Gate 1 Travel, Fort Washington PA

I was forced to sign a waiver before they would send my travel documents. This trip was book in 2021 and my original contract did not release Gate 1 from responsibility if I should contact COVID. I have yet to receive my travel documents, and currently have waited 2 hours for a representative to answer my call. I will never use Gate 1 in any of future travel.

Just returned from the above tour:
Pay Cheap, Get Cheap
I traveled with Gate 1 a few years ago and they were good. Just returned from Iceland and they have hit bottom. Initially, before this tour, I waited 2 hours customer service. Also, this company should not advertise “Northern Lights” tour in September…rainy season. It rained every day and was cloudy at night. But they still promoted the tour, not included, to view the “Northern Lights. ”

It all started on arrival, we had to wait in the lobby from 10 am to 3 pm to get our room. I did take the initiative, went to my room and told front desk it was ready and I got the key. The hotels are really motels. One motel had trailers far from main house that required guests to carry our bags from the bus to our rooms. Since it was raining and windy, not very pleasant. I felt sorry for the elderly ladies! Baggage from bus to room was supposed to be included in the price of this tour! One hotel was average in the capital; however, the night crew did not know or didn’t care to activate a “Wake-up Call. ” I almost missed my flight home. The door slamming next door was my wakeup call!

The food included was so very bad, I ate my granola bars. One stop at a gas station was so small, by the time I got to the buffet, food was gone. Another stop for lunch was at a tomato greenhouse. There were 5 buses at once and they gave us watery tomato soup and the tables were so close, I felt uncomfortable. The dinners included were also bad. Each time, I requested a menu and paid for the dinner. Only food that was decent, were the meals I paid for myself. Some Pit stops required a purchase to use the restroom.

Tour manager, guide that he was not, was in his 70’s and should retire. I could not understand all his mumbling, boring stories about folklore and his family. In fact, the information he gave was often wrong and many guests had to correct him. He was so lazy, forgot to post daily itinerary, and if he did, he was wrong. He didn’t even tell us about the VAT form that we had to complete before we arrived at the airport. When walking to see some waterfall and glacier, he never looked back. Just kept going. He could care less for any of the passenger’s safety. Also, left seating to the passengers. Too lazy to post a seating chart at the entrance to the bus; therefore, many guests took entire rows. I complained, but he did nothing. In fact, he took me aside and told me to stop complaining. Constantly gave wrong information and had to be corrected. Very forgetful. I think he likes staying at these substandard motels and eating horrible food.
The bus driver was very rude and nasty the entire time.
I will never travel with Gate 1.

I love Gate1. I have been on 7 tours with them and everyone has exceeded my expectations. I highly recommend them. The prices are great and the tour guides are knowledgeable and helpful. I loved Kenya, Morocco, Ecuador, Jordan, Peru, Michigan and the tour of central Europe. I just signed up for South Africa!

We had a horrible experience in June. We had booked a trip to Nova Scotia through Gate1 travel. Gate1 booked our flights with Air Canada which is a terrible airline. We flew from Detroit to Toronto and were stranded when Air Canada canceled our flight with no rebooking, no hotel, no vouchers of any kind. We had to rent a car and drive back to the U. S. We just received an email from Gate1 that we will not be receiving a refund or even a credit!
Would not recommend Gate1 based upon our experience.

We have been with Gate 1 for more than 7 years and usually travel as a group with more than 12 people. The experience with them was great before, but not now.
We, 18 people, booked a trip to Albania, Croatia, Montenegro and Slovenia in the September. This will be our the 8th time with gate 1. We already had problems with this company before departure.

Our flights were changed 4 times. The 4th one gave us layover in Roma airport for more than 10 hours. I called several times and was told that the airline changed the flights, not them. I called the airline and was told that our booking was through travel agency (gate 1), the airline can do nothing about it. I called gate 1 again. As of today, 12 people in our group still have to be layover Roma for 10 hours, nothing changes although we tried hard.

Our travel document has been delayed on daily basis. I called the agency today (not a good experience, I have to wait 1 to 2 hours every time I called.) and wanted to know why. I was told the website was down and I had to call again after 2-hour waiting. The person just simply said that they are required to call back so she did with no help. The company has changed a lot. It is not the company we trusted before.

If you are going to book with Gate 1, you need to be careful.

Great tour company. Excellent guides and tour managers. All the trip we booked with them went off without a hitch.

Price is high, but the services are not compatible with its hi price.

Be careful to make the purchase, because even 3 month refund before the travel date is not free. They will change the service fee or cancellation fee at any time and charge any amount, regardless the previous policy they have published before.

Gate 1 has not been helpful booking flight seats and telling me I had to do. I usually waited for 2 hours for someone to actual respond to my questions. Was constantly put on hold as the person I talked to had no authorization to do anything but answer the call. Now, going through insurance purchased a Dr. Will not permit me to travel. Gate 1 told me they are a travel agency and not here for any reason other than book the trip. REALLY? No help at all with insurance to assist me in getting my refund. Horrible customer relations and are only in it to make money, in my opinion. RUN, do NOT use this company. They provide no assistance once they have your money.

