Gate 1 TravelReviews of gate1travel.com

We toured Southern England. Our guide, Mark, was delightful. Our accommodations were awful. In Stratford-Upon-Avon, where it was in the mid-80’s, we had no air conditioning in our rooms. There were major traffic issues. I’d you don’t mind substandard accommodations, go for it.

I took a tour with Gate One in the spring of 2023 to Portugal and Spain. I will probably not book with this company again. I trusted Gate One to take us to the highlights of both countries. I was wrong to do so. The city I was looking forward to the most was Barcelona, Spain. The website for that trip featured Gaudi's wall that overlooks the city. Disappointingly, the Park Guell which is portrayed in every Barcelona image collection that I have ever seen was omitted from our tour. Worse, by the time I realized this, no tickets were available for me to purchase independently. So I missed out on seeing the place I had most wanted to enjoy. Also in Barcelona is the Sagrada Familia. It is the top-rated activity on many tours. It was not included in the Gate One tour, and tickets were unavailable. The Casa Batllo' was also on my wish list. Since it wasn't included and tickets were unavailable, I missed that bucket list sight as well. Instead of these prime areas, we endured a drive-by of the defunct Olympic Village. We did have free time, which we could have filled with tickets for the three sites previously listed if we had known weeks or months earlier that those highlights were not included in the tour. My comments to Gate One were dismissed with the rationale that we should have known from the itinerary that those activities were not included. Never before have I felt the need to preview the highlights of an area before embarking on a tour and then cross-checking that they were included. This would certainly be my recommendation for anyone using Gate One. I can't afford to go to Barcelona again so will have to live with disappointment. I do not recommend Gate One.

We recently returned from the 9 day classic Italy tour with gate 1 and I have mixed feelings about this trip which I want to share partly because the gate 1 website doesn’t allow you to submit a review and the only ones available on their website were all positive and wonderful. This was not the case for us. We had a great and busy trip but excursions were optional and food included in trip was fair to horrible. Hotels were not the best but not the worst. They were clean, beds were comfortable, AC worked great, and very good water pressure. Some rooms were very small but for a short stay (2 nights) it was manageable for 2 guests. The first day of arrival in Murano, rooms were not ready until after 4:00 pm which was unbearable after a long flight and time changes. I think this can be better especially if you are organizing a group of travelers. The island of Murano was quiet, not a lot of restaurants and many of them were closed. Keep this in mind when booking this trip. Venice is a lot more active and has many more options for dinner and shopping. Tours and excursions were misleading and not clear when booking trip. Tours included walking outside and exploring the city, rarely did you go inside anything, that was all extra. The worst one for us was during booking it implied we would be going to the Mighty Colosseum, possibly the main attraction of Rome only to find out we were not going in just walking past it. We were told they couldn’t get tickets, then were told only small groups are allowed in at a time. This was all false we had to buy a separate tour to see the Colosseum which was a group of 30 people. In fact, you had to buy many separate tours to actually go inside and see anything. This package included breakfast and 4 dinners. If you are expecting amazing food at these dinners think again. Two of the the 4 dinners were pretty bad, one at Starhotels Metropole in Rome was horrible. A type of meat served, possibly roast beef, was inedible. You couldn’t cut it or chew it. Service did not ask how was your food or why aren’t you eating it. The dinners served an appetizer, pasta, some sort of meat (type unknown), and a desert. There were no choices or options for different types of meals. You get what you get and if you didn’t like it you didn’t eat. You were not even able to buy yourself another meal. Coffee was never offered with desert. The restaurants should have at least 3 different dinner options to choose from. Some of the dinners were cheap and poor quality. Tour manager did not tell you where the dinner was or what was being served in case you needed to make other arrangements. Tour manager was receptive to limited availability of food but had no solutions. This is troublesome since you are indirectly paying for bad meals through your vacation package. Gratuities were not included and should be in the package. It was out of control and awkward. Everyone wanted and expected a tip and travelers were reminded to tip at least 3 times during the trip. It was great to have someone else handle your transportation, hotel accommodations, and show you around the different cities. Tour managers and guides were kind and friendly. They appeared knowledgeable about the areas’ landmarks. Their recommendations for shopping and restaurant options were not the best. Found better recommendations on yelp and trip advisor.

This was an independent tour so our group liked that we can plan our own activities/tours. Glad that our Louvre tour got canceled because it was nice to be on our own pace. Gate 1 needs to improve on finding better hotel locations. We were so far away from the center of everything in London and Paris! The only plus in Paris was the metro was right there. For the amount we paid I think we could’ve gotten better hotel accommodations. (We had to switch rooms in Paris because the AC wasn’t working!) The airport transfer pickups were on time and smooth.

