Cliffs of Moher now Pay Per View!

luap_42

Jim Martin wrote: »

I believe that either local or national (or both) government/s are actively involved in including the Cliffs in an extension of The Burren Way walking route - watch this space!

It will be cool when/if it's done, and if they don't try to sabotage it with some other trumped up charges. Here's the info:

20 Jul. 2010 — Minister for Defence and North Clare T.D. Tony Killeen has announced that €186,490 has been allocated to the Clare Coastal Walks project for the development of a 12.7km linear route along the coast between Doolin village and Hags Head, near Liscannor village.


The project, which is promoted by Clare County Council, is being funded under Fáilte Ireland’s Tourism Capital Investment Programme.

Minister Killeen confirmed: “The scheduled works will include drainage, the provision of crossing places and providing way marking and map boards. On completion of the project, the route will become part of the Burren Way.”

“The proposed works will significantly improve the Burren Way, while also providing a spectacular linear walking product for visitors to the villages of Lahinch, Doolin, Liscannor and the other villages in the Burren in North Clare. They will also have a positive impact on the development and promotion of the entirety of The Burren Way as these works will take a section of the Burren Way off road”, he added.

Lantus

Just back from a great holiday in Glaway/claire but good grief what a cost the cliffs of moher are!!!

€6 per person and we had 4 in the car. They wanted 24 quid just to walk up to the cliffs. At first I refused and wanted to be let out of the car park, she wouldn't let me. Said the price included the exhibitiion centre as well. I told her I didn't want to see the exhibition, just the cliffs. She replied that the cliffs are free but I'd to pay anyway. Told her I wouldn't and she immediatley dropped the price to 4 per person which I reluctantly paid.

In hindsight I should of made everyone get out the car and then she could only charge me for 1!

The exhibition centre is rubbish and already falling apart and looking taty and worn out. All it tells you is how cliffs are formed which any website can do.

Total rip off an many other tourists ere visibly annoyed at the prices, especially the extra 2 quid if you want to walk up the tower, (they don't go out of their way to tell you that at the botom.)

it's such a shame. The cliffs are not worth 6.

Redderneck

Build an interpretive centre; by all means. On the inland side of the road. Ditto car park. Charge a MODEST fee per car, not per visitor, for parking. Charge an entrance fee for the interpretive centre. Those who wish to have the natural beauty interpreted for them can & will willingly pay the fee. Those who prefer to let nature speak for itself, have the option of crossing the road and viewing the cliffs for themselves; with only the modest parking fee paid.

Seems to me to be sensible.

If the Cliffs of Moher were man-made and not a gift of nature, then I could understand the need for repaying the investment.

What's there now is simply cashing in. Gouging, in fact. Perhaps we should install big blue Tesco signs and work some sort of sponsorship deal?

A cynical exercise has been revealed; I strongly suspect that the vast majority of foreign visitors to the Cliffs are one-off visitors; so the powers that be, realising this, have decided that repeat business matters not a jot. The likely source for repeat business are locals/Irish visitors and well, to hell with them.

Which from an income-generation point of view would be fine, were we living in the '80's. We're not. Word of Mouth now piggybacks savagely quickly and horribly widely on that interwebby yoke. Coincidentally a yoke much beloved of what particular group of people? Travellers/tourists making thier pre-departure plans.

When we next hear a spokesperson for tourism-related businesses bemoaning the fact that fewer and fewer visitors to Ireland are bothering to stray beyond the pale - just dwell on the fact that it's not all the fault of those Dublin-centric bureaucrats. We're the world's worst at helping ourselves sometimes.

penexpers

Book online and it's 10% cheaper. I don't mind paying a small fee so long as it contributes to the upkeep of the area.

sep08

I was there recently and I didn't find it overly expensive, well, no more so than any other place in Ireland. I was at the Powerscourt Waterfall the week previously and it cost us nearly €15 to park, walk to the waterfall and have a look round and go away again!!

dr.fuzzenstein

sep08 wrote: »

I was there recently and I didn't find it overly expensive, well, no more so than any other place in Ireland. I was at the Powerscourt Waterfall the week previously and it cost us nearly €15 to park, walk to the waterfall and have a look round and go away again!!

