Gate 1 Travel

I purchased a Living Social coupon to Iceland that only consisted of flight and hotel. I called Gate1 Travel to redeem my coupon and had no issues. I was a bit worried at first that Gate1 Travel couldn't provide me with a hotel confirmation number. And when I called the hotel directly, they wouldn't locate my reservation without a confirmation number. A few reviewers from TripAdvisor assured me that is just how Gate1 Travel operates and I shouldn't have any issues checking into my hotel. I checked into the hotel with no issues and got a room 2 hours prior to the actual check-in time of 2pm. Prior to traveling to Iceland, I had contacted Gate1 Travel to change my double bed to two twin size beds. Gate1 Travel did what they were asked and I was given to two twin size beds at the hotel.

My trip was amazing every minute. Our tour guide was the best, he was incredible. Michael was on top of every inch of our trip and more. I'm still coming down from this trip, life changing.

The trip was great. We enjoyed all aspects of the trip.The gate 1 guides, Hilary in England and Scotland as well as Martina in Ireland were excellent. We highly recommend Gate 1 to all our friends and certainly plan to travel with your company again. Keep up the good work.

My wife and I just got back from the 12 day Classic Vietnam tour with Gate 1 travel. It was our first "escorted" tour experience with any company and I was really curious how that was going to work out. We were both totally happy with our experience. In our group there were approximately 15 couples and three individual travelers, my wife and I were the only ones who this was our first trip with Gate 1. This was the third for the next lowest and some had been upwards of ten tours and one couple already has three additional tours booked with them. That told us a lot. We really enjoyed getting to know our fellow travelers who were a very interesting and eclectic group with lots of travel experiences.

I am a very serious photographer and went primarily for photo opportunities, particularly of the people living their lives. Gate 1 tours are not especially designed for "photographers" but this one, at least, and I presume all of them, are just natural opportunities for lots of great photos.

Some of the HIGHLIGHTS:
Our tour guide, whose name is Tu, was amazing! There were very few if any questions that stumped him and believe me there were a lot of very interesting and detailed questions on every subject imaginable for a tour. His personal story was about as interesting as it gets as he was raised in a tiny village of rice farmers Northwest of Hanoi, and is the first person in his entire family ever to leave the farm and get an education.

Everywhere we went he passed around local treats for us to sample and gave us ideas of what we might want to do "just for the experience". He did not try to push any particular viewpoints, but explained very well all kinds of information about their political and religious practices, policies and beliefs. He kept us informed of any possible risks in specific areas and bent over backwards to take care of every need. When we flew from Ho Chi Minh City to Danang I left my wife's cane on the airplane, but didn't discover it until later that evening when were at the hotel in Hoi An. (She only uses it occasionally as needed). We told Tu about it hoping he would have some suggestions of where we might be able to buy a replacement. The next morning at breakfast he brought us the cane. How he got it I'll never know because he wouldn't tell us, but we were amazed!!!

We signed up for all the optional tours. I had to sign up for the Cu Chi Tunnels tour as I was stationed in Cu Chi with the U.S. Army 25th Inf. Div. in 1967 and 1968. I was there for the Tet offensive of 1968 and just barely missed Tet (Vietnamese new year) of 2018, 50 years difference. It was quite the experience to actually enter one of the tunnels that we heard so much about when I was there 50 years ago.

My other favorite optional tours were the ones which took us on the rivers where we saw authentic Vietnamese fishermen and the way many families live both on and around the water.

Speaking of water, Halong Bay is an experience that will never be forgotten. It is easy to see why it is a UNESCO world heritage site.

Our hotels were first class all the way. They were clean, modern and provided excellent breakfast buffets, catering to all of the various appetites from around the world.

Some of the LOWLIGHTS:
There really weren't any that I could put on Gate 1's fault. For me, again as a photographer, I would have loved to spend more time at Halong and would have gladly traded some of the time in Hue and/or Hanoi for that and the mattress we had in the Hotel in Hue was almost like sleeping on a Vietnamese farmer's bed (Vietnamese farmers apparently sleep on the floor or at best a solid flat piece of wood with no padding whatsoever). No one else was unhappy with their mattress there, so I don't know if we just got a particularly hard one, or others preferred a super firm one. The Hotel did try to help with an additional mattress cover, but it wasn't that effective.

THE BOTTOM LINE:
Will we book another tour with Gate 1? Absolutely! We are already looking at future destinations. We have also told several friends and family members of our wonderful experience with Gate 1 and recommended they join us. We will soon be among those that can tell of having been with more than one Gate 1 tour, like the rest of our group.

I had a fabulous time. Cristina our tour guide was just perfect. Informed, pleasant, funny. I don’t think I could have had a better trip. Loved England/ Scotland and would go back again. I look forward to my next Gate 1 trip.

My vacation was great! Everything was well planned and I feel like I was able to see as much as I possibly could. The tour guide was very pleasant, informative and accommodating Thank you

My husband and I did the Chicago Special Israel Tour. We had an excellent time. Our tour guide Noa was amazing! Heidi, the gate 1 representative who helped me book the trip was excellent too. We home to travel again with Gate 1 travel in the near future.

Went with Gate1 to Peru. Our guide Elvis was wonderful he didn’t just lead a tour he gave us insight into his beautiful country through his eyes. We felt safe with Gate 1. The busses were clean, well maintained and comfortable as well as our nightly accommodations and meals. I enjoyed all the places we visited Michu Picchu, Cussco City ,The Sacred Valley as well as the local business through out the tour. Gate1 offer such a personal approach to touring, you feel welcomed to a new land and experience I look forward to touring with Gate1 again real soon.