I have traveled 18 times with Gate One, have referred dozens to them, feel they are a terrific value , BUT…. Their discovery tours you pay more for, and get a higher level of service. Booked Patagonia trip for 2, in March, called them in October with airline question, was told, all our flights were cancelled. Really? When were you going to tell me? Spent total of 5 hours overs 2 days trying to rebook. Asked for manager, too busy, they’d call me back, never did. I tried repeatedly to get manager involved, never could. I had to pay $3200 for new flights. I paid for the trip in September in full. So I paid for flights twice!!!!!! Many emails even to owner of gate one, no resolution. At the very least I am owed $950 x2 ( the original difference if booked land only price), so $1900 due to me for buying flights twice. Gate one has asked me to be patient, well, now I need money back!!! Not patience left!!!! Stop avoiding me, do the right thing for a loyal long term always happy customer. This need’s resolution now!!! If they treat someone who travels with them this much, this way, would you be confident booking with them????

My mom and I traveled to Italy this past April. We had a great time although it was a bit too busy for us, but we did cover almost all of Italy you could possibly imagine. The breakfast was fair, not good but not bad. Dinners were good but not great and lots of fun. My biggest complaint is we were on a tour in Florence with Gate 1 travel and taken to a jewerly shop were we were than given a short talk regarding their products and than instructed we would receive a discount for being with Gate 1 travel. My mom and I both purchased 1 piece of jewelry each. When we went to purchase the products, we were told our discount was in the form of a tax credit and we had to turn the paperwork into customs to receive this discount. I was skeptical and questioned the process a few times but was reassured by the staff that it was very easy and if we had any problems to contact an email that was written on the instructions we were to follow. We followed the instructions as written and verbalized to us by the jewelry shop staff but were unable to complete due to our flight being delayed from Naples into Munich and we had to literally run to our next flight. I contacted the email 3 times with no response and I double check both my spam and the address given. I than contacted Gate 1 and were told in simple terms, there is nothing they can do. I believe this is a scam!!! I believe this is a way for them to make more money off of you. My mom and I are out 300 dollars. Which isn't a ton of money but I am sure we are not the first ones this has happened too! The Jewery shop is called "The Gold Market" and address is 50122 Firenze. I have also submitted this review to the BBB to further investigate this.

This 9 Day tour should actually be called 7 Day Classic Japan - Gate 1 needs to revise / review since 2 of the days you are actually in transit. Our tour guide Ichiro was phenomenal- kudos to him for his patience & handling the hiccups. Loved the country, it's people & the culture. Only disappoinmet was that Japan has so much to offer but the Gate1 itinerary focussed on way too many shrines/temples.

France April 27 - May 9. We have had several Gale One tours that were Great, but not this one. Basically the accommodations and land travel were not acceptable. Sights were wonderful. First, the Bus was too small for such a long trip. When sitting, my knees hit back of seat in front of me. No space for legs or anything else. Very cramped. Could not use pouch on back of seat in front of me. Overhead bin was very tiny. Secondly, Most Hotels, especially Mercure hotel chain were terrible. No air or windows in the rooms. Asked for fan but not always available. Hotel in Bordeaux was the worst. 1 of 2 elevators not working; very hot in room; no relief in sight; meals too sparse. The only decent hotel was in Lourdes where we could open the window. We understand that air-conditioning is infrequent in Europe, but for the price we pay, Gate One can find better places to stay and still be in center of cities. Tour guide was very nice but seemed uninformed. Gate One tour guides for Greece, Morocco and Sicily were tremendous comparably. Some of her facts about castles etc. differ from most tour books. She needs to use a script as her English is too halted for being a guide. She seemed to often pause mid-sentence thinking for the next word. She frequently asked tourists for the correct word to use. Poor idea to show two 50-year-old irrelevant movies in the bus. Could not see subtitles unless sitting in first 2-3 rows near the screens. We were looking for more history about the country, artists, music, Resistance movement during WWII, French influence around the world, why Paris selected for so many international treaties, etc. Several lunch rest stops were at gas stations. We were captive for expensive, lousy food. It would have been nice to know this a day or two in advance so that we could purchase food elsewhere & bring it with us on those days. In closing, we like Gate One generally and have several friends who used them per our recommendation. Not sure I would suggest it again. Thank you for your opportunity to reply here.