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GoCar Rentals
Rating Details »
Neighborhoods: Civic Center/Tenderloin, Union Square
321 Mason St
(between Ofarrell St & Elwood St)
San Francisco, CA 94102
321 Mason St
(between Ofarrell St & Elwood St)
San Francisco, CA 94102
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12 reviews for GoCar Rentals
My husband and I decided to give this a shot on our honeymoon and it fulfilled all of our geek dreams! You definitely have to be comfortable with yourself and ok with looking like a fool riding around in a yellow car with helmets on!
We were able to see a ton of great SF spots that we wouldn't have otherwise known about. The GPS shares all sorts of great info with you and although sometimes it's a struggle for the car to get up the steep slopes, it was all worth it. I did have to jump out at one point to push it up the hill over by Robin Williams home. Make sure your passenger has some muscles!
We also got a Go Card and were able to get a significant discount. What was intended as a 1 hour tour turned into 3 very quickly. Make sure you reserve a day in advance because these cars book up fast! :)
You'd be better off renting a John Deere riding mower and carving a path through Golden Gate Park. At least we'd get the grass cut while you sight-see.
These ridiculous hillbilly go-karts belong at a Six Flags ride in Alabama.
Seriously, WTF?
If you're coming to San Francisco, rent a bicycle. Take a bus...a cab...a cable car. Go to The Ramp and get a ride on a sailboat around the bay But please, just say no to the Go Car.
SO FREAKIN COOL:]
my friend jason and i purchased a go san francisco card, and saw that this was an option on the list of attractions to visit and we were pretty excited. with the go card, we were allowed thirty minutes with the rental and we were zipping up and down the street in our little yellow car. good thing these things have helmets because i felt like i was going to fall right out with all of the sharp turns jason was making but heyy it made it more exciting. we drove around, had people take pictures of us at stop lights and try to dodge getting hit by cable cars. we are not too experienced with driving in frisco, so one way streets were pretty much the enemy-- but it was so fun! :]
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I don't know about the go cars or anything but they need to bring that fine desk attendant back. You know who you are! I'm the girl that used to walk by and smile at you every day. You ain't too good for Go-Karts. Brink yo' helmet- adjusting, tourist assisting, fine ass back.
I have to say...massively disappointed. I have been looking forward to zooming around San Francisco in one of those little yellow carts since we moved here a few years back. A friend from Palo Alto finally agreed to come up for a little Go Car adventure a few weeks back and lordy...ugh.
First of all - the cars were filthy, smelly, and in poor condition. My hands were black at the end of a few hours on the handles, not to mention cramped up and exhausted from the crappy brakes. There seemed to be some 'issues' with the exhaust and the GPS system when we left the Union Sq location, but we were told 'go ahead!'. The GPS didn't work more than one turn away from the kiosk. When we called (had to stop several blocks away and turn off the car as you can't here a thing with it running (more on that later)) we were told to go to the other location...okaaaay. Thanks.
Head straight to the other location (thank goodness we were SF natives or it would have been a nightmare) where they were thankfully very nice and swapped us out for another car (same issues re cleanliness, engine noise, brakes etc).
We couldn't hear a thing on the recording so just tried to settle back and enjoy the rest of our time making other people in cars and on the streets laugh.
So major disappointments? GPS didn't work, smelled like exhaust (still taste it), hands black and grimy, hands and arms still recovering from crappy brakes and bad alignment, didn't hear/learn a thing.
On the plus side, we still made a lot of people laugh at us :)
OMG, it is amazing how many people laugh and point when you are in these cars! I was in town for a conference with my fiance and was charged with taking another guy's wife around for the day as she hadn't been to SF and I used to live here. I always made fun of those awful tourists in them, but since my friend has some physical limitations I figured I'd buck it up and rent one instead of walking. And what a blast we had! The only downsides were the 50cc motor which left us pushing it up the last 20 feet of the hill by Danielle Steel's house, the cramp in my forearms from the breaks and the noise it generates. Otherwise, we jammed all over the city from Ocean Beach to the Ballpark in about 6 hours. The only thing I didn't dare do was attempt to make it up to Twin Peaks. Lombard was fun, but approach it from the South on Hyde so you are stopped on a downhill, not an uphill from the Wharf or Lombard from the Marina. As stated in other reviews, I too had dirty hands from the steering wheel and the GPS didn't work. Overall, though, it was great and I would recommend it to anyone willing to pay $200 for a day of great parking and freedom!
If you only have a few days to see SF and want to take in as much as possible, this is the way to do it. The tour in these little yellow cars takes you through the streets of SF at a perspective that is hard to match. The GPS-guided audio tour is very helpful and loaded with fun facts (though the surely could include more). The overview of the city is one that makes you want to come back soon and explore the city as a "native" rather than as a tourist stuck in the Union Square/Cable Car/Pier 39 zoo.
The negatives are few and include price (there's no way to take the whole tour in the two hours they say it takes, you should plan on paying for 4-5 hours worth of time), the dork factor, struggling to climb some of the SF hills and the not-so-subtle product placement (restaurant) ads sprinkled throughout the narration.
