PNW Fest: Trips TO the Fest
#21
Posted 18 July 2010 - 10:31 AM
#22
Posted 18 July 2010 - 10:41 AM
#23
Posted 18 July 2010 - 07:21 PM
#24
Posted 18 July 2010 - 09:05 PM
Take care and take trains!
#25
Posted 18 July 2010 - 11:11 PM
#26
Posted 18 July 2010 - 11:20 PM
You did better than I did. I struck out both ways on US. It was steerage for me going to Chicago, and now steerage coming back to PHL from PDX. My only consolation: I do have a brand new pair of noise-cancelling earphones (thanks to forgetting my earbuds and getting carried away at the ORD electronics shop), so how bad could it be in the back of the bus? OK, pretty bad.Hope you guys had a great day today. I just learned that I got a complementary upgrade to first class on my flight out to Seattle on Tuesday. So I am rearing to go now even more so than I was before.
As for the Empire Builder heading out from Chicago to Portland? I'd give it a B.
- Service was pretty decent, maybe a B-. That is notwithstanding our car attendant getting overwhelmed and not converting my room for sleeping the second night (thank you Alan for showing me the ropes), and also not distributing he promised Champagne greeting. She was, howver, trying, so that takes it from a C+ to a B-
- The train operation was an A: basically on-time. CP and BNSF did a fine job, and Amtrak did as well. My room was fine, except for a door that would not stay shut unless it was latched (which I could not do if I was not in the room).
- Food was a B-: the two dinners were pretty good, lunch was OK, breakfast was much less than OK (particularly that sad excuse for a breakfast provided to sleeper pax on the Portland section the last day - just downright awful).
- Food service was an A. We had a really good dining car team.
- The "wine tasting" was sad (the poor guy read from a script and had no clue what he was talking about). It was pretty much what you would expect from an Amtrak-conducted wine tasting. I'll give it a C+. It could have been worse, but at least they try.
- The logistics of the Portland sleeper, five cars removed from the dining car (four coaches and the Sightseer), was a D-. The Portland pax are in exile back there. I would do the EB again, but not the Portland section.
Overcoming all of that was the on board OTOL company which, as always, gets and A+.
#27
Posted 19 July 2010 - 12:53 AM
Kevin Korell
OTOL Board Leader
Lakewood, NJ
#28
Posted 19 July 2010 - 10:07 AM
Was the Coach end of the PDX Sleeper the Roomette end or the Bedroom end?And once it was gone, and we were the last car on the train, that did not stop coach passengers the following evening from walking into our sleeper, despite the sign on the door advising them not to.
#29
Posted 19 July 2010 - 06:00 PM
Edited by steve4031, 19 July 2010 - 06:02 PM.
1 user(s) are reading this topic
0 members, 1 guests, 0 anonymous users