-90 minute points on the bus rides. Before heading to Belfast, we had a mid-day stop at Tracey’s Farmhouse. She is such a lovely, welcoming lady, and she did indeed teach us how to make Irish Soda Bread. The ones my daughter and I made looked good on the exterior, but we unfortunately learned that ours hadn’t actually cooked all the way through.


So, after splitting them in half and cooking them some more, I had soured on the process a bit and didn’t enjoy them the way others in our group enjoyed theirs. Tracey served us a lunch of quiche, salad, and dessert, and after the kids in our group played with Tracey’s six month old puppy, we were on our way to Belfast. We got to the city center and picked up our local guide, who narrated a bus tour around the city. This is where I had a little disappointment with the tour – this was really the only time we had to explore the city, and it was on a bus. I wished we had more time to look around. We did get to visit the Peace Wall and left our own messages on the wall with pens provided by the local guide.


We then went to the Titanic Experience, which was pretty cool to see.


We spent a little over an hour there, and then it was time to head to our hotel for the next 2 nights, the Culloden. That hotel was impressive both inside and out – felt like we were staying in a castle!


The kids got to have a Junior Adventurer dinner and a movie with Danny while the adults ate at one of the hotel’s restaurants, which was quite enjoyable. By then, it was time to head to bed to get ready for another busy day!

 

[MinnieInVA]

July 26, Day 6 (day 4 of ABD): Antrim Coast/Giant’s Causeway

We started the day with breakfast at the hotel (where apparently Van Morrison also likes to hang out and eat breakfast, as he did that day! The hotel staff were very protective of him so no one bothered him). We were on our way by 8:15 to the Antrim Coast and Giant’s Causeway. We met 2 local guides at the Causeway, and we split into 2 groups to walk to the Causeway and hear about the history of the area…and of course, the tale of Finn McCool and Benandonner, the giants whom the causeway is named for. We enjoyed this stop immensely!



Afterwards, we at lunch at Bushmill Inn, not far from the causeway. Good food, and we were able to miss a band of rain that came through the area. We then headed back to the hotel for an OYO evening/dinner. My daughter and I were dragging a bit, so we opted for small plates at the bar, and that was definitely the right way to go for us. We went to bed early-ish because the next day was a verrrrrry early start – bag pick up at 5 am!

 

[MinnieInVA]

July 27, Day 7 (day 5 of ABD): Onward to Scotland!

So, this almost started on a bad note for my daughter and me. I had set my watch alarm for 4:55 am to get our bags outside our door on time. My alarm went off, I got up and dragged our bags out. Curiously, I noted there were no other bags in the hallway (we were all in the same hallway at the Culloden). Huh, I wondered…then I looked at my watch. 5:05 am. What the heck?!? In a panic, I started throwing my clothes on, thinking I was going to have to shlep my bags to the lobby so they didn’t get left behind. Thankfully, in the time it took to get dressed, bell services had circled back and picked up our bags. Whew…I still don’t know what the heck happened with my watch alarm, because it never happened again.

We departed at 6 am (with brown bag breakfasts) on our coach to catch the StenaLine ferry from Belfast to Cairnryan. We made it on to the 7:30 ferry and roughly 2.5 hours later, we arrived in Scotland. We also got tokens for “second breakfast” on the ferry, but my daughter and I opted to just indulge in coffee/hot chocolate because first breakfast filled us up pretty good. The ride was smooth and easy. Enroute to Glasgow, we stopped at the Robert Burns memorial, where apparently the biggest draw for the young ones in our group were the plushie “hairy koos”. I believe 5 of them were purchased in our group that day. I’m not a big poetry fan, so this stop didn’t really interest me, other than to get off the bus for a few minutes.


We continued on to Glasgow, to the National Piping Centre. We started with lunch – this was, for me anyway, the one stinker of a meal on this trip. I was not impressed with my fish, and my daughter noted that the mac-and-cheese they served some of the kids wasn’t very good either. After lunch, we met up with a bagpiper who gave a quick performance, and then showed us their (very small) museum.


