I live in Dublin and booked the Hellfire Club tour as a surprise for a friend's birthday. The money was taken out of my account and I was sent the confirmation e-mail. The evening of the tour was wet and cold, but my friends and I arrived outside the Brazen Head for 6:45pm just as the tickets stated.
After waiting outside in the rain for 15 minutes (the tickets clearly ask you to wait outside, and not in the pub) I called both of the numbers that are listed under the Contact Us tab on the company website. One was out of service, and one was answered by a girl who said she "thought that tour wasn't running". When I informed her I had tickets and was waiting for it in the rain she quickly changed her mind and said the bus was on the way, and that she would call me back if there were any problems.
Understandably I wasn't confident after this conversation. At 7:15pm I rang again and asked why it was obvious no one was planning on showing up to collect us, but more importantly why did they keep insisting someone would be there and continue to let us wait in the rain for a tour that wasn't arriving? She continued to insist she would get in touch with the driver of the tour and see why they were delayed, and said she would call me back.
This time she actually did return my call, and proceeded to ask me questions like was I sure this was the tour I'd booked, what date had I chosen and was it actually with this company? I had our tickets printed out, and explained that we weren't confused and had all the details correct - I had obviously double checked everything after the first few minutes of being left standing outside in the rain on what was supposed to be my friend's surprise birthday. She then asked could I forward her my e-mail, to which I lost my temper and asked why she was wasting our time with these questions when clearly this tour was not happening and allowing us to continue to wait for it was just insulting.
I was then told by the girl on the phone that this wasn't even a tour she was in charge of, and she actually had no idea what was happening despite telling me previously that everything was fine and casually commenting the tour must just be delayed.
I was furious that at this point we had been left waiting outside for over half an hour, after almost €80 had been taken out of my account to pay for a trip that clearly never planned to go ahead. The girl on the phone had no idea what to tell me, so I told her to find someone who did and have them call me back immediately to explain how I would be refunded. I eventually got a call from someone more senior, who continued to say over and over again that he "just didn't understand why I hadn't been informed the tour wasn't happening". They had apparently cancelled it due to lack of numbers, but had never informed me. I never received a call or an e-mail, I also double checked my junk e-mail folder and it hadn't been sent there either.
They did put us (free of charge) on another one of their tours that night, the Gravedigger Dublin tour. Desperate to salvage something for the friends I had brought out for a surprise night, we agreed to go. All I can say is that if you're a wide eyed tourist looking for some cliche "Irish" humour you might possibly enjoy it, but if you're looking for a unique or high quality experience DO NOT try this.
Take it from someone who lives in Dublin and knows this city, this tour company are unreliable, unprofessional and incompetent. read more