I am a dork - I like the city bus tours. I have done the bus tour in Dublin (twice) and the reason I like them is they are a cheap way to see the city. Even if you say you are not doing the tourist thing, you may be visiting the art museum, the parks or other places that the bus stops at. How can you complain about a ride around the city where you can get off wander around and get back on any time you want? On my second trip to Dublin I used the bus to get to go shopping at the Guinness Storehouse, then took it to Grafton Street and back to the hotel near Temple Bar.

The bus visited many places that we were interested in seeing and pointed out some places that we would not have even know to see.

The first time I went to Dublin, I was overwhelmed by the things this city had to offer, so I went down to O'Connell Street and bought myself a tour bus ticket. Then I got on the bus, parked my ass on the upper deck with my headphones, plugged them in and awaited the outcome of my tour. The bus started slowly and the automated voice came on explaining the area of O'Connell Street and the history behind it. Then the bus zoomed around the city stopping every couple of blocks to allow you get on or off, if you so desired. My first stop I had decided was the Guinness Factory, the last stop on the bus. I got off, and explored the wonderment of the adult Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory. Upon reentering the bus, I allowed myself to be whisked off to the river's edge and walked over the newly constructed walking bridge. While back on the bus, the automated voice filled my head with knowledge of Dublin's past and the way that planned to go in the future. The bus tours, no matter what city you are, is a great way to get a tasters portion of the city if your time is limited. But, if you are like me and don't like to be recognized as a tourist, theise buses scream tourist, so beware of who is around. Pick pockets love tourist. But this bus tour was great and I would suggest it to anyone down Dublin way. Its great crack.

The tour costs about €15 and is totally worth it if you plan on seeing all of Dublin. It's a hop on/hop off bus tour and stops at every major attraction in the city. There are bilingual and guided tours available as well.

I am a big believer in the value of a comprehensive city tour especially when you are unfamiliar with the area. Now granted I visited Dublin once before but on that trip Al and I were driving, we parked along St. Steven’s Green, walked to the National Museum and the National Gallery and drove to the airport where our hotel was located. This is not a trip conducive to knowing your way around.

This time we had two full days and our hotel was in Ballsbridge. We were as clueless about location as we would have been if this were our first trip. On our first day we ventured out on foot since we were visiting things more or less in a straight line away from us. Second day we headed up to Merrion Square to pick up the bus.

You may go up to Upper O’Connell St. to start the tour at the beginning or you can choose to do what we did, find the stop closest to your hotel and get on there. There is also a shuttle that will pick you up at specific hotels at specific times. We thought we would get the shuttle at the Jury’s Hotel Ballsbridge at 10:30 only to be told when we got there that it had come at 10am so my advice would be to call the tour bus company or check with your concierge to see if the times have changed.

Once you have your ticket you have to put it into the machine on the bus which dates and times it, it is good for 24 hours. When I put my ticket into the machine, it broke. Needless to stay this was fodder for our very humorous driver for the next 20 minutes. The drivers are what makes this tour a real "must." Not only to do they have a constant flow of fact and trivia but as I was a fine example of they use whatever is going on to enhance the tour.

If you stay on for the full tour, it will run approximately one hour and fifteen minutes. There are 21 stops and they cover all the major sights that anyone might want to see. Number 3 is Trinity College, Number 10 is Dublin Castle, number 13 Guinness Warehouse, number 14 is the museum of Modern Art which will also take you to Kiloham Goal (though it is a good walk), and number 19 is O’Connell Bridge.

I would do this tour again in a heartbeat but you need to realize that once rush hour starts at about 3:30 the times between buses rises to about 20 minutes and after 5pm no more buses leave the start so in our particular case we got back on at number 12 at about 4:15 and there was no way at that point we could get back to Merrion Sq. We took the tour as far as O’Connell Bridge and then had to walk.

Dublin has many city bus tours with a daily rate. All are worth the ticket price if you're traveling around the city for a day. You get a good running commentary on the sites as well as a map. Some drivers are better than others, but all have the gift of craic and will make the trip seem shorter. All the major sites are included as stops or are within easy walking distance of a stop. The driver can tell you where to get off along with how his mother is doing, his uncles health and the latest sports news.

Dublin isn't a big city, but you can waste a lot of time walking. Liberal sampling of the black stuff or the Jameson's distillery samples will also necessitate the use of the bus system. Just hop any bus going by and pay the driver. Your ticket will be good throughout the rest of the day. The only confusing bit is remembering which of the bus tours you started with. Especially so with liberal samplings at the Guinness Storehouse or Jamesons Distillery. The buses look similar and can be confusing. We got on the wrong one and were politely pointed to the door when showing our ticket. The right one was along in a minute.

Dublin City Tour buses are double-deckers and can be fun in good weather in small doses. Dublin is a pretty dirty and dusty city so those with allergies beware.