Lake District - English Lakes Tour company vs Mountain Goat

I would have no hesitation booking with Mountain Goats. I took one of their tours from York last year and it was fabulous. The guide was excellent!!

I was hoping to take a lake district tour with them, but they no longer depart from Keswick. I ended up booking a 3-day lake district tour with Rabbie’s instead.

Thanks, Carrie! That is helpful.

Essentially you are paying more with English Lakes for half the number of people on the van. Like Rick's big bus tours with 2 dozen (ish, give or take) on a 50 seat bus, English Lakes only plan on filling half the seats- so 6 to 8 at most.
It is probably just me, being local, but 8 lakes in a morning feels rather whistlestop. But I grant you that for a tourist (a new one especially) it is going to be a good generalist introduction to follow up on at your leisure as you wish.

Also English Lakes are a much smaller company than MG. As they are at pains to point out on their website they don't subsidise their tours with taxi and school bus work, like Mountain Goat always have done- indeed MG started as a school bus company and still do that work now. EL are purely a tours company.

Thanks, isn31c! I was hoping you would see my question!!

That is very helpful. I missed that Mountain Goat is a larger tour group.

I agree, a 1/2 day tour of the region sounds like a total flash-by! However, I am not going to drive. I will leave the 1/2 tour decision to my travel companion - who may not be interested. We will be taking some literary tours so will have some sense of the area.

I took the MG 10 Lakes (full day) tour with my partner this past September, having done the same tour 5 years ago with my sister. The 2019 and 2024 tours covered the same ground and both times the driver/guides were excellent. However, during the recent tour the 16 passenger tour van was filled...in 2019, there were only 5 or 6 of us on the bus. I think MG tours have become very popular, but the van was crowded and uncomfortable. Think I would opt for a less crowded experience next time.

About five years ago, I took a one day Mountain Goat tour out of Keswick for the Lake District. It was on a 16 passenger van.

Our driver/guide told us he had been a tour bus driver for years and had recently moved up to driver/guide.

He hardly spoke. I had just done two excellent Rabbies tours in Scotland and compared to them, Mountail Goat was terrible.

The other passengers weren't happy either.

I realize we got stuck with a poor guide. The itinerary was good, we just weren't told much about it.

Hopefully, for the sake of future tours, this guy either got better or went back to driving.

Thanks to both of the reviewers above. I appreciate hearing of your experiences.