If that isn't taking the piss I don't know what is.
Granted, something like the Louvre or the Eiffel Tower will burn a bigger hole in your pocket, but at least there's something to see there!
That's why I think the government is having a laugh when they're telling us to holiday at home, I couldn't afford that, that's precisely the reason why people go abroad, way cheaper.
Maybe it means "right, everyone in the world has copped it, let's see if the Irish themselves are daft enough to stay here and get ripped off"
It tells you something when people come back from Paris and say "you know, it's not so bad over there, I thought it would be way more expensive but it's not too bad"

dugganindeep

During the summer a group of 4 adults would have paid €8 in their car. With the new charges the same 4 people now pay €24 to view the Cliffs of Moher.
€2.20 for a 500ml bottle of water.
The rip off continues unabated in Ireland.
I visited the Aran Islands recently and the cliffs on Inis-Mor are unspoiled, just as impressive and totally free.
When I complained on the Cliffs of Moher visitor center facebook page they removed my comment and blocked me.
There is a facebook page for real cliff fans where comments are not censored.
Niamh.

luap_42

dugganindeep wrote: »

I visited the Aran Islands recently and the cliffs on Inis-Mor are unspoiled, just as impressive and totally free.

I was on Inis Mor in July, and you have to pay €3 per adult/€8 per family to go to the cliffs at Dun Aonghasa to contribute to maintenance by OPW. http://www.heritageireland.ie/en/west/dunaonghasa/

So they are approximately the same price as the old Cliffs of Moher prices. At least you are paying for the upkeep of a national monument on Inis Mor, whereas at the Cliffs of Moher you are paying for the upkeep of a visitor centre that you may prefer did not exist.

The visitor centre should be self funding from those who want use it, and entirely optional for everyone else.

According to: http://www.thebestinheritage.com/presentations/2009/cliffs-of-moher-visitor-experience,46.html
"In the late 1980s approximately 250,000 visitors a year came to view the Cliffs of Moher. By 2001 this number had risen to almost 600,000 and by 2006 to over 900,000."

A €2 per vehicle charge would generate revenue of at least €300k/year, which should easily fund maintenance of the cliff paths and walls, and the un-maintained gravel "car park and ticket prefab. hut".

Its about time that we realised that we must provide services and products that people want at a reasonable price, that are ancilliary to the tourist attraction, and NOT try to fleece the tourist to see the attraction itself. Its called shooting oneself in the foot. Take note CCC.

And where does CCC get off trying to make money (or jobs) from the attraction itself. It belongs to the entire country, NOT just to Co. Clare.

dugganindeep

Viewing the cliffs on Inishmore is free. €3 fee is for Dun Aonghas fort.
Niamh.

luap_42

dugganindeep wrote: »

Viewing the cliffs on Inishmore is free. €3 fee is for Dun Aonghas fort.
Niamh.

The Dun Aonghas fort and the cliffs under it are the main attraction at that point in the island of Inis Mór anyway. Viewing the Cliffs of Moher is also free, in exactly the same way as the cliffs on Inis Mór. You merely have to access them from elsewhere. Admittedly elsewhere is easier to find and access on Inis Mór than at the Cliffs of Moher.

The old fee imposed at the Cliffs of Moher was ostensibly for parking vehicles, but was actually used to fund the visitors centre and maintenance of cliff paths, walls and the car park itself (unmaintained as its just a gravel car park, barriers and hut), since all the money goes to the visitor centre management company set up by CCC. You had to pay an extra €9 for the Atlantic Edge exhibition which includes a virtual reality animation of the cliffs from the points of view of flying birds, sealife etc. (whoop-dee-doo).

The new higher fee imposed is for car parking, entrance to visitor centre and the Atlantic Edge exhibition. In other words you have no choice but to pay for all this crap imposed by CCC and their management company, even if you just want to park and walk the cliffs. Disgraceful.

If the fee were reasonable and just for car parking fee and cliff paths, walls maintenance I wouldn't have a problem with that.

My problem is that CCC has appropriated the public right of way by virtue of abusing their authority and painting double yellow lines for a mile in either direction of the public right of way, removing the existing perfectly functional car park and replacing it with what is currently there, visitor centre etc. So they are being two-faced by NOT trying to prevent anyone using the public right of way, but making it virtually impossible to do so.

Peter B

Anybody know has demand dropped at all since the new price hike? I remember loads of people on Joe Duffy saying they wouldn't go to the cliffs in the future after these price hikes.

Really annoys me in a time of deflation the government needs to increase its income so it increases prices.

I hope demand will drop off and the government will realise the laws of supply and demand apply and will be forced to reduce the price.

blacknemac

I was on holiday the other day in Galway with 4 friends,
we went down to visit the cliffs of moher(nearly died in the attempt !! the roads are absolutly terrible , two cars barely fit! and we were all coming from spain so add to it driving with the wheel on the other side and driving on the other side of the road aswell)would `nt hurt to do a bit of widening on the roads down there.!!

