Things have been rather hectic over the last few weeks as you might have gathered, so quite a bit of news to tell you about.
Business first unfortunately the season wound down a lot earlier than usual this year and so we were forced to stop our full programme a couple of weeks ago in mid October but immediately before that we decided to take a Thursday off and head over to Birmingham for coach and bus live at the NEC – our trade show, we had a great time with one night in Birmingham with a superb meal at one of our favourite Indian restaurants followed by a great night of live music at The Jam House where we saw a great band who I think I have mentioned before – The Subterraneans who were brilliant it was a great night and such a change from the Limerick music scene!
We also have made our end of season visit to Englandto visit our parents, I also made one of my famous rash purchases, we have been thinking of changing our car for no great reason other than we felt after 5 years of running our faithful and incredibly reliable Vauxhall we fancied a change. We have been thinking of putting a car on the road for custom tours and so I decided to take the plunge and buy a magnificent Mercedes E class in England. We returned home to run our weekend tours but then had to go over to UK again to collect our prize from Sheffield.
Last week we flew into Liverpool and caught the bus and train over to Sheffield where we collected the car and headed the short distance to my lovely sister Linda’s place in Chesterfield where we stayed the night before heading over to Liverpool for the night (more Indian food mmmm!) before taking the ferry to Dublin and heading home last Wednesday.
We are now home and whilst we are delighted with our purchase we are facing up to the sad job of selling our faithful car which by the way is a beautiful Vauxhall omega 2.5DT (BMW engine), it is the full spec Elite model and is absolutely gorgeous so if you fancy travelling in style give us a shout – you might be amazed how cheap a car like that is but be quick or we might decide to keep it!
We are still offering weekend tours and hope to be until the end of this month so our last 2009 tour will be on 29th November so don’t miss out – book now!
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Richards Blog 22.09.09 – More guests!
I have missed a week of blogging as we have had more guests, my lovely parents arrived the week before last on Thursday and stayed until last Wednesday, I was great to see them but as usual the time absolutely flew by, they took a few tours with me and it was lovely to have some company out on the road, we were actually busy on the Saturday and needed 2 coaches so it was a bit like a family outing! Their visit always puts us in mind of the winter and some time off – it won’t be too long now!
I had a trip to Dublin with my folks last Wednesday and managed to choose one of the most chaotic days in the capital for a long time as there was unfortunately a collision between a LUAS tram and a Dublin Bus right in O’Connoll Street but at least I was on foot and never had to cope with the traffic. I headed back to Limerick on the last train and because the LUAS wasn’t running me and my dad had a great walk right up the Liffy to Heuston Station – great exercise!
The train journey was all we have now come to expect from Irish Rail, it was one of the new mark 4 trains, it was immaculately clean, smooth, punctual and the on board team were as charming as they were efficient, this got me thinking about our relative lack of success in promoting our Cliffs of Moher Tour from Dublin which included return rail travel with a reserved seat for a very reasonable package price. Competition is fierce in Dublin and 2 other companies appear to be capturing a lot of business by doing the tour by coach throughout which would seem a good idea until you realise that Dublin to Limerick is well over 3 hours by coach each way and put that on top of the 2 hours each way to The Cliffs and it starts to look like a bit of a marathon without thinking about having a look at the Burren! Still people are taking these tours but we intend to promote our products advantages more next year particularly focusing on the comfort and speed of the rail connection so watch this space as ever – we are on a mission!
Music wise I have been listening to Ian Browns’ new single – Stellify and I absolutely love it, it really does have a Stone Roses feel to it and indeed it inspired me to buy F.E.A.R one of his older solo albums and it is steadily growing on me, might have to check out some more and I cant wait for the forthcoming album!
This week is also the last of our Galway tours for 2009 and as regular readers will know this is a particular favourite of mine but the upside is one of us will be getting an extra day off work for a while. We will keep operating our remaining tours until mid October then we are going to have to see how numbers are holding up as to whether we continue our full programme or go over to weekend tours so, as ever – watch this space!
I had a trip to Dublin with my folks last Wednesday and managed to choose one of the most chaotic days in the capital for a long time as there was unfortunately a collision between a LUAS tram and a Dublin Bus right in O’Connoll Street but at least I was on foot and never had to cope with the traffic. I headed back to Limerick on the last train and because the LUAS wasn’t running me and my dad had a great walk right up the Liffy to Heuston Station – great exercise!