Interesting, but once again, I was left wishing that we had more of an opportunity to explore Glasgow. Alas, we had to get back on the bus and continue the trip to Edinburgh. We arrived at the Intercontinental Hotel – the George in Edinburgh, and got settled into our rooms. This hotel is actually cobbled together from what once was 3 different buildings, so getting to some of the rooms was…interesting. Our route to our room required walking toward the back of the hotel, taking the stairs up one floor, walking further back in the hotel, then going down another flight of stairs, and then returning back into the hotel a bit. We had dinner at another pub that evening (Howie’s), and it was good, but the Sticky Toffee Pudding was absolutely exceptional! We had time on our own after dinner – but it was late enough that my daughter and I just wanted some rest, so we returned to the hotel.

 

[MinnieInVA]

July 28, Day 8 (day 6 of ABD): Edinburgh

We started the day with a quick coach ride to Leith, accompanied by today’s local guide, where we had a pre-opening tour of Her Majesty’s Yacht BRITANNIA. Once again, we were split into two groups and got a thorough guided tour of the ship. Following the tour, we were treated to tea/coffee and scones in the “café” at the aft end of the ship. Our guide made sure we understood that the proper way to eat scones was to put clotted cream on them first, and then the jam. (Apparently there is disagreement regarding the order of jam and cream application? Our guide Danny seemed to be firmly in the “improper” application camp)



Following the BRITANNIA tour, we were off to Holyrood House. Once the photo ops were taken care of, we were sent off on our own with digital tour guides to tour the palace at our own pace. This was one of my favorite tours, even though we weren’t allowed to take photos inside the palace (working palace, after all!).


After touring the palace, it was back on the bus for a short ride to Greyfriars, where we got to pay homage to Greyfriars Bobby, the dog that faithfully guarded his master’s grave for 14 years. We also got a tour of the Greyfriars area before being released for lunch on our own. My daughter and I opted for Oink, a takeaway-only pork barbeque sandwich place that turned out to be pretty tasty. We wandered for a bit before it was back to the bus to tour Edinburgh Castle. The bus took us about halfway up the hill, and we hiked up the rest. The local guide showed us around a bit, then we were on our own, with the option to meet up again at the bus for a ride back to the hotel.


My daughter and I chose to walk ourselves back, with a stop for a snack at the newly opened Ben and Jerry’s. At this point, we were feeling the need for “basic” food, so dinner tonight was at the Hard Rock across the street from the hotel. It was perfectly acceptable, and afterwards we headed to the hotel for some rest.

 

[MinnieInVA]

July 29, Day 9 (day 7 of ABD)

We got a little sleep-in today, as our departure to Floors Castle outside of Edinburgh wasn’t until 9 am. Ah, it was glorious to sleep in a little! The bus left promptly at 9, and we arrived at Floors a little over an hour later. Floors Castle is the current home of the 11th Duke of Roxburgh, who does indeed live there with his family. The house was very impressive, and the grounds/gardens were absolutely stunning. We were again split into 2 groups – one group toured the interior castle first, while the other toured the gardens. My group was the garden group, and the Junior Adventurers had the chance to go play on the small playground while the adults enjoyed the tour.




We had lunch at the castle café (pretty good!), and we also had our shortbread making lesson before the groups got to tour the castle/gardens that they hadn’t seen yet. There was also a highly entertaining Rolling Down the Hill contest among some of the Junior Adventurers and one dad (the dad won!). Round 2 of the contest was short lived, but Danny was persuaded to take part, which was entertaining to watch!


We were at Floors for a solid 6 hours, and then it was time to head back to Edinburgh. Dinner was at the hotel, and the JAs had another dinner supervised by Danny and John while the adults ate in a reserved room of our own. Dinner was tasty, but then it was time for us to get some shut eye.

 

[MinnieInVA]

July 30, Day 10 (day 8 of ABD): Edinburgh to London

We had our luggage outside our rooms by around 6 am (I think), and meeting time in the lobby was 7:30 for our walk to the Edinburgh train station. The walk was less than 20 minutes, and it was an easy walk, given the time of morning. We were booked in the first class section of the high speed train to London, so it was a comfy ride that included yet another 2nd breakfast (we had quite a few of those along the way…definitely no shortage of food!).


