My family and I visited Kylemore Abbey in May this year. I was very disappointed in the cost of the entrance fee. I understand that money is needed for the upkeep and maintainence but I have found that if there is a donations box at the door people will give. When we visited a lot of visitors that we spoke too outside the Abbey refused to go in due to the high entrance charge but if it was donations they would have given some money: therefore the Abbey missed out on their donations.

From the approching road, this is a stunning castle set amongst breathtaking scenery. Unfortunatley what you experience inside the abbey is quite different. There is access to 4 rooms only at ground floor level, where there seems to have very little attempt to restore them to their former glory (or maintain them for that matter), with original wall papering coming off the walls and an overall air of neglect. We were suprised initally by the €12 per adult entrance fee and after we had seen the abbey we felt even more short changed. My advise is take your pictures from the road or the carpark and dont ruin the experience for your self. Disappointing...

We visited Kylemore Abbey on March 22nd 2009. We got there late in the day and unfortunately the walled gardens were closed. Nevertheless we paid the entry fee in order to see the Abbey. There were several rooms you could enter all displaying a bit of history regarding the Abbey. From there we made our way down the path to the church which was beautiful. Back at the visitors center there was a huge gift shop with a large variety of items to choose from and was no more expensive than any other gift shop. Kylemore Abbey is definitely worth stopping at if nothing else for the view alone.

I was disappointed by my visit to Kylemore Abbey.

After a day cooped up in the car travelling we were eager to do some walking, and hoped to follow the path up to the white statue and continue up the hill to take in views of the 12 bens and the coast. To our disappointment, this path was closed, and we were informed that it was totally forbidden.

"Nevermind" we thought, we can at least take a walk along the river to the walled garden. This is also forbidden, all visitors to the walled garden must take the bus (included in entry fee). So in the end we walked to the abbey itself and the church which took a whole 15 minutes there and back (plus time to see the church and abbey inside).

This really wasn't what we had in mind, and it seemed ridiculus, that you needed to get a bus to access the walled garden, when it could be such a pleasant walk.