About the cliffs it was a total rip off, 6 euros per head, so it was 30 euros ,
we told them that all we wanted to see were the cliffs and they told us we still had to pay!!! in spain cliffs are legaly public domain , just like beaches so nobody can say there mine you`ve got to pay to see them!
In the end we paid cause we were entering the parking and there was a few cars behind , but the next time everybody is getting out of the car before entering the parking(except the driver of course) so all we have to pay is 6 euros.
I recomend everybody to do the same, they can fee you for the parking but not to see the cliffs ,cause its just not theirs. They `ll try to make you think you have to pay to see them but its not true, you only have to pay to park the car(which only needs one person to do) and to see the atlantic edge exibition which is a load of rubbish , not worth your while seeing even if you have paid!!
Cherrs hope the information helps save some euros that you could spend on a couple of pints of guinness at the end of the day!!

Mr. G

I have never in my life seen as many people complaining about the cliffs. I personally haven't been there for ages and I don't plan to. They are spectacular to see and if you can see it great!

It cost millions to build it, I still think a prefab would have been better and always question myself weather or not they were right..

lobbybee

I'm from the US and taking a holiday in Ireland for the first time with a group of 4 in July. I've been researching places to visit, and the Cliffs were near the top of the list until I came across some troubling things about admission fees on the Internet. From what I can tell, the €6 per person sound like a total scam.

Is it true that they are now cracking down on visitors who are dropped off by car to use the right of way?

CiaranMT

lobbybee wrote: »

I'm from the US and taking a holiday in Ireland for the first time with a group of 4 in July. I've been researching places to visit, and the Cliffs were near the top of the list until I came across some troubling things about admission fees on the Internet. From what I can tell, the €6 per person sound like a total scam.

Is it true that they are now cracking down on visitors who are dropped off by car to use the right of way?

In fairness, the fee itself isn't a scam. One must pay to enter a lot of natural heritage sites all over the world. A few examples being Timanfaya National Park, on the island of Lanzarote (which I visited last year - eeriest place I've ever been :eek:), and your own Grand Canyon National Park in the States.

It is too expensive, however.

Le_Dieux

Seeing as the government dropped the VAT rate from 13.5 to 9% to encourage tourism, have the prices dropped at the COM?

Or anywhere else for tham matter? I am thinking of touring the West next month, and would deffinatly prefer to support those places who make the effort to entice visitors over those who just have one thing in mind -take as much money as possible out of Your pockets.

dr.fuzzenstein

Le_Dieux wrote: »

Seeing as the government dropped the VAT rate from 13.5 to 9% to encourage tourism, have the prices dropped at the COM?

Or anywhere else for tham matter? I am thinking of touring the West next month, and would deffinatly prefer to support those places who make the effort to entice visitors over those who just have one thing in mind -take as much money as possible out of Your pockets.

I'm willing to bet someone will say "revenue from the cliffs is down, better raise the price".
That's usually how far thinking goes in local authorities and should revenue completely collapse it will be "strange, revenue has collapsed, ah well, shut it down".
After that I don't think any thought is wasted on it, because it's time for a break (again).:rolleyes:

RoisinD

Something which has had a lot of publicity locally in the past week is this http://www.clare.fm/news/new-ticketing-scheme-north-clare . I think that tickets are E18 - great value. So hopefully Le_Dieux that will encourage you to pay us a visit. The Burren Centre is excellent and gives a real taste of what is available in the region.

qwert2

Pure Greed! Park down the road. It's free. Plus you actually get to see the cliffs, unlike the people who go to the cliffs

dr.fuzzenstein

RoisinD wrote: »

Something which has had a lot of publicity locally in the past week is this http://www.clare.fm/news/new-ticketing-scheme-north-clare . I think that tickets are E18 - great value. So hopefully Le_Dieux that will encourage you to pay us a visit. The Burren Centre is excellent and gives a real taste of what is available in the region.

Great idea and a great way to get people to see more of the region!

seawoman

Anyone know, Is it maybe option to leave the car another place than fee car park, and come to clifs by walk? Even 5km-10km I can walk, no problem.
I just want see the cliffs, ONLY, I DONT want see visitor centre building, so cliffss should be for free, yes?



I booked already cliffs of moher cruises, So i don't want to pay again ...

Clareman

Fair play, as this is a zombie thread I'm closing this.