Gate 1 TravelReviews of gate1travel.com

We recently completed yet another Gate 1 Tour "11 Day Kaleidoscope of Colombia" . The tour start date was August 27, 2026 and end date was September 7, 2026. We had purchased all optional tours that were offered by Gate 1. We have normally purchased all optional tours for all previous Gate 1 Tours. But for Colombia tour, we had cancelled "Half Day La Boquilla Mangrove" because local Gate 1 Tour manager Mr Paulo Marquez and local Gate 1 team switched this tour that was scheduled for Morning to afternoon. The afternoon tour "Half Day Bird-watching at the Colombian National Aviary" was moved to morning. These 2 tours were in Cartagena where the temperature was over 100 degree. Out of total 28 passengers, many of then had cancelled either 1 or both tours. So, Gate 1 switched the regular coach bus to small tempo. We decided to continue with "Half Day Bird-watching at the Colombian National Aviary" in the morning and we were 11 of us and the tempo we travelled with was very uncomfortable and the AC was not working. The drive was 1 hour from the hotel. Once we learned that we are going to be travelling in the same tempo for the afternoon tour, we asked our Tour Manager to cancel our tour. He sent the whatsapp text to his local team and shared the screenshot. After returning from the tour, We asked our agent to submit the request for the refund. After so many emails going back and forth, Gate 1 has still not process the refund. I like to share this experience with many Gate 1 travellers. Lack of customer service and delay in the refund processing is not a good thing for Gate 1 company. Below is the email from Gate 1 dated September 17, 2026. Dear Mr. Padilla, Thank you for your inquiry regarding your client's recent trip with Gate 1 Travel. Please know we are are conducting research. Kindly be patient as claims can take several weeks, however, we will do our very best to respond as soon as possible. In the meantime, please feel free to respond to this email with any additional questions or comments. Sincerely, Roslyn Taylor Customer Relations Gate 1 Travel Ref:URI3565441

So I never actually used this company; this review is on behalf of my sister in law. She and my brother had planned an excursion with Gate 1 on a European trip. He tragically and suddenly passed away less than 2 weeks before they left. She called as soon as possible (he passed on a holiday weekend, plus she had to get her thoughts straight), and called to notify them. Their policy seems to be pretty straightforward: if you cancel too late, you are only refunded 10%. She would be refunded 100% of my brother's share after sending in the death certificate; fine. But they refused to refund her share anything more than 10%. The trip was 8 days away by then; she's not going to go after losing him so quickly!! She even would have been happy with a credit to use their company at a future time. But although the representative was clearly consulting another person, it wasn't even considered.

I have been on 7-8 gate 1 trips and had a wonderful time. I became wheelchair bound a few years ago and wrote to see if I could do an independent tour with just airfare and hotel as the terms of service required. I received a very blunt response and told I should have researched the terms of service. Which I did! There is entire subset of people gate 1 is ostracizing if you could not even do as I requested give me a little longer transfer time between flights when booking flights. I had already called the hotels who said they had wheelchair accessible and was told Gate 1 would not even allow that (although no extra charge) If you do not want handicap people to reach out in advance as your terms of service says, you should change. I face obstacles on a daily basis and did not think an independent tour would be another one. My dream is to continue to travel (and I have to several countries since then). I will do that with or without you. I will be slow to sing praises of Gate 1 anymore

Our tour manager for the Essential Poland tour did the bare minimum and it showed. According to others who had done many trips with Gate 1, she was not the standard they were used to. Anything out of the norm, such as my husband not feeling well on one of the tours and wanting to stay on the bus to wait, really flummoxed her. She had no solutions and seemed very defensive and annoyed at the changes in plans. She talked non stop about her healthy lifestyle and healthy food choices instead of giving us insights on Poland. We did not pay for a health food tour! So much so that it became a running joke in the bus. We had a couple several hours long bus rides and she barely talked at all during them, making the time go very slowly. She instituted the rotating bus seating, which most of us hated. It ensured you were stuck sitting near the same groups of people each time, while others that you had made a connection with, were sitting elsewhere. In addition, there was a VERY sick man on the tour who coughed constantly. It was said he had congestive heart failure, and it wasn't catching. Others complained to her about him, and her solution was to sit them away from this man, which meant others like us, we're stuck sitting near him the whole trip. She never insisted he get medical attentiom and a clearance to be in close quarters with others or insisted he wear a mask. My husband came down with pneumonia and several others in our tour fell very ill with upper respitory infections as well. The tour could have been very enjoyable, but the tour director did not once go the extra mile, which made it not as good of a trip. Will probably not give Gate 1 another chance. The group dinner the last night was clearly an opportunity for her to get her tips, which we did not give her. We never really felt like she tried to gel the group together, so we never really felt a commraderie with most of the folks. We wished we had skipped the final dinner with terrible food and worse service. Complete waste of time considering it was a 45 min bus ride each way. Really? No restaurants in the center of Krakow we could have gone to? From my understanding, the group manager picks the place. Once again,she failed.

