Overall our trip was wonderful! We loved Ireland, the Irish people and the places and sites we visited. We liked both our driver(s) as well (Tony and John). And we greatly appreciated how Hammond Tours worked with us over the pandemic - our tour previously purchased for May of 2020 had to be postponed until October of 2022. Hammond carried over our full purchase price as a credit toward a subsequent booking. However, the execution of tour did not seem well planned by Hammond: There seemed to be a disconnect between Hammond Tours and our driver (who we learned did not work directly for Hammond but a separate coach company). We booked a private tour for a party of 8. The first item on the itinerary created for us by Hammond was to drive from Dublin to Aughrim for a 6k hike. As we were loading the luggage into the van after meeting our driver in Dublin, our driver asked us where in Aughrim we had planned to hike. We explained to him that Hammond Tours planned the entire tour for us and that we did not know where we were to hike. We told him as our tour guide we assumed he’d know. Because he didn’t know where we were supposed to hike in Aughrim, he took us to Glendalough instead, which we all enjoyed. Our understanding was that we would have a private tour and our driver would act as a guide along the way. On the first day our driver pretty much just drove. On day two we encourage him to tell us information about Ireland, or places we drove by instead of just driving the van. It did not appear he was expected to do this, but towards the end of the second day he started to pass on the information he knew. Unfortunately, the van was not designed for him to provide information while he drove. The van was equipped with a hand-held microphone (left hand), but the van had a manual transmission (left hand) and with the winding roads in Ireland our driver was required to shift gears frequently. In addition, the microphone cord would get tangled around the stick shift. While he could talk to the guests in the front rows without the mic, those in the middle or back of the van could not hear him. So he was only able to tell all of us things about Ireland when we stopped at a site. By day three he was volunteering information as frequently as he could. We greatly appreciated it! The itinerary had us zigzagging all over Southern Ireland. Even our driver thought our itinerary seemed very inefficient, resulting in a lot of time spent in the van, going across parts of the country three different times. Lastly, our first driver had another commitment on the last day of our tour and was not able to be our driver the last day. While this was known since the start of the trip, a new driver was not secured until 10 pm the evening before the last day of the trip. Until then we were unsure of a ride from Galway to Dublin. Perhaps Hammond had trouble hiring personnel (same as in the US) so they had to contract drivers and no one was available to set expectations. Perhaps hotels were not available in the cities on the nights needed to make a more efficient route. In the end we still loved the trip but felt Hammond Tours could have done better with the execution of the trip.