The British Isles in Depth Reviews

The whole tour was great. I have no complaints. The only thing was that the optional extra excursion to Guinness Brewery was a waste of time.

Enjoyable tour! Outstanding collection of destinations with an incredibly helpful and knowledgeable tour guide Finola and skillful driver Mark. The comprehensive tour immersed us in the culture, history and the beauty of the British Isles.
Lovely group of fellow travellers and the good weather topped it all for for us. A great life experience!

This was our first experience with Cosmos and I was a little unsure how it would go. I can't complain at all, our bus driver Mark was a lot of fun but our guide Finola was fantastic. She made the trip so entertaining and she was so knowledgeable. There was not one place on the tour I did not like, the countryside of the UK is spectacular. We have ...read more made some lifelong friends on this tour. In actual fact I came home in June and in July I booked my next Cosmos tour and 2 ladies I met on the UK tour are coming with me. I will be doing lot's more tours with Cosmos.

Cosmos really excelled in their organisation of tour details and content before, during and after the tour was faultless. We totally recommend Global Journeys to anyone planning a group trip.

This tour allows you to totally immerse yourself into the culture, history and beauty of the British Isles. The enthusiasm of the Tour Guide (Huw) was evident from Day 1 as he took us on a journey back in time across the five countries. Coupled with the stunning scenery and the optional tours that provided a variety of experiences further enhanced ...read more our trip. Highlights for us included the Scottish Highlands, Killarney and the tours of the Ring of Kerry and the Dingle Peninsula, the Welsh evening tour and the city of Oxford. Our bus driver (Mark) ensured that all aspects of our tour was hassle free.

Outstanding collection of destinations, and an incredibly helpful, knowledgeable and engaged tour guide and coach driver. This was a worry free holiday.

Enjoyable tour. Tour guide Julie-Anne was fantastic. Great knowledge and went out of her way to help. Accommodation was pretty good, clean and all you could need. WiFi in all hotels a big plus. The tour itself, beautiful scenery and would have loved to stop at various places along the way. As a photographer more quick photo stops would have been nice, ...read more as photos from a coach don't work. Some places required more time like Bath felt rushed at 1.5 hours yet other places could have passed all together. Overall comprehensive tour that gave me a sneak peek of places I will come back to. Lovely group of people to travel with and as I was travelling by myself ended up life long friends.

I enjoyed the tour very much. I travel as a single and as the others on the tour were very pleasant the trip was great. Matt (our tour director) was very informed and had a long history with Cosmos which made everything go very smoothly. Alistair (the driver) was able to get the coach into spaces most of us would never be able to do, with ease. ...read more He also kept a clean coach and we all felt safe in his capable hands. One optional in Ireland went a little bit late but was enjoyable just the same. Would have liked more time in Bath as there was so much to see and do. Overall I had an amazing holiday and have already booked another holiday with Cosmos.

Wow!! How good was our trip! Our tour guide Matthew and driver Alistair were the best you could possibly get, so friendly, professional, helpful, could not do enough for us. We loved everything about this Cosmos trip (this was our 5th trip with Cosmos). Cosmos are such a great value company to travel with, their attention too detail is so good. I would ...read more rate this trip 10 out of 10! We just loved everything about this wonderful trip! (Ed. Perhaps we should change our scales to 10 - glad you enjoyed yourselves :)

The tour took us through England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Ireland and Wales. We were so lucky to get very mild and sunny weather on most days. Our tour director Matt was great fun and was able to share lots of information about every place we visited. The Giants Causeway was one of my favorite places to visit, although there was loads to see. ...read more Very happy with Cosmos and Georgie at Global Journeys for making this a memorable holiday.

Enjoyed it from day one. Both tour guide and driver were excellent. To top it off we even got good weather!

Great trip and very impressed with the amount of information received (on the trip) and how much I now understand life in the UK. The trip was a great mix of sightseeing - cities and history, along with detailed rural touring to some quite remote places. While the itinerary is a long coach trip (20+ days) it is well worthwhile and I would recommend ...read more it as a great life experience.

