"Rethink Using Gate 1 for Travel"

I was in a vehicle accident while on safari with Gate 1 in India last month. I was in the passenger seat of a large safari truck when a faulty door unexpectedly opened on the moving vehicle causing me to fall out backwards and hit my back and my head on surrounding rocks where I was knocked unconscious.

I was taken to the emergency room by our tour guide because of the injuries to my head and my back. I was given pain medication (no diagnostics were done) and luckily my friend had brought her cane with her which I was forced to use for the remainder of the trip. My headaches and severe back pain continued until I was forced to go to the emergency room again. This time they gave me a shot in the back for my pain and pain meds, but again, no diagnostics.

Severe back pain and headaches continued throughout the remainder of the trip making it difficult to keep up. When I returned home, I went to the emergency room where I had a CAT Scan and was given additional medication and lidocaine patches for the pain. Upon seeing my back surgeon following the ER visit it was decided that I needed major back surgery. The fall had exasperated my existing condition. The surgery was scheduled for 7 May.

Upon scheduling the surgery, I contacted Gate 1 immediately to follow up on my accident and let them know of the planned surgery. (I assumed the accident had already been reported by the trip leader.) The surgery conflicted with another Gate 1 trip I had planned for Jordan on 7 May (the date of my surgery). Per my surgeon, and my inability to walk, I requested the trip be postponed to the fall. They outright refused. I then asked to speak to a supervisor who also refused my request. Mind you, I wasn’t asking to cancel the trip, just postpone the trip!

I finally received an e-mail from an individual at Reservations: Support who also refused to postpone my trip. They said I needed to pay the 50% penalty fee since I “decided” to cancel. Once again, the ONLY reason I canceled was due to an accident that happened due to a faulty door on their trip!!!

I found the entire interaction with Gate 1 beyond frustrating. India was my 10th trip with Gate 1. To add insult to injury, I was also in a vehicle accident on a Gate 1 tour when I was on a Kenya and Tanzania safari in the fall of 2022. Gate 1 was “so generous” for that inconvenience and my pain and suffering that they gave me $100. No apology.

The lack of concern, assistance, and understanding from Gate 1 is appalling, especially considering this was my second major accident caused by Gate 1’s negligence in a two-year period. I will certainly be rethinking my use of Gate 1 as a tour company in the future. Maybe you should too.

"Gate 1 great but their trip insurance provider is worthless"

Great company with well-organized tours but the insurance company they route all Travel Insurance through—Arch Insurance—has terrible reviews and does everything to avoid paying claims. I had a trip scheduled to Mexico in March 2024–and paid for. I had to cancel my Gate 1 trip because I was hospitalized for 11 days after I flew a long airplane flight from Ireland. At the time I booked the Gate 1 trip I was well. I suffered from acute pulmonary embolisms from the long flight. Arch insurance only paid out $300 on my well documented claim. I am a retired lawyer and know how to fill out and document claims. Their denial was flagrant. Getting only $300 back made it a complete waste of time to file the claim. If 11 days with acute pulmonary embolisms preventing me from future plane trips is not justification, what is? Never ever accept Arch. Find another provider.

"The 8 day Tour of Spain was well…"

The 8 day Tour of Spain was well organized, good hotel rooms and services . Our tour guide Rosemary capably led some great tours.We took a two hours in Alhambra which for me was the highlight of this tour.
The only issue for me was that the return flights were far too long. Madrid,Amsterdam,JFK and then to Toronto.
I will consider future tours with Gate1

"Wish I had read these reviews before…"

Wish I had read these reviews before booking a trip to Turkey with Gate 1. Unfortunately Gate 1 Travel is NOT worth your hard earned money if life or work changes prevent your travel! Never buy insurance from this travel co. I was unable almost a year later to travel at the scheduled time to Turkey. Insurance will not cover this and Gate 1will not allow or honor any of my money paid to go to the rescheduling of my trip. My roundtrip tickets per Turkish Air due to a time change has emailed me that I can rebook my tickets without a change fee or additional costs!

However I must go through Gate 1. Bobbie the Gate 1 Supervisor who initially refused to introduce herself, give her name until multiple requests and and absolutely refused to provide her full name or her boss’ name. Bobby stated she would ONLY ALLOW me to keep my fully paid airline tickets in MY NAME if I booked a new tour of Turkey paying FULL PRICE no credit or discount! RUN as fast as you can from this company!

3/22/24 Follow up I received a TC from Shannon Daugherty from Gate 1Travel. She informed me that my Turkish Airline tickets should and will be fully refunded. Shannon is working with me and was respectful as well as helpful. I was instructed to submit a claim to Gate 1Travel Insurance. If denied Gate 1 specifically Shannon will work with me to reschedule my trip next year without losing all my money. I will update this review once I have I have been reimbursed for my tickets and exactly what Gate 1 does regarding the tour!

"After reading all the negative reviews…"

After reading all the negative reviews I decide to not go ahead and confirm the Baltic trip I had hoped to do with Gate 1 Travel. No way do I want to get stuck someplace with no help from the tour company. Glad I decided to read reviews before clicking the "Book" button.

