gnome-terminalshortcut-keys
This is not just gnome terminal, but pretty much all gnome windows: When you hold the "alt" key, you can press the first letter of one of the menu items. This will let you scroll that menu without clicking on it directly.
This is okay on any other window, like say Firefox, but on gnome terminal, it steals the keys I use for emacs!! There is very little chance of me learning a new set key combinations if I can avoid.
If I can't isolate this just to gnome terminal, I'm fine with that.
I know, this is not a real answer to the question.
But it is an alternative to achieve what OP requests as Nautilus does not natively offer a solution:
There you can add a button in the Toolbar to open Terminal in current folder.
More on Nemo:
I just stumbled upon the answer...
Apparently Gnome Terminal is different from "normal" apps and has accelerators turned off by default? (Why is this?)
Anyway, the solution was to go to Edit menu -> Preferences -> General and enable the "Enable mnemonics" checkbox.
Also curious, why are they called mnemonics in this case but accelerators" in the official help documentation? Perhaps a consistent naming should be adopted to make it less confusing? I'd vote for "mnemonics" now that I'm aware of that term (I'd never heard of it before today); "accelerators" has too many other meanings.
Best Answer
Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts..., and uncheck "Enable menu access keys".