- For two hours you will be immersed in the bloodiest, most repulsing and paranormal aspects of Dublin
- Run with the help of professional actors, the tour is a theatrical experience too.
- Takes you to places not generally recommended for visits after dark - after dark, naturally.
- Tour is best experienced off-season when it gets dark early - summer tours can be to "light".
- Converted doubledecker tourbus takes you on a circular route of Dublin, covering all the spots where things go bump at night.
- Professional actors and passionate tour guides provide lively insight into deathly matters
- Despite a late start, many summer tours are not "vampire-friendly", suffering from too much daylight.
- Definitely the one tour of Dublin City that improves with darkness and adverse weather.
- Book early around Halloween!
Painted with an eerie mural involving ghosts and graves, the violet doubledecker will pick you up well before midnight, to join a two-hour drive through Dublin at night. And here is the big problem: Tourists booking the tours at 7:00, 8:00 or 8:30 pm in summer will still enjoy fairly broad daylight. A bit pointless if you are a fearless vampire hunter. My advice is to book the 9:30 pm tour (Saturdays and Sundays only) during this time.
On the other hand ... the Ghostbus Tour is really best enjoyed on a murky, preferably drizzly evening in winter. Actually the tour is so popular around Halloween that it is sold out well in advance!
What can you expect then? The bus will take you from O'Connell Street past Trinity College, St. Stephen's Green and St. Patrick's Cathedral on a circular route of Dublin. With the usual sights in view. But the live commentary will be more ghostly and ghoulish, concentrating on Stoker instead of Joyce for instance. You may pass well-known landmarks accompanied by the stoic silence of your guide, who will then get quite agitated while pointing out a medieval plague pit. And professional actors will make the tour a theatrical event too. Up to and including an Irish wake. But the tour is not only fearsome fun, it is educational too - should you contemplate a well-paid and exciting career in medical research, the crash course in bodysnatching should benefit you!
Dublin Bus warns that the tour is not suited for "those of a nervous disposition" and excludes children aged under 14 years. Is it that scary? Well, yes and no - you are certainly in for some surprises. Recommended for those in search of Dublin's dark side.
