Tenon Tours made our one-week self-drive tour of Ireland relatively simple and convenient. I'm glad we used them but I wouldn't use them again. The main benefit of their package was the B&B vouchers. This meant, for 5 nights, we didn't have to worry about picking up or carrying large amounts of cash (most B&Bs only accept cash). We could just call the morning of, tell them our approximate arrival time, and give them the voucher as payment. It meant we barely spent any money that week because it was all paid for in advance so we didn't have to think/worry about it. The main problem with the voucher system was that they gave us a link to the Ireland B&B website which is kind of crap. The website is fine, but the search function sucks. When we used the website to search for our next night's stay, it would pretty much list zero results available or only 1-2 and not in the right areas. At first we were worried there were simply no B&Bs available, but that wasn't the case. Because a kind host at the first B&B we stayed at gave us her old copy of the Ireland B&B book (yep, a book made of paper) and there were hundreds of B&Bs listed in that. And everytime, the first place we called was available. So not sure why the website doesn't provide the same listings. Definitely recommend asking them to mail you an actual copy of the book for this purpose.
Service and communications with Stephanie and Karen were very helpful throughout. But we had one hiccup on the first day of our trip that is the sole reason I wouldn't use them again, unfortunately. When we picked up our rental car at Hertz in Dublin on day one, the employee at Hertz asked us, "Do you know what kind of car you booked?" And we were, like, "Actually, no," since Tenon had booked everything for us. And he told us we had been booked basically a smart car that was meant for city driving so it wasn't meant to be driven on the motorway because the engine would rev at 100kph. We asked his advice on the matter and he recommended an upgrade, which we accepted. I contacted Tenon Tours a couple days later to tell them. I was disappointed that they had booked us a car that would not be sufficient for our itinerary, which they had far in advance so they had to have known we'd be driving on the motorway at times. They started a discussion with Hertz and basically neither Tenon nor Hertz are not taking responsibility for booking us an insufficient vehicle. Tenon is stating that we agreed to the smallest class of cars (which is true), but it sounds like no one actually booked the specific make and model of the car. I'm not sure how the company works with the rental car companies, but obviously if I had been renting the car on my own I could have selected the specific make and model and therefore, would have known in advance what the pros and cons of my vehicle would be. I understand where Tenon is coming from, but as the tour company, I shouldn't HAVE to research what types of cars are available in Ireland and what kind of mileage they get and how fast it can go, etc. I expected the tour company to just look at my itinerary and be like, "You should go with this class/make/model of car based on your itinerary because it will be most convenient for the routes you'll be driving, or you'll get better mileage, or whatever." The whole purpose of tour company is so I don't have to research all that kind of stuff on my own - a knowledgeable company would already know these details and could just tell me. I pay a tour company that extra money to save myself 20 hours of researching this stuff online. Like, if someone was traveling to Los Angeles, I could easily tell him, "Don't drive during these times, never get on this freeway, don't stay in these neighborhoods, these attractions aren't worth it, if you're going to rent a car rent a prius because traffic here is always start and stop, etc." Anyway, that's where I think Tenon was lacking.
Tenon did look into the situation for me after the trip and did try to help get it resolved, but they wouldn't take the blame, for lack of a better term. Tenon kept blaming Hertz and Hertz kept blaming Tenon or us. And it's not a huge deal in retrospect (the upcharge was pretty minimal and we saved more on gas), but sometimes you just want an apology and a promise to do better for their future customers. Like in normal, non-business relationships. read more