Gate 1 Travel

I have taken a few Gate one tours all toeuropean countries. I have been very pleased with all aspects of the tours including hotel quality, guides, bus comfort, logistics and communication with company phone
Agents. The tour cost also was moderated for the Higher level of hotel comfort, imo.
I am currently booked for a May 2019 tour with 5 other travelers.
Hope this helps alittle.

We have never done a Gate 1 tour or river cruise, but we have met people on other tours or cruises that used Gate 1 and liked them.

They are the budget tour company with great prices. We like Vantage World Travel, which is a quality firm and their prices usually beat Viking, Scenic, Avalon and others, but Gate 1 has great prices.

We took a Gate 1 trip to Lisbon and Spain in June 2017 and were quite pleased. My husband does not like tours because of a bad experience with a major company in 1990, but his only complaint was that the hotels(except the one in Torremolinos that had a partial ocean view) did not have good views out the windows. The hotels were all comfortable and reasonably well located, most afternoons were free unless you took an optional tour, there were 0 shopping stops(except one for use of restrooms and our guide specifically told us we didn't have to buy anything) , the Mercedes bus was very comfortable and our Spanish tour director was a gem-both professional and friendly and he showed a strong desire to share with us countries that he loves. He had lived with a family in the US years ago and they are still good friends, so he likes Americans(which was the problem with the other tour director in 1990). One thing I especially appreciated in that heat was that they gave you a cold bottle of water every day. The tipping doesn't bother me since the overall price is still great. We are signed up for their tour of Croatia etc in Sept 2019 and will travel with them any time their itinerary suits us. As said in earlier posts, their prices are an excellent value. A number of people on our trip had previously enjoyed their trip to Peru.

We have used Gate1 for 2 tours to Europe and will use them again. We have found the price to be reasonable for what you get. The tour guides have been excellent as have the local city guides. Yes, the company recommends tips, but we don't mind. We've been on tours where tips are not recommended or necessary, and we end up tipping anyway. We have always been very pleased with the location of the hotels Gate 1 uses. They are in the city centers and you can usually walk to the major sites in a city. The day itineraries are planned with some tour time and some independent time, which my husband and I really like. We don't have to plan everything but can plan some things ourselves. There are optional tours you can purchase and a couple stops at local retailers, but the tour guides have never made us feel obligated to purchase anything. We just use the restrooms and walk out. I have contacted the company by phone a few times and have found their phone agents to be polite and helpful. When looking at their tours, I rule out any tours with more than one 1-night stop. It ends up being too much travel time, and I would never travel that way independently. The buses are nice, but I don't travel all that way to spend that much time on a bus! Overall, we really like Gate1 and will use them again due to the tour value and hotel location.

I have used Gate 1 for a tour of Bangkok-Cambodia-Vietnam. The company uses a "module" approach where they knit various tours together - for example, my tour in Bangkok was me and one other person, then we joined three more in Cambodia, and then we joined 35 more in Vietnam (the latter segment of the tour was a deal through Groupon). I picked the tour for logistics mostly, and you are correct it was a lot of flying and getting from one place to another. The hotels were business style/Western - comfortable but not always close to the center of things. Breakfasts were always buffet style - a mix of Asian and western fare, though "bacon" was a little scary. The tour guides ranged from nonexistent (I never saw a guide in Bangkok) to quite good. I did not go on any of the extra excursions (I made all my own activity arrangements). The clientele on my tour was very different than my experience on RS tours. I was among the most adventurous, having planned activities for my free time (many never left the hotel) and eating local food (I have a strong stomach). That said, I would use the company again if they had the right itinerary.

If I found it correctly, I noticed that your itinerary has a full day on your own in Bangkok - instead of using the excursions offered by the company, arrange for a private guide. I used Your Thai Guide (reviews here: https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g293916-d523941-Reviews-Your_Thai_Guide-Bangkok.html). It was about $100 for a full day plus the cost of transport and admission fees. Totally worth it to have someone get you around to the things you want to see, plus we used local transport (boat, tuk tuk, light rail, taxi). I also took an amazing cooking class and market tour in Bangkok at the Silom Thai Cooking School - some of the best food I've ever eaten! (reviews https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g293916-d1069834-Reviews-Silom_Thai_Cooking_School-Bangkok.html)

Hopefully frequent poster Frances will weigh in on this too, she has traveled with the company extensively and gave me good advice before I took my trip.

BlockquoteThe tipping doesn't bother me since the overall price is still great.

Please expand on this so we know what is customary and expected.

Re: tipping - the Gate 1 website has general guidelines - https://www.gate1travel.com/tipping.aspx - and I believe the final tour documents include suggestions. On my tour, I tipped the head guides (not the one in Bangkok since I never saw her) and the bus drivers. I recall tipping a couple of the local guides that were extra good (most of them were just ok). Here's a handy article on tipping in Thailand https://www.gettingstamped.com/tipping-in-thailand/ . Just be sure to tip in the local currency.

PS, I used a different tour company this year (GAdventures) and despite similar info provided ahead of the tour, we were asked by the head guide to tip just about everyone under the sun. There was no obligation to do so, but it was a bit annoying and in some situations uncomfortable.

@Vick Vega You may already know this, but if not, take some envelopes along to use for the big tips-bus driver and if you have a tour director that stays with you.

I've been on several Gate 1 trips Asia, South America, Central America.
I love them all and think they are a real value.

thailand is one of those destinations i wouldn't bother using any tour company for. saying that as an expat family who is based here. it's amazingly easy to travel in thailand as a foreigner.

it's also a country that's vulnerable to stereotypes and caricatures, and tours do a good job of amplifying them, often with the best of intentions.

i would have ethical reservations about any tour agency visiting hill tribes in northern thailand unless they explicitly lay out their community impact policy. they bring throngs of tourists into these extremely poor villages (you have no idea), where the visitors typically do not even spend the equivalent of $1, complain that they have been asked to buy handicrafts a little too aggressively, take a bunch of pictures with locals, negatively impact the culture and environment, and then leave.

organized tours can be awesome, and can make a lot of sense in certain sometimes. i'm not impressed with the Gate 1 tour in thailand.

Thus far our gate 1 trip has been awesome.

my take is that for the first timer visiting somewhere like Thailand, a guided tour like this is extremely beneficial. Now that we will have basically experience a good representation of the entire country I wouldn't need a guided tour the second time around.

(Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, and Phuket)

Regarding the previous comment about the hill tribes. I didn't choose to go that day but the thai guide we have is outstanding and explains things very well. I feel comfortable that going is actually BETTER for those people than not.

A couple in our group did go and felt very good about why they were there and what they spent their money on. We also provided them with shampoo and hygiene products and were told not to give them money directly.

I understand that these people are refugees and without visitors they may not survive otherwise. Or at best their situation would be much worse.

I wish other countries would embrace the "don't feed the bears" mentality that many here have towards the hill tribes.

As I mentioned we've really enjoyed our group travel with gate 1 thus far. Our guide is fantastic but a bit hard to understand at times. (She is Thai) I would say that it has certainly been more tailored towards people with less ability to be mobile or do extensive walking.

this is the least amount of walking we've ever done on vacation. I'm not complaining. It is merely an observation. Because I do feel we've seen a great deal more than we would have seen had we been on our own and walked mile after mile everyday like we normally do. I think this trip has been very efficient.

But, with any group travel like this I think you're going to be up early and moving most days and have a limited amount of free time generally.

I don't think there's any way around that part.