We were considering the Elite Land Tours when we saw a flyer for the Five Star Adventure Tours for much cheaper. When I called them to ask what they offer, we were told that we'd be taken to the "opening of the San Andreas fault." The pictures on the flyer showed canyons and people walking along narrow canyon walls. We were told that the jeep tours were not currently being offered but that the tour involved an air-conditioned van and a 1.5 hour nature hike. The person on the phone was a little impatient with my questions trying to figure out where they'd take us and how it differed from what Elite Land Tours offered.
Upon meeting the guide at 7 a.m. the next morning we discovered that the plan was to go to the Coachella Valley Preserve, a free attraction that we were planning to visit anyway. If we had known this when booking the reservation, we would not have agreed to it. To the guide's credit, she did agree to let us back out of the tour as we were sitting in the van. However, we had already committed the morning to the tour, and we figured that we could use a local guide who would know more than we would about what we'd see, so we decided to go ahead anyway.
The guide, Annette, was knowledgeable but had an odd attitude for a guide. I found her her personal nature to be somewhat defensive and more intent on telling us about -how much- she knew, and how she played amongst those grounds as a kid, rather than telling us -what- she knew. Questions were met with a response prefaced with "but, of course" as if we were supposed to know the answer all along. It didn't make us feel like asking a lot.
Annette, the guide, did help us out in a different way - she told us quite a bit about where else we could go on our own and that did prove to be valuable - such as go to the Andreas Canyon of the Indian Canyons, and start your hike on the right fork of the trail. She did also verify the location of Painted Canyons and suggested that we take the Box Canyon road on our way to the Joshua Tree NP.
All in all, was it worth the $160 for two? We didn't think so but it was not a total waste. As Annette herself stated, these tours no longer go any places that tourists cannot go themselves. If you are fine hiring an expensive tour guide to go places you could read up on and go on your own, then you might enjoy their tour.
