Excellent experience! Highly recommend! - We thoroughly enjoyed this tour of Kilkenny and Waterford! Paddy was a wonderful tour guide who had immense knowledge of the area and great stories!! He was very helpful and even stayed with all the guests until their taxis arrived! It was a lovely day!

Comfortable and Informative - Paddy the guide was an awesome shepherd! Very pleasant, enjoyable, and informative tour. Never a dull moment. The train ride was comfortable, smooth, and well planned. We saw the majority of Kilkenny via car train. A good amount of time outside of Kilkenny Castle. Didn’t see all of Waterford, but considering seeing two cities in one day, plenty of time at Waterford Crystal. Would definitely book with Railroad Ireland First Class Tours again via TripAdvisor.

A Good, but Exhausting, Day Out - This is a lovely tour but not for anyone who has mobility issues. There is a lot of walking, more than I anticipated. Paddy, our guide, was very good and kept an eye on me all through. He arranged a taxi from the castle back to the station for four people who would find the return walk a challenge. Nothing was too much trouble for him. A lovely man.

Our 2nd time on this tour! - We were thrilled to spend the day with Paddy again - our guide with our daughter 7 years ago! Fantastic train ride with walking tour in Kilkenny and House of Waterford with my mother this time. A must-do experience!

Top notch tour! Thanks for the amazing history lessons and beautiful memories! - What an amazing day!! Starting from the first train ride John Todd was absolutely wonderful. He told stories and gave us history lessons all along the way. We learned loads about this beautiful country with the ease and comfort of our own private guide. John was super helpful with taking our photo at each location. Thanks for capturing our memories!! This tour (and our guide) were top notch!!

Took Mom to Ireland - We had done Ireland before without a guided tour and having a guided tour was so much better. We wanted our mother (in-law) to have a magical trip. John T was a very entertaining and informative guide. He kept us on a leisurely pace allowing us time to take plenty of photos while taking some group photos for us as well. John is very pleasant and kind, we would certainly take another tour with him.

Great tour with historical content as well as local experience! - Paddy was the highlight of our trip!!! He made sure EVERYONE had what they needed, from taxi hires, to making sure everyone has access to facilities, and sharing history. The tour was really fantastic, the train ride was fun, would do another tour again some time!!!!

Wonderful Day - Loved the Kilkenny Castle and the little city. Waterford Crystal was amazing. Great walking tour. Highly recommend this tour to all.

Go with Paddy!!! - Today was our first day in Ireland and what a great tour to kick off our stay! Paddy was an excellent tour guide who truly loves taking tourists around such wonderful places in Ireland! We had a fantastic day!

Unbelievably bad and rude tour guide. - Over the past 14 months, we have booked 15 tours with Viator throughout western Europe. All have been excellent, with the glaring exception of this tour. The blame can be laid directly at the feet of Paddy McArdle, the tour guide. He was arrogant, rude and pushy throughout the tour and failed to provide the tour experience we paid for. My wife and I both have compromised knees. We were not prepared for the amount of walking that occurred and the description of the tour did not provide an indication that so much walking would be required. I would estimate that in Kilkenny we walked about 3 miles, quite a bit of it uphill. During this time, Paddy seemed irritated with our inability to keep up with his pace. When we spoke to him about this he showed no concern. At Kilkenny Castle, we were only given a half hour to explore and were required to pay an admission fee for entrance, which was falsely advertised as included with the tour. Since this was one of the two locations featured as part of this tour, it seemed especially outrageous that so little time was provided. This was due in large part to Paddy dragging us around Kilkenny, seeing those sights that he was interested in, rather than the ones supposedly included as part of the tour. I am not exaggerating, he wasted our tour time showing us a horse trough! We're from Texas; we've seen a horse trough. We also were subjected to Paddy saying hello to a series of shopkeepers (again, not part of the tour) but not allowing us any time to perhaps purchase a souvenir. At a certain point, my wife and I were tired of walking and decided not to enter a shop specializing in hurling equipment. He was obviously annoyed with us for not entering the shop and became sarcastic because we chose to wait on the sidewalk for the tour group. The worst offense was not against us, however. A widowed woman who had brought her brother, who was mentally compromised, was told to just leave him behind at the castle by Paddy, even though it was obvious that he needed her guidance, because of his impatience to move on. To her credit, she refused. I could not believe that this man, supposedly there to make our tour enjoyable, had the gall to demand the abandonment of this poor woman's brother, who almost certainly could not have made his way back to the train station on his own. It was more of the same from Paddy when we reached Waterford. After a quick lunch, he decided to take the group on another walking tour. My wife and I declined to go this time, since we were only a short distance from the Waterford factory, which was the second major stop of the tour. We waited in the lobby for the group to show up. It was made clear that the Waterford tour was to begin on time and that no-one would be allowed in after the tour began. As the Waterford tour guide was preparing to take the group in (at the scheduled time), Paddy rolled up to the factory entrance with about 30 seconds to spare. Had he been a minute later, the entire tour group (except for us) would have missed the tour. Once finished with the tour, we returned to the train for the homeward route, which deviated significantly from the route described in the tour advertisement on Viator, and simply followed the same route back to Dublin. We saw no new countryside. As a result the tour was shortened by about rwo hours from the advertised length. Paddy continued his childish behavior on the train ride home, at one point insulting me sarcastically. By the time we reached the train station in Dublin, we had had enough of Paddy, so we exited the train without speaking to him. At this point, he exploded with anger, screaming at us as we walked away from him. The tour guide is supposed to make the experience enjoyable and informative. As I've said, every other of the 15 tours we've booked through Viator have been enjoyable. This was total misery, due entirely to the tour guide, who really needs to find another line of work. It was a long, ugly day. This tour was not really as described, with not enough time in some locations and far too much aimless wandering at the whim of our guide. I am not the only person posting these types of comments concerning Paddy on Viator. I encourage you to read the other one-star reviews that mention Paddy specifically. You'll find tbe same kinds of comments. Avoid him like the plague.