We had two cars (wife and kid ! in one and me and kid 2 in the other) and the kids had a blast. Both the GPS's and audio portions stopped working near the end as we came out of a tunnel and it was a bit difficult (for non-natives) to find our way back the final few blocks to the rental place.
We came (15 minutes early), reservation printed out, to the GoCar place on Mason St. near Union Square. We were told that somehow there weren't any left, and that we should wait since some GoCar guys were going to come by and take us to the other location (Fisherman's Wharf).
Mysterious, to say the least. We waited for 20 minutes, while somehow other merry gangs of wannabe GoCar-ers climbed in to empty cars and took off.
After I went in again to enquire, the guy told me that in fact, the guys were NOT going back to the other location. He then took out a wad of 5s and 1s and told us to TAKE A CAB over there. How weird is that?
We would have pocketed his money and left in a huff if we didn't want to ride the damn alluring yellow cars and wear the sporty helmets so badly.
So, we grabbed a cab and grumbled our way over to the other location. We were greeted by a very pleasant and enthusiastic girl who got us suited up to go.
And, it's awesome. You feel like a minor celebrity as kids screetch and wave, and the narrator (we named her "Sara") interjects pithy trivia as you drive.
I would have given it five stars, but the randomness at the Union square location brings it down a few notches. Oh well, it was still totally fun.
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Live out your childhood fantasies of taking bumper cars offroading 'cause this is basically what Go Car-ing is. Little yellow bumpy, 3 wheelers with no no way to go in reverse and no doors which is okay 'cause it's not you'll be going at such top speeds of 35 and in any real danger.
Take the tour guided through this voice automated system through the "GPS" and be warned that sometimes she just stops talking altogether and you'll be stuck in the Castro to fend for yourself against interior decorators and waves of well dressed men who want to reinvent the overglorified scooter you're in as if it's the next coming of the Mini Cooper. Don't go uphill in very steep areas but do go downhill on Lombard's crooked street-it's awesome!
If you're looking to blend in, forget about it 'cause you'll be a tourist attraction yourself with the silly looking helmets and the lawnmower motor rumbling at all the fun tourist traps.
It's about $80-$100 roughly for an average trip for 3 hours and on the plus side, the manager who runs this location is quite appealing to the eye and totally chill so if you're waiting for a car, you'll be in good company. Cheers.
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So, I'm not a tourist, I live in the Bay Area, but some friends from Dublin, Ireland were in town and they wanted to have tour around SF. My friend decided to book the Go Cars, we have done the biking tours before, but the Go Cars looked like fun and way less tiring than biking. The price for the Go Cars for one day was $160/car, which fits two people and includes helmets and a full tank of gas and GPS guided system. Considerably higher than bikes, but you cover way more ground.
The tour itself was really good, you literally see just about everything SF has to offer and learn some useless trivia. So if you have some tourists to show around, this is a great thing to try. The cars are fun to drive around too. It's like a three wheeled scooter or a bumper car that actually goes places. You'll also feel like a celebrity while driving it, everyone on the street was taking pictures of us in these bright yellow cars.
Now the downside. If it's cool out, then you will be cold....and I mean cold. Also, the GPS system isn't as reliable as you would like. The vibration of the car can make the wires become lose, which means the GPS stops working until you stop and adjust the wiring...which is a pain because we had to do it at least 3 times. Also, it gave wrong directions a couple of times...thank goodness there was a map in the cars and I knew where I was...otherwise, you could get turned around if you're not familiar with the area. Also, hope that you get a car that has a good engine. My friends' car had a better engine than the one that I was in. My car could barely get up some hills, and needed to be pushed up a couple....so awful. One would assume these cars should be able to handle the terrain that they tour. When we told the Go Car people when we returned that cars at the end of the day, they just kind of shugged it off and were like 'yea, we've heard that they do that'....um hello, you could have warned us!!! And finally, when we turned in the cars they tried to charge us way more than what we had signed up for online. We booked the full day tour for a flat rate and they tried to charge us by the hour and said we were over our time limit. After some debate, we got the price back down to what it should be.
We had fun on the tour and my friends saw a lot of the city, so it was worth it, but just be warned and prepared for hiccups along the way.
While I have not actually rented a Go Car, I can say that this location hires really attractive people. And I'll actually be in one in April when friends come to visit!
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I rented a Go Car out of this location - my dad was dying to do it, having seen them around town. Driving around town in this glorified scooter was pretty funny. Everyone stops and points and laughs at you. Hills are rough and even though they plotted the tours to avoid hills generally, there were many tense moments trying to get up hill while SUVs backed up behind us. There are no shocks so it is very bumpy, and the motor is incredibly loud. The GPS narrator is a string of odd facts, restaurant ads disguised as a tour, and directions - you have to strain to hear the lady so you don't miss a turn, even as she tells you things you don't want to know. Especially if you're not familiar with the city, be careful about the time - the tour routes can take you pretty far away, stretching out the pricey time. I'm glad I tried it!