I have been a Gate 1 customer for years and have recommended this company as the number one choice for travel. They have great tours, quite well organized and reasonably priced. However, the face of the Company is customer service. I don't know what happened, but I have the impression that the more customers they started having, the less they started trying to make the customer happy. As a satisfied customer, it was hard for me to believe the complaints and grievances of others until I needed help myself. I spent 3 hours on the phone to get through to someone, left a number for someone to call back, email all this to no avail. I just needed help pay my balance. This is sad.
I think that sometimes it is worth looking around for other agencies that also have well organized tours and customer service still cares about our good opinion.

Till 06.00 open if enough customer.
We had.a. Grrat time
Playing pool
Getting free drinks because I m a decent pool player.
For being the last place to be open it is worth it

Not a honest travel agent. Do not trust the price list, especially the so call "promotion". The pricing and accountant system are not constant, usually charge more when pay. Saving a reservation (promise to hold for 72hrs) and when try to pay, the system will not let me pay, while do a reservation again will cost $1000 more.

My family and I were on a Gate 1 Tour recently, “14 Day Romantic Italy”. It was simply fantastic! It was a very active tour that covered everything we wanted to see and more! Our Tour Guide, Vanessa Renier made our tour exceptionally wonderful. Her knowledge and attentiveness to our needs was outstanding! I highly recommend Gate 1.

Looking for a great vaca but don't want to do the work? Gate 1 will do it for you. Excellent selection of travel packages and very helpful employees

I am suing this company for having a manager/supervisor tell me they will refund my money but never did.

This was our second trip with Gate 1. Both were amazing. This trip we did the 11 day Enchanted Italy trip to Venice, Florence, Rome and Sorrento with stops In Tuscany, Assisi, Pisa and Capri. Our tour manager Flavia was perfect. She was knowledgeable, organized, pleasant, funny and helpful. You can’t go wrong with this trip. Our flight was delayed 6 hours due to weather but when we eventually got to the airport in Venice someone was there to whisk us off to a boat to get to our hotel on the island of Lido. Our group was friendly and seemed to all get along. The food is delicious and plenty of it. Red and white wine kept coming. There is a lot of walking and some places plenty of slopes and steps but the pace is relatively slow and there are breaks in between. But if you aren’t able to walk at least 5 miles a day you might not be happy with a trip like this. We are in our 60’s but we’re able to easily keep up. We will definitely use Gate 1 again. Can’t wait!

THE WORST CUSTOMER SERVICE DEPARTMENT …. NO HELP JUST KEEO TELLING ME TO CALL BACK!
AFTER 3 WEEKS WAIT A FEW MORE DAYS AND CHECK BACK WITH US. WAIST MORE TIME ON HOLD THAN GETTING ASSISTED. WILL NEVER USE THIS COMPANY AGAIN!

****AVOID GATE 1 TRAVEL. PLEASE READ ESPECIALLY IF YOU ARE BOOKING SOON GIVEN THE RECENT FLIGHT CANCELLATIONS.

My family booked the 8 day national parks of Canada with Lake Louise Full Escorted Package (with All Transfers and airfare included). Sorry for the lengthy post but here is a timeline:

1. Received the last minute flight cancellation on our departure day and Gate 1 Travel stated it was “not their problem” even though we booked the full escorted package including airline tickets and airport transfers thru Gate 1 Travel directly, not the Airline company.
2. Gate 1 Travel did not help us so we called the Airline who also said it was not their problem. Unfortunately the Airline re-scheduled our flight to the next day and we immediately notified Gate 1 Travel about our new flight schedule. Gate 1 agent, Mr. M***** Mend**, arranged for our airport pick up and surprisingly charged us an additional $225 even though we already paid for everything because we booked a full package from Gate 1 Travel. Regardless, we needed to reach our tour group so we agreed and Mr. Mend** promised that the emergency transfer driver would wait for us there at the airport until we arrived.
3. Even after “booking” our emergency airplane pick up…when we arrived at the airport, there was no driver to pick us up from the airport; we waited for 3 hours and called Gate 1 who put us on hold for hours. Their master solution was that we should fly to another airport instead.
4. We managed to figure out local transportation to reach our tour group and we finally reached our tour group near 10 pm.

Gate 1 customer service is non-existent so please do not book with this company. Ironically, I tried emailing the company about my experience and they ignored me. Given the recent flight cancellations, it’s best to avoid this company because the chances of this happening is pretty high as of now.

These people are a joke. Be aware of the insurances they sell their worthless. Customer service is terrible. Can't get a straight answer out of them. I do not recommend. If you look on other sites that will say the same rating is very low.

When a well written carefully thought out letter to the CEO goes unanswered you know there’s something wrong. Trips are great: we’ll paced and well guided. Customer service slow and unresponsive