This being our 3rd Cosmos trip we were very happy with everything and would recommend this trip to everyone. Thank you for your good service.

Good, experienced and customer focused tour director. Similarly with driver. Tour accommodation and meals good, except for Newcastle and Wrexam. Tour pace and tours including optional excursions were good. Consider supplying headsets to assist tour director on street briefs. Enjoyed the tour.

The trip was a bit fast paced but provided a good sense of the UK and our Tour Guide was excellent.

We had a great time touring the UK with a great tour guide and bus driver. Hotels were fine and mostly central. Lots of history but also some beautiful scenery to see in the highlands of Scotland. Options were all the same, dinner and shows, would have liked to see some more choices. Overall really happy with our Cosmos tour. Thanks again Georgie for ...read more your help and we will be booking again through Global Journeys.

Fantastic tour! Great tour director and driver. Accommodation and all included meals were great. Some places where a little bit out of town which was sometimes annoying but not a huge problem. Overall a fabulous tour and a great way to see the British Isles!

I thoroughly enjoyed the trip and experience. I would certainly choose to travel with Cosmos again. I travelled solo but found other solo travellers on the tour and was able to gel well with all the others on tour.

This otherwise excellent tour was very badly let down by the pre and post tour accommodation of the Kensington Close hotel and by the absolutely appalling bus that was provided for the trip. The bus we were given for this 3 week tour covering England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland and Wales was little more than a local tour bus with ...read more absolutely none of the usual inclusions of a proper touring bus. The seats were narrow and very uncomfortable; there was no leg room between seats; the aisle was extremely narrow which meant that it was difficult for anyone of slightly larger build to traverse without bumping the seated passengers; there was no space overhead for even the smallest of bags; the air conditioning could not be properly controlled and the back door could not be opened on most occasions because it opened outward on to the traffic side of the bus!

As there were 42 people on this particular trip the loading and unloading via the front door only made everything very slow, plus the air conditioning either froze or overheated everyone who sat at the rear of the bus (and we all took our turns here due to seat rotation). Riding in the rear of the bus was particularly uncomfortable not only due to the erratic air conditioning but also to the very poor road adherence of the rear of the bus it bumped and slid around quite uncomfortably especially on some of the narrow and rough country roads. Whenever our bus was pulled up beside another touring bus at a viewing site it was very noticeable how small and inferior the bus was to the others.Our previous Cosmos trip in Europe had a superior bus and as several of the people on this coach tour had also travelled through Europe on a similar trip we particularly noticed and commented on this inferiority and discomfort.

Despite these two negative areas, the actual tour itself was fabulous! The Tour Guide Kevin was a fountain of historical knowledge and a great personality who made the trip special! He ensured that we were all well informed of sites etc. prior to our stopovers to avoid wasting precious time. He really added an extra element to the enjoyment by expanding on the history that most of us had only minor knowledge of prior to the trip - in fact he made everything come to life!

The early morning starts that so many people complain about in these reviews are in our opinion great, as they get you to places before the majority of the sightseers and thus give you the maximum time and space to look around. Alistair our driver did a wonderful job of controlling a very poor bus, especially along the one car wide laneways we travelled throughout the Scottish Highlands. The accommodation in all of the country hotels was well above our expectations; some was even of a surprising 4+ star rating and most welcome! There was always ample hot water; comfortable beds and plenty of heating (we needed it in the very cold Scottish Summer!) and the provided food was of good quality and plentiful. The only hotel that lets this entire trip down is the Kensington Close hotel which despite its excellent location near Kensington High Street station is a definitely inferior 2.5 stars at best!

Perhaps Cosmos might well heed the negative feedback it gets about this hotel and seek to change this accommodation in the future, thereby ensuring a better rating for this trip? We would definitely have rated this trip higher if it hadn't been for the Kensington Close and that appalling bus! Thank you Emily of Global Journeys for all your excellent work in organising this trip, we will certainly recommend and use Global Journeys for our future travel.

This was great value for money and I would book with Global Journeys again and do a Cosmos tour again.