Just under 4.5 hours later, we were pulling into Kings Cross station in London. We met our bus that took us to our final hotel – the Waldorf Hilton Aldwych. Upon arrival, we were whisked into our afternoon tea experience, which was delicious.


My daughter was recognized for her birthday (which was kind of weird because her birthday was over 3 weeks away and I had not mentioned a birthday celebration to anyone when booking. I’m wondering if our travel agent made a note I wasn’t aware of). We then had a little time to relax in our room before it was time for our speedboat ride on the Thames. It was about a 15 minute walk from the hotel, and it was absolutely a highlight of the trip – got to see a lot of the London sights from a rather unusual viewpoint.



We were on our own after the boat ride, so we walked back to the hotel to figure out what we wanted for dinner. My daughter decided a ramen restaurant (Shoryu, 7 min walk from the hotel) sounded good, so I booked a table and we went. Turned out the reservation wasn’t really needed, but the food was great. If ramen is your thing, this was a good one. It was still early-ish, but my daughter was feeling the effects of a cold that was circulating among our group, so we called it a night.

 

[MinnieInVA]

July 31, Day 11 (day 9 of ABD): London

This was another early-ish day, with a 7:30 meet up in the lobby for our coach ride to the Tower of London. We had a local guide with us again today, and she was a delight! We had a quick photo op with the Tower Bridge before meeting our Yeoman Warder (Emily) for our tour of the Tower of London.



We were there before pre-opening (a perk I was beginning to love), so our tour was fairly leisurely – including our viewing of the Crown Jewels. I feel like we got like 30 minutes for the viewing, so that was incredible. We got a little more history from our local guide on the story of Henry VIII and his six wives, which included role playing by Danny and a bunch of us picked to be the wives (pretty funny!). We then had a bit of time to wander on our own before we departed for our next stop: St Paul’s Cathedral. About a third of the group wanted to climb to the top of the dome, so Danny led us on our expedition to climb those 528 steps as quickly as we could manage. We survived, and then went back down to meet the rest of the group, who were getting a tour from our local guide.



We then bussed over to lunch at The Admiralty Pub on Trafalgar Square, where I learned that while British fish and chips are tasty, I feel Scottish fish and chips are superior (sorry if those are fighting words, I said what I said, ha ha).

At this point, we were on our own til the 6:30 pm farewell dinner at the hotel. I did a little pre-planning and guessed that if I got tickets for a 3 pm tour of the Buckingham Palace State Rooms, we would be perfectly on time after lunch and the guided walk to Buckingham Palace.


Turned out I was correct, so we enjoyed touring the state rooms (kind of. I should note it was in the low to mid 80s in London, and they don’t really do a lot of air conditioning in their public buildings. Inside the palace, it was rather warm, humid, and like swimming in a sea of people. It reduced our enjoyment level of the tour a bit). Once we completed the tour and had some ice cream to recover (ha), we hailed a cab to take us to our hotel as we were not in the mood for a 35 minute trek on foot. The farewell dinner was fun, a little bittersweet of course, and we enjoyed a slide show review of our week. Then it was time to bid farewell to our fellow adventurers and Danny and John. It was not yet time to say farewell to London for us, though…

 

[MinnieInVA]

August 1, Day 12: London

While most of our tour group was heading home, we opted to stay another 2 nights to enjoy London some more. For simplicity, I opted to extend our stay via ABD, so we stayed at the same hotel and preserved our included transfer to the airport. We enjoyed a little sleep in again (heaven!), got some breakfast, then headed out to Westminster Abbey.


It was still quite warm, but not super people-y yet, so this was a little more enjoyable. We grabbed a few photos of Big Ben, and then started working our way via bus, tube, and train to Greenwich. I had purchased timed entries for the Cutty Sark and the Old Royal Observatory, which we were now very early for. To kill time, we got some lunch from a quick serve place called Slim Chicken, which was actually very good. We then got gelato from a great place just across the street. Still being very early for our timed Cutty Sark entry, I decided to head over and see if they’d let us in early. It was a quiet day, so it turned out to not be an issue.


After learning about the tea trade, we walked over to the Observatory. They also accommodated an early entry for us (yay!), and it was cool to learn about their history.