Our tour to Sicily in was wonderful, however getting there was a nightmare. We booked the air travel with Gate 1 but when we arrived at the airport, our fight was cancelled and we received no prior information. There were other carriers that we could use but Gate 1 travel desk wouldn’t rebook us but Swiss Air did it with no problem. If it wasn’t for Swiss Air we would have lost 3 days of the with no partial refund

The trip was fine; no thanks to Gate 1’s “customer service.” Gate 1 customer service is terrible — to the point of outright lying. My daughter was supposed to join me on my October 2025 trip to Iceland, but had to cancel at the last minute. I anticipated added costs as I traded my daughter’s position on the tour with a friend. Gate 1 did NOTHING to help trade the positions. Even when I offered to take a complete loss for my daughter not going and pay for everything again for my friend, Gate 1 still wasn’t satisfied. The “customer service” person “helping” me stated the tour was full and I couldn’t just trade my friend for my daughter. She said I had to cancel my daughter first and then see if there was still room for my friend (leaving me to go on the tour by myself). When I countered a full tour shouldn’t be an issue since I’m cancelling my daughter’s position, the person said after canceling my daughter's position, people on a waiting list would get priority over my friend. The lies came in when customer service insisted as soon as my daughter wasn’t on the first flight, the airline would notify Gate 1 and everything else on the tour would automatically get cancelled for my daughter. The hotel wouldn’t allow my friend to stay in my room and the tour companies would check our identification as we tried entering the buses. I called both the hotel and tour companies in advance and they had no issues with someone else accompanying me in my hotel room and on the tours. I have no idea why Gate 1 “customer service” tried to make such a complex issue out of something that should have been so easy. I have been to every continent, except Antarctica, multiple times. I will retire soon and traveling the world is my prevailing goal. I thought Gate 1 would be motivated to make a life-long customer from a first-time customer who travels multiple times per year and all over the world. I have no intention of ever using Gate 1 again.

I have an upcoming trip scheduled with a friend to Italy and have spent weeks trying to update our seats. I understand there is a cost. First I was told the upgrade would be $3000-$4000 EACH. I told them I would get back to them. My original flight was to return by 6:59pm - it has now been changed to 11:59pm with a 6+ hour layover. I tried to change the flight with the airline who directed me to gate1. I was told to change the flight I had to cancel the trip and start over. I then contacted the airline to simply upgrade the seats. My travel companion could be upgraded but I could not due to the manner in which Gate1 "coded" my ticked. The airline stated I needed to contact Gate1 and have them recode. I reached out to Gate 1 NUMEROUS times and and they refuse to recode my ticket even after I told them what the airline said. I have reached out again but get no response. The trip is still planned but it would be nice if Gate 1 was a bit more responsive. My first adventure with Gate 1 was fine, Ireland, but this time the customer service is simply subpar

I've traveled several tours with Gate 1 before Covid. All were excellent value which made me return to book a tour to Morocco in Sept '24. This was my last tour I will ever go on with thus company. The itinerary was awful! In Marrakesh we saw nothing more than snother old market, but the casbah was cancelled. Of course they took us to some old structure that no one really cared about, and didn't add anything to to experience the flavor of the city. Hotel Mamounian, which is world famous wasn't even mentioned, and definitely not offered as a private tour. Just freaking awful itinerary! Didn't visit Tangiers, Agadir, St Laurent museum, just a lot of uninteresting places in the Atlas mountains. Mostly just more old market places. Never again! Prices were higher and the value decreased. Mediocre hotels and any dinners/ lunches/were OK. Just another mass pack'em in travel tour company. Bye bye Gate 1 Response to Gate 1 response Another Lie, no one called or emailed me. I will never use of recommend your services again. You've really went downhill as a company