I'm not sure how to rate this tour simply because of how expensive this is. I am being completely honest because I value the TripAdvisor reviews heavily when making my travel decisions and chose this tour because of the glowing reviews on this site.
We are a family of 5 (with 3 teens ages 17, 14, 12) and I wanted to surprise them with this awesome trip. First of all, it ended up being a cold day (58 degrees in Palm Desert), so it was hard to enjoy the open hummer ride (which was not their fault). However, the tour started in a regular van for a 20 minute drive to the Thousand Palms Oasis/San Andreas Fault, and then a 45 minute drive to the Frontier Cafe in Yucca Valley. The driver was full of knowledge and great to listen to. We were picked up by the open air hummer at the Frontier Cafe and driven into the Joshua Tree National Park. It was freezing in that hummer (35 degrees in the park), even though there were blankets and jackets stuffed under the seats for the guests! We were in the park for maybe an hour, with a quick stop off and we were so miserable and dreading the drive back to the cafe. I wanted to cry. We went back to the Frontier Cafe where we got hot chocolate to warm up. We switched to the van for the ride back to Palm Desert.
I can't give this tour a great review only because of the price. It was a STEEP $700 for my family of 5. Ouch. I knew ahead of time what the cost was, but honestly was under the impression that we were in the hummer for the 4 hours, and that we were going to an area that the "public wasn't allowed". It turns out that we could have driven ourselves to the Thousand Palms Oasis, Yucca Valley AND driven in the Joshua Tree National Park in our minivan and enjoyed it all for free and been warm and on our own timetable. Yes the hummer was neat but it was too cold to enjoy that part (which again, was not their fault). I would have loved the experience for alot less money, but the $700 just made me angry in the end. We went to DisneyLand the next day for 12 hours and only spent $500. The people are great, the price is too high.