We then worked our way back to our hotel, where we again had to figure out dinner plans. My daughter decided the barbecue place (Bodeans) that was a 5 minute walk from the hotel sounded good, so we did a takeway order and brought it back to our room. It was surprisingly good. We kept the evening quiet again, as my daughter was still fighting her cold and I was trying very hard to not catch it (spoiler alert: I caught it, but it didn’t hit me til right after we got home).

 

[MinnieInVA]

August 2, Day 13: London

Our final full day of our visit, and we had plans to go just north of London to the Warner Brothers studio for the Harry Potter experience. After our bus and train ride, we hopped on the studio bus at the Watford Junction train station and got to visit all things Harry Potter. We didn’t exactly linger at anything on our tour, and it took us a solid 3 hours to get through the tour. We enjoyed it, and then made our way back to London proper.


I had arranged a 3:10 pm entry to the British Museum, knowing that they had late hours on Fridays. We had time before our entry, so we got lunch from a place we had spotted called Fish Plaice. They had fish and chips with several kinds of fish to choose from, and they interestingly also had Korean style fried chicken. My daughter liked the chicken, and my haddock fish and chips were very good. After lunch, we grabbed a boba tea from a nearby shop and then joined the very long line to enter the British Museum.


Thankfully, the line moved rapidly and we were in. I had been looking forward to this, but the conditions in the museum kind of ruined the visit. The warm weather had continued, and the museum was not immune to becoming very warm and stuffy. It was also absolute humid people soup in the museum, and I almost literally was swimming through some of the rooms to get around. After an hour, my daughter and I had enough. We left and enjoyed the outdoors as we walked about 12 minutes back to our hotel. We kept dinner simple this evening, just did some room service, as I had somehow managed to score 2 very last-minute tickets to the evening’s performance of SIX at the Vaudeville theater, a mere 5 minutes from our hotel. My daughter is a huge fan of SIX – we’d actually seen it once in our hometown – and she absolutely adored this performance.


We then headed back to the hotel to start the dreaded pack-up process for our departure for home the next day.

 

[MinnieInVA]

August 3, Day 14: London to home!

Our flight was scheduled to depart Heathrow at around 12:15 pm, and our transfer was scheduled to pick us up around 8:15 am. Our driver was on time (with another Mercedes, ooh la la!), and we were at Heathrow a little under an hour later. We managed to score some British Airways Club World lie flat seats for our flight home, so we also had access to the BA lounge after we got checked in. I opted to go to the lounge on the B concourse, and it was blissfully quiet, but still had plenty of amenities. Our flight ended up being nearly an hour late in boarding, so it was nice to have a comfy place to hang out. Once we were on the plane, the remainder of the journey was smooth, and we made it home.

We absolutely loved this trip, and while it was expensive, it was nice for this type-A control freak not have to sweat all the details, whether the hotels were a good choice, how to get around… In other words, I think we’ll be doing another ABD trip at some point.

 

[Mathmagicland]

Thanks for doing this, and you have some great pictures!

 

[jimmymc]

Looks like a great two weeks! Any trips in particular you're looking at doing next?

 

[MinnieInVA]

Looks like a great two weeks! Any trips in particular you're looking at doing next?

I'm thinking about Japan - we haven't gotten to check out the Disney Parks overseas yet, and my daughter is interested in that part of the world. That will probably have to wait until 2026 at the earliest, though

 

[Threehearts]

Could you please let us know where you were able to get your last minute tickets for the theater in London?
I was looking into that last weekend for my daughter who was in London and could not locate a physical place or an online source for day-of tickets.

Many thanks!

 

[MinnieInVA]

Could you please let us know where you were able to get your last minute tickets for the theater in London?
I was looking into that last weekend for my daughter who was in London and could not locate a physical place or an online source for day-of tickets.

Many thanks!

I was able to get mine directly from the "SIX the musical" website. I was told that a site called todaytix.com was good for last minute tickets, though.

 

[Mathmagicland]

I was able to get mine directly from the "SIX the musical" website. I was told that a site called todaytix.com was good for last minute tickets, though.

I’ve got TodayTix app for a future London visit; it has regular, along with rush and lottery tix when offered, for every show in London. Seems to be a good resource, though I haven’t used it yet.