Looking at all these posts about Gate 1, its very hard to figure out if they are a decent tour operator or not. We are hoping to travel to Italy this April for the first time. We're a family of 4 with two mature teens. My biggest concern is the quality of the tour, the hotel location and the hotel quality. Most of the tours seem to hit the hot spots but many of the posters seem to complain about accomodations more than anything else. I would appreciate an honest opinion from an experienced traveler. We don't need to stay at the 4 Seasons, but i'm not thrilled to travel all the way to Italy to stay in a dump either. Please help.. ..my time is running short!!!

many thanks

billy boy

I haven't been to this site in months, but I wanted to look and see if there were any deals for gate1 because we had such and amazing tour. It was our first tour.. ..we did the crown of Italy in Oct. 05--12 day tour--and it was our first tour ever. We have nothing to compare it to, but everyone on our tour loved it--some were tour veterans, but most virgins like us. The hotels were nice, by European standards, but most importantly centrally located. We stayed at the same hotels as other pricier companies like Perillo and Insight. I have to say that the tour guide makes the tour and she (Mercedes) was fantastic. I honestly cannot say enough good things. As far as age concerns, we were the youngest in the group.. ..early 30s.. ..but felt welcome with the group. We did go during school, so perhaps if you go when school is out then maybe there will be more teenagers. If I can say one thing it is to look for a tour that has centrally located hotels, because on your free time you will want to go to dinner and sightsee and being in the boonies does not help. We stayed on the Grand Canal, near the center of Florence, and down the street from the Coliseum. We loved the meals we ate in the Tuscan countryside, a Roman winery (farmhouse), and our last dinner with the opera singers--so much fun! Those very memeorable meals were part of the tours, and being centrally located gave us plenty of choices for great meals on our own. Try Il Latini in Florence, well worth the wait, and my husband's number one meal in his life. We had the trip of a lifetime! The only negative of Gate one seems to be with flights, so make sure to pay the extra money and get paper tickets! We booked our flights separately and had no problems and found the flights cheaper on our own. Oh, and Affordable tours was really great to work with too.