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Dublin in a Day From Dún Laoghaire Port and Dublin City
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From €699 per person
A private driving tour that covers Dublin’s highlights in a single day - ideal if you’re coming off a cruise at Dún Laoghaire and want to make the most of your time ashore.
Your guide collects you at the port, takes you through the city at a pace that suits your group, and drops you back when you’re done. You’ll visit Trinity College to see the 1,200-year-old Book of Kells, take in the Guinness Storehouse, drive through Phoenix Park, explore St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and head out to Powerscourt Gardens. Your guide shares facts, history and stories at each stop, so you’ll leave knowing far more about the city than you arrived with.
The tour is customisable. If you want to linger somewhere longer, or swap a stop for something else, that’s straightforward to arrange.
At Trinity College, the Long Room library is the thing most people remember most. The Book of Kells gets the headlines, and it’s genuinely worth seeing - a 9th-century illuminated gospel kept under low light in a vaulted chamber - but the Long Room above it, 65 metres of dark oak shelving and 200,000 leather-bound volumes, is its own experience. The two are connected and the combined ticket covers both.
Pace the Guinness Storehouse carefully. The building has seven floors and most people try to do all of them in the same hour. The brewing history floors at the bottom and the Gravity Bar at the top are the standouts - your included pint is redeemable at the bar on the seventh floor, with a 360-degree view over the city. If you’re tight on time, your guide can help you prioritise.
In Phoenix Park, keep an eye out for the deer herd rather than waiting for a scheduled sighting. The herd roams freely and tends to graze in the open grassland areas toward the Fifteen Acres in the centre of the park. Early morning or late afternoon gives you the best chance, but they’re not predictable. The park is also where you’ll drive past Áras an Uachtaráin, the President’s official residence, and past the US Ambassador’s residence.
At Powerscourt, ask about timing for the café. The gardens have a café on site that’s popular and gets busy through the afternoon. If lunch is going to work here, earlier is better - before 1pm if the schedule allows. The gardens themselves take a good hour to walk properly, and the mountain backdrop on a clear day is worth slowing down for.
Before you leave Dún Laoghaire in the morning, the East Pier is worth a quick walk if your ship docks early. The pier is a 1.3 km granite walkway into Dublin Bay, built between 1817 and 1842. Ten minutes out and ten minutes back, and you’ll have your legs properly awake before the driving tour begins. If you’re back at the port with time in the evening, the James Joyce Museum at Sandycove Martello Tower is two kilometres north of the berth and takes about 30 minutes - a good way to close out a day in Ireland’s literary city.