Incredible deals!! We just returned from Italy. Tours were amazing and a true learning experience. Will definitely use them again.

Incredible deals!! We just returned from Italy. Tours were amazing and a true learning experience. Will definitely use them again.

We had a fabulous tour starting with three days in Amsterdam, a fourteen day river cruise on Rhine and Danube to Budapest and a final three days there. Hotels were great, boat and staff fantastic and tours couldn’t have been better. We had so much fun we booked two more tours with Gate 1.

This is the first time I booked a trip to Spain with gate1. It is my first time traveling alone with Gate1. They were so thorough and professional. the tour guide Joseph was excellent.

From the moment we landed till the day we departed, everything was right. There was, as advertised, a Gate 1 rep to meet us at the airport. On the way to the hotel, we met our Gate 1 tour guide Paulie. He was a former teacher and native of Iceland. For us he was perfect. Smart, interesting and fun but not in a cheesy way. No games or sing-a-longs. I liked that we had the same guide for all of our excursions.
We took the City tour, the Golden Circle, South Shore trip, Blue Lagoon and Northern Lights tour while in Iceland. The only one that was not with Paulie was Northern Lights tour. All were interesting and allowed us to see different parts of this beautiful country in comfortable motor coaches.
We stayed at the Hotel Cabin. It was a bit dated but clean and run very efficiently. Breakfast was included with the Gate 1 package. A cold buffet with a limited selection but good to start the day. The hotel also had a lunch and dinner buffet available for an extra charge. Caroline at reception was so friendly under a lot of pressure from guests that were not always nice. Caroline is an asset to the Hotel Cabin.
If you have done any research on Iceland, you may have heard it is quite expensive. I will wholeheartedly agree.
Examples-
1 can of beer $10.00
1 can of soda $8.00
disposable lighter $6.00
coffee cup (souvenir) $22.00
Christmas ornament-$27.00
key chain $10.00
bag of chips $9.00
on and on
This is not Gate 1 or the hotels fault. Most things in this country are imported. Bring snacks from home. You'll be glad you did.
Recommend? Absolutely!
I would like to go back someday in the summer and see Iceland in a different way.

Gate 1 did a great tour of Peru, until the Hurricane created a snag. After that it was 4 days of phone calls and rearranging reservations. It took me 4 different customer service representatives until someone would actually help us get back home. Gate 1 and Latam Airline just kept blaming each other while meanwhile our tour director left and we were stuck in Lima. Gate 1 seemed to be under the impression the tour director would help us, and the tour director continued to state that he was not allowed to help us at all in any way with our flights or connections or bookings.

I will say that the trip was great up until that point, and eventually Gate 1 did get my family and I home. I will however never forget the more than 15 hours I spent on the phone over the course of 4 days to make it happen, not to mention the exhaustion and stress of worrying and not knowing anything.

Many others in our group had previous and satisfactory relationships with Gate 1 travel, but in the end most of them had to pay to fly themselves home, and our family was the only one who stuck it out on the phone with them trying to find solutions instead of having to drop an additional 6K on plane tickets to get us home. The final customer service agent I finally spoke to seemed to be surprised that we were still stuck in Lima 3 days later.

In any case, I have serious mixed feelings about this company, but just in case, book all your own air travel so you have some control. The most common things I kept hearing from the airline and the Gate 1 agents were, "I'm sorry but there is nothing we can do for you." and in hilarity from a couple agents "we can't do that much about it, we are just travel agents." A special shout out to the wonderful woman in the Gate 1 air department that finally got us home and handled me sobbing on the phone that I was worried we would all lose our jobs with calm and serenity. She became my angel.

I don't ever want to feel that helpless when out of the country ever again. From now on my air travel will only ever be booked through delta or travelocity.

My wife and I just returned from a 14 day Italy tour with Gate 1 for our 25th anniversary. It was our 1st time using them, and 1st escorted tour as well. We typically travel on our own and I was very skeptical of having someone else herd us around for 2 weeks, as I tend to always think I can do better on my own. Well, I was wrong! The entire experience was wonderful. We landed in Milan, spent 2 nights in Lake Como, 2 nights in Venice, 2 nights in Florence, then 3 nights in Rome and finally Sorrento. Our "luxury motor coach" was a really nice tour bus that was comfortable and well equipped. After seeing the chaos of driving in Italy (viral Vespas) I was very glad to leave all the driving to someone else and save my blood pressure. The Tour leader (Michela) was amazing. She was very knowledgeable and prepared, kept us very organized, but never rushed. The accommodations were great, nice hotels, king size beds, centrally located and nice and clean. We ended up doing all their optional tours. After seeing the quality of the local tour guides Gate 1 employs, we quickly realized we would have missed so much if we had attempted this on our own. We could have seen the same things, but the narrative from someone who was so knowledgeable and passionate about venues, we understood so much more about the subject, time period and the artists. We didn't have to wait on long lines at venues with the "condemned" like the Sistine Chapel or the Coliseum. We had wonderful meals in Tuscany at vineyards, a fun interactive dinner opera show (I hate opera), and they went out of the way to make us feel special on our actual anniversary. I look forward to using them again and recommending them to our friends and relatives. They won't be our choice for every destination vacation, but for any visit where we want to do a lot of sight seeing, and especially in a country that is not English speaking, they will be our 1st stop.