The train journey was all we have now come to expect from Irish Rail, it was one of the new mark 4 trains, it was immaculately clean, smooth, punctual and the on board team were as charming as they were efficient, this got me thinking about our relative lack of success in promoting our Cliffs of Moher Tour from Dublin which included return rail travel with a reserved seat for a very reasonable package price. Competition is fierce in Dublin and 2 other companies appear to be capturing a lot of business by doing the tour by coach throughout which would seem a good idea until you realise that Dublin to Limerick is well over 3 hours by coach each way and put that on top of the 2 hours each way to The Cliffs and it starts to look like a bit of a marathon without thinking about having a look at the Burren! Still people are taking these tours but we intend to promote our products advantages more next year particularly focusing on the comfort and speed of the rail connection so watch this space as ever – we are on a mission!
Music wise I have been listening to Ian Browns’ new single – Stellify and I absolutely love it, it really does have a Stone Roses feel to it and indeed it inspired me to buy F.E.A.R one of his older solo albums and it is steadily growing on me, might have to check out some more and I cant wait for the forthcoming album!
This week is also the last of our Galway tours for 2009 and as regular readers will know this is a particular favourite of mine but the upside is one of us will be getting an extra day off work for a while. We will keep operating our remaining tours until mid October then we are going to have to see how numbers are holding up as to whether we continue our full programme or go over to weekend tours so, as ever – watch this space!
Richards Blog 05.09.09 – Mixed feelings
Another week has flown by and although numbers have been a bit patchy, we have made it through to Saturday and we are busy today, the weather is still miserable but at least we are having some dry spells today between the mist and showers!
I actually got 3 days off his week and have been busy with repairs etc as well as trying to sort the garage out as it is in total disarray after the trials of the last few weeks. We also received some very sad news about the death of the son of one of our local coach operators Joe Lawlor and I hope it goes without saying that our thoughts are with with Joe and his family at this difficult time.
I received an interesting e.mail a few weeks ago and thought I would share it with you, a potential customer questioned our guest book on the website saying basically that we should have negative feedback published as well as the good. The response I gave was that we have only had one negative report and that was about one of Chris’ tours and I honestly never published it as I felt it was a little too personal and needlessly negative, it goes without saying that we cannot please all of the people all of the time but that is honestly the only negative that we have received since our new site went live 3 years ago. If this sounds like my head is swelling in the belief that our tours are perfect, nothing could be further from the truth but I do believe that our hands on approach to business means that any potential complaints are dealt with promptly by the company owners and whilst I’am sure some of our customers are not thrilled with our service they at least do not hate us enough to publish some of the vitriolic comments I read about our competitors!
Things are a bit hectic at home at the moment and we are still trying to sort everything out, we are under more pressure currently as we have guests coming on Thursday, my parents are coming over for a few days and will be great to see them particularly as their arrival tends to start the wind down of the season so happy days! We are continuing to operate our full programme until the end of this month and a more limited programme for October, one tour that will certainly be finishing soon is our Galway City and Lough Corrib tour as the Corrib Princess will finish its public tour programme at the end of the month so if you want to sample one of my favourite tours book now – there are only 3 tours left!
I actually got 3 days off his week and have been busy with repairs etc as well as trying to sort the garage out as it is in total disarray after the trials of the last few weeks. We also received some very sad news about the death of the son of one of our local coach operators Joe Lawlor and I hope it goes without saying that our thoughts are with with Joe and his family at this difficult time.
I received an interesting e.mail a few weeks ago and thought I would share it with you, a potential customer questioned our guest book on the website saying basically that we should have negative feedback published as well as the good. The response I gave was that we have only had one negative report and that was about one of Chris’ tours and I honestly never published it as I felt it was a little too personal and needlessly negative, it goes without saying that we cannot please all of the people all of the time but that is honestly the only negative that we have received since our new site went live 3 years ago. If this sounds like my head is swelling in the belief that our tours are perfect, nothing could be further from the truth but I do believe that our hands on approach to business means that any potential complaints are dealt with promptly by the company owners and whilst I’am sure some of our customers are not thrilled with our service they at least do not hate us enough to publish some of the vitriolic comments I read about our competitors!
Things are a bit hectic at home at the moment and we are still trying to sort everything out, we are under more pressure currently as we have guests coming on Thursday, my parents are coming over for a few days and will be great to see them particularly as their arrival tends to start the wind down of the season so happy days! We are continuing to operate our full programme until the end of this month and a more limited programme for October, one tour that will certainly be finishing soon is our Galway City and Lough Corrib tour as the Corrib Princess will finish its public tour programme at the end of the month so if you want to sample one of my favourite tours book now – there are only 3 tours left!
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