Aillwee Burren Experience

This place was not on our list to visit, but due to the weather we decided to check it out. I am so glad we did!! We thought it was just a cave experience, but there is a birds of prey experience and also a great cheese shop here with their homemade goudas. Wow! We loved everything! The cheeses were amazing. The cave is supreme! The birds are so beautiful and great flyers. Having the birds swoop and dive 2 inches from your face is a bit startling but so fascinating! This place is worth the visit even if not on your route. The drive there is also pretty amazing!

This is a fantastic experience, we did the caves first, and our tour guide Sinead was fantastic, giving us a detailed history of the cave system with a humorous approach, and took the time to point out the most beautiful features there. We then grabbed some lunch at the little cafe and did a bit of shopping in both gift shop & Farm shop, before heading down to see the bird show. The team there were fantastic, again delivering information with humour and interest, and even letting a few people hold the birds. The team did well even when the snowy owl refused to take part fully! For 27 euro per adult, I think was really good with the level of activity, service & for a unique experience!

It's a great experience, but there's really little time in the caves, I'd like to walk around longer. Due to the large number of tourists, the tours go quite quickly. The bird show is more suitable for children, but it is interesting to look at the beautiful birds and how skillfully they fly. The cave is beautiful, very well equipped, comfortable to be in. But too quickly, perhaps the best time to visit is not the tourist season, for example October-November. The upper parking lot offers a great view of Ballyvaughn!

Just a wonderful day. The elves and Santa were warm and friendly and the caves looked great. They have made a great job on the walk up, with a cheese & chocolate shop at the bottom. Couldn't fault it, from the happy young attendant welcoming people at the gate to the elves doing face painting... Well done and thanks to all!!!

Went to see Santa here and it was absolutely magical! The kids had a wonderful day. Everyone was so friendly and festive. The weather was terrible and we still had a fabulous time!

We cannot recommend this fantastic Cave tour enough! My 6 year old Daughter was in awe from start to finish. Our very friendly and highly educated tour guide Sinead made this a wonderful experience. Thank you to the staff and team for creating such a memorable family holiday. We will be back! Best wishes, Lisa, Cork.

We cannot recommend this place and the hawk walk enough. The hawk walk was the best experience ever! We booked for 10am and got introduced to 2 hawks, we then got to hold them on gloves and walk them into the woodland walk. We released them and then they kept coming back to the gloves for chicken. The walk lasted about an hour with the hawks always coming back to your glove, plenty of photos and learning about the amazing hawks from the guide. It was amazing and well worth the money. We then also watched all 3 bird displays as they have different birds each time, the cave tour and tried their cheese & fudge. We had a wonderful day and we highly recommend this place.

Amazing day out, the staff are so friendly and extremely knowledgeable regarding the birds. My son and myself learnt so much and had a fantastic time. The cave itself was stunning and a wonderful experience, I would highly recommend if you are in the area. Extra details - your ticket into the cave covers you for the birds of prey show too, however its not just for the one show its also for all of them if you dont mind having a stroll or something to eat while waiting for the next show, which is fabulous value for money and definitely worth the wait. Again I would whole heartedly recommend 👌 staff where delightful and let plenty of the visitors have a go at holding the birds of prey which to me was an invaluable experience for my 10 year old 🥰

This was an amazing experience! The cave was on our list, but we didn't know about The Birds of Prey Exhibit until the day before. For 22 euros/person, you gain entrance to The Birds of Prey exhibit & the cave. The Birds of Prey exhibit is fascinating and they also have shows throughout the day. We watched two shows & were so intrigued. They have three types of birds come out each show & there is also an interactive section of the show where audience members are able to hold the birds! Honestly, so fascinating. You can tell the staff is very informative & caring about the animals. After, you can tour the grounds & listen to your (free) audio guide & learn more about each bird! This wasn't on our list but was the highlight of our day! The cave was an experience as well. They take you through 1/3 of the entire cave & the walk takes about 30 minutes. Be prepared though: the area is tight & slippery. I highly recommend wearing comfortable walking shoes to make sure you are as safe as possible. Our tour guide was super informative. Take as many photos as you can! Also, there is a Farm Shop that sells cheese, jams, olives & pickles! They have samples to try & you also get to see them make the cheese! We got the olive cheese to try, and Sue was nice enough to cut it for us & gave us a wooden cheese board to enjoy our cheese, chutney & wine outside! What a lovely treat! Thanks so much!