"Essential Portugal and Spain"

Our experience was terrific! We were greeted at the airport by the tour manager Alex and taken to the hotel. Everything was so organized with time between tours for lunch or shopping. The hotels were nice too.
We felt safe and cared for at all times. The tour guides were fantastic in each city giving us plenty of history without being boring. The bus driver Marco was excellent making sure our things were secured at all time. We will definitely use this tour company again.

"Gate1 are uncaring ……After doing around 8 tours with Gate1 I…"

After doing around 8 tours with Gate1 I unfortunately had to cancel over a month before we were commencing our tour due to having to have emergency surgery. I thought Gate1 might be understanding and give us a full refund or at least credit towards another trip. They would only refund half our money and yes that was in the cancellation policy but having been such a long term repeat customer who had recommended them to many, I was under the delusion they may have some understanding of my situation and refund the full amount or at least give credit towards my next trip. I am six months post surgery now and have booked this years tour with another company. Will never book with Gate1 again.

"Poor customer service leading to loss of ticket value"

No possible to reach the travel agents on phone. Hence, communication to the Gate1 travel agents is possible via emails only. By 3pm UK time on 18 Feb, I confirmed my request to change my flight, from 19Feb at 1:45am to another day. But no response has been received, although my response was within 30-40min since the agent's reply time.. I appreciate this was on Sunday, but a clear statement on working hours and limitation from the beginning would be helpful. It seems the value of the ticket is lost which is very unpleasant. This could be easily avoided if there was an opportunity to call to agree the change and pay the diff in tariff.

"Worst Tour Guide in 50 countries!"

Here’s what you can expect from a Gate1 guide. My 2-week Sri Lanka tour was a series of mini-disasters. Worst tour guide I have ever experienced in my travels to more than 50 countries.
My guide promised me that we would take a walk around the hotel property and disappeared. I waited for 1 hour, and he never returned. I later discovered that there was a wedding at the hotel at that time. He had been invited to the wedding and probably went to the wedding while I waited for 1 hour.
He spent most of his time speaking in the microphone on the bus with his back turned to the passengers. His accent was not very clear so if you were thinking of lipreading to improve comprehension, you would be lost.
Our guide was a last-minute expert on the Whispers—the audio system that the guide uses and each passenger has earphones. He would wait until we had arrived at a location and then announce that we needed the Whispers. Then everyone would dig to find them. A small delay that kept repeating itself. What about the option of telling us that we would be stopping in the next 5 minutes and that we would need our Whispers?
His inefficiency rose to an all-time high as we were leaving the Temple of the Tooth Relic. He told us to walk to the bus. We walked past at least 10 tour company vehicles. At the end of the trail, we reached the intersection with the public road. But there was no bus. We all just stood there and wondered helplessly: “Where could the bus be?” One passenger called the tour guide. There was no response. Eventually the bus came. He was nowhere to be found. He never mentioned the inappropriate instruction (to walk to a non-existent bus), nor did he promise that it would not happen again. As for an apology! Never happened!
Gate1 has a mandatory seat rotation policy. However, our guide allowed 2 of 22 passengers to sit in the same seats for the entire 12-day tour. Selective implementation of the policy! Who do you have to be to get preferential treatment?

Our guide refused to share the duration of our drive. Many times, he would not even indicate where our next stop would be. Even after I explained to him that I had an unpredictable bladder, and needed to know the duration of the drive so that I could figure out how much water to drink, most of the time, he simply refused to say how many minutes we would be on the bus.
Maximizing his kickbacks at our expense
Our guide was very focused on maximizing his kickbacks from our stops. He was more focused on making sure that we spent money at the sites than sharing his knowledge. On the drive from Yala National Park, one passenger asked about a pit stop. He responded by saying that we had another 30 minutes to go. His need to use a specific restaurant—the Chalet restaurant--(where he gets a kickback) was more important than finding a restroom. He repeatedly said that if we wanted a bathroom break, we should let him know. It sounded good, but he didn’t honor the request. On the second occasion when we called for a bathroom stop in Colombo, he did honor the request.
When our guide told us about the stilt fishermen, he made it clear, on two separate occasions, that we needed to PAY the fishermen if we wanted to take a photo on the stilts. He was so adamant about the payment procedures that he forgot to tell us about the history of the stilt fishermen.
I asked about the history and he shared it, but only because I had asked. I concluded that it is not that he is not knowledgeable, the problem is that he was so focused on maximizing his kickbacks from his selected sites that he placed the needs of passengers second to this kickback potential. What a shame!
Generally, if you asked him a question, he would answer it. On the two occasions that I asked questions that he could not answer, he said that he would find out and let me know. He never did respond to me.
My overall rating of our guide was 2/10. A good tour guide is knowledgeable and compassionate. Several passengers mentioned that he was, without doubt, at the bottom end of the tour guides that they had experienced. I found little comfort in this pattern. If the quality of Gate1 tour guides can vary so substantially, I will not be risking a second bad experience by taking another Gate1 tour. This is my second and last Gate1 tour.
Gate1 has a serious Tour Guide Quality Control problem! Let the buyer beware!

"Cancel for any reason doesn't really work."

We bought the cancel for any reason policy. We cancelled because we had to travel from NC to PA for my best friend's funeral. We were supposed to travel in October of 2023. So now we get a partial credit and a very small refund. Doesn't really do us any good because now it costs almost double for the same trip and we can't afford that. So we are basically out $1800 that we paid.