First and foremost -- I want to state that this was an exceptionally fun day! We had the clearest most perfect weather day you can ask for in San Fran, so that was a total bonus. Plus, the traffic in the city was very light due to COVID, so we felt we zipped around without much hassle as well. Booked the 3 hour Golden Gate tour, and after our sign-in and safety video, our adventure started about 30 minutes after our check in time. No worries, though because they don't start the clock until you roll out the driveway. Just keep that in mind if you're planning a tight schedule that day.
The GPS guided tour is outstanding. Our cart had the audio AND ipad map display. Not all carts have the visual map. I felt it helped a lot. Our friend's cart only had the audio and there were times where they were confused on whether to turn or not when the audio was quiet. I could always see the drive path on our ipad and avoided mistakes at a couple key points. On the flip side, one time when we parked, we didn't pay attention to the fact our ipad was in the direct sun. When we came back it had overheated and shut itself off for a good 15 minutes and I had to figure out how to restart it myself. We had our friends to follow, otherwise we'd have been way off track while it went dark.
The sights you see and neighborhoods you drive through are stunning! A lot of potential places to "stop and walk around" are suggested during the audio. We only stopped at 2 of the many locations to either get out and snap pics or to get a hot dog in Golden Gate Park. Keeping that in mind, BE WARNED that we were never (I mean NEVER) going to make it back to the GoCar garage in 3 hours with any stops. And that was during light COVID traffic. Once we realized how far away we still were at the GG park, we were basically booking it through the last half of the GPS tour and were still over 30 minutes late getting back. I think this is built into the business model because they don't seem to mind if you're late at all. That's when you find out they charge 75¢ per minute that you overrun, which is not mentioned in the beginning when you take off. Not a huge deal, but you might as well factor that into the equation ahead of time.
Overall, a super fun day and the carts felt very safe. All day parking is very easy and paid for as part of your rental fee. If you book a 3 hour tour, allow a 4 hour window.
LOVED IT!