Traveled up to county Clare so explore the Burren mountains and scheduled a tour at of the underground cave - Aillwee cave which is also a part of a bird sanctuary and had some other tourist attractions. It's definitely an isolated area and while you can drive here, it was easier taking a bus. We took the bus right up to the visitors center to explore prior to our guided tour. There wasn't too much to see (other than beautiful nature outside) but keep that into consideration that you don't have to get here super early prior to your tour. The tour of the aillwee caves cost us close to $30 American dollars. Not a bad price given it was a guided tour of the underground caves and you can walk the caves in about 45 minutes to an hour. You can only go in with a guided tour and they close off the caves otherwise, so plan ahead. Overall it was a cool unique experience but as someone who has some claustrophobia it wasn't my favorite tour ever lol. You don't know until you try it though. There is some man made lighting but it is dark, i definitely felt anxious and claustrophobic during the tour but that was a me issue, just plan and think ahead - I wasn't really sure what I was in for / what I would experience until I got there. Also, while it might seem obvious, please wear proper sneakers. The caves are wet and dewey so it is easy to slip despite the railing and slower walking pace. One of the gentleman in our group slipped on the wet ground, but the staff were professional and aided him right away. He wasn't seriously hurt, but another thing to take into consideration to make sure you are up for the natural elements of a cave. I wouldn't say this is an absolute must do, but if you have some time in County Clare and want to try something unique it is fun and interesting.

This is a wonderful, expertly developed experience in the heart of Ireland's unique Burren region. We loved the cave tour! The tour guide was informative and entertaining as we traversed the underground geological sights. The additional falconry experience is not to be missed! My wife and I, and more importantly, our 15 year-old son loved it all.

Overall it was a great experience. We bought the entire experience packet online. I did try to do the Hawk Walk for my nephews but they were booked out for 2 months! If you want to do the Hawk Walk, be sure to book really early. Overall you do NOT have to book online. You don't save any money by booking online and if someone doesn't make it, it can be a hassle. I will say that they were very good at refunding me the money of my party that couldn't make it but I will caution you in that if someone can't make it, make sure when you check in (after an online booking) that they do NOT check in the party that didn't make it. I had to stop the person at the front desk from just checking in everyone. This way I could prove that the persons that couldn't make it, didn't check in and I got my refund. The Hawks and Eagles are magnificent but it seems kind of sad that they are in those cages they are in. The entire area seems a bit enclosed; perhaps it is on purpose but it feels very claustrophobic. The hawk flight is the absolute best part of the program. It goes on for about 45 min to an hour and the trainers are very entertaining. The nice thing is that they give some people from the audience a chance to hold the Harris Hawks for about 10 seconds, just enough for a picture opportunity. You won't move much with the Hawk but you can at least get a nice photo. They also had a falcon as part of the demonstration but no one got to hold the falcon, probably for good reason. We went on the the Aillwee cave next which I detailed in a separate review. For the Birds of prey centre, I'm not sure I would have driven all the way out here if I didn't have my nephews with me. If it were just adults, I may have gone elsewhere. The kids had a BLAST with the Hawk flight demonstration but there were so many families there. Annoyingly there were also families with very young children who could not care less about the birds and made a lot of noise throughout. This place is great for children ages 6 and older, ones who can retain some sort of attention span anyway. Overall I thought that the entire package of 25 Euro per person was well worth it. I would have done the Hawk Flight experience alone for that amount of money. I did skip the cheese making experience but went to sample some fudge which is in that same little gift shop building. I recommend you give this a try if you are in the area. It will probably help kill a good 2-3 hours if you pay for the entire experience.

This is an amazing attraction. I wish we had arrived earlier in the day so we could have spent more time here. We bought the ticket that included both the birds and the caves right at the entry gate. The first stop was the bird center. You get a little audio device that you use to scan each cage so you can learn about that particular bird. The birds here are beautiful and it was nice to be able to be so close to them and learn all about them. The center looks small but there are quite a few birds here. We were extremely lucky as since we happened to be the only ones there we were able to observe up close the employees training a young bird and were offered the opportunity to participate. The staff were very kind and we had fun taking part in this experience. Afterward we went to the cheese shop across the street. We were able to taste the wide range of homemade cheese which was delicious. The shop had cheese, fudge and many other local and unique items for sale. Our final stop was the cave tour. This was another great experience. The tour was interesting, fund, and educational. This entire place is a wonderful place to check out if you are nearby.