We took the Auto Train to Florida, and this shot was snapped just before we arrived at the station. The Auto Train is a unique train that lets you bring your car along. You can only travel on this train if you bring your car. This was my third round trip with this train, and each experience has been good enough that I was willing to rebook for future trips. With three round trips, it means I’ve had the experience 6 times now, once counting each way.
We stayed in a deluxe bedroom on the return ride, which offers a little bigger accommodations and a private bathroom in the room. It offers you a little more breathing room, but it costs a pretty penny to add it to your trip. We take the car because it saves you $150 over taking my SUV. It’s a costly travel trip, but we enjoy it.
As our attendant came to our room the first time to go over things quickly, and ask for our dinnertime, along with when we wanted our beds put down (they were currently seats), my entire opinion changed. I’ve had nothing but polite, friendly and accommodating attendants in the past. On this occasion, I was left with a bad taste, and the next 16 hours of my 17 hour trip were a wee tainted. Imagine having a customer in your store for 17 hours, and in the first hour their opinion of you has started to sour…would you expect them to purchase a lot, or return?
What time would you like me to put your beds down. I asked for 10pm, which is the time we’ve always asked for. We’d done it 5 times previously, and were always met with a great, no problem, and promptly at 10, our beds were made. This time the response is “oh, that’s a little late”.
ME: Excuse me? Is there a problem?
Her: Well, it’s just that it interferes with something I was going to be doing.
ME; Oh, ok, we can be flexible, how about at 9:30.
Her: Oh, can’t I put them down while you’re at dinner?
ME: Dinner is at 5:30, that’s a little early for me.
Her: It’s just, well…
ME: Whenever…(irritated, which is rare for me to get like this)
She came and put our beds down at 7:30, not at my request, but I wasn’t going to make an issue of it, because she obviously didn’t care if I wanted that or not. I will be writing a letter explaining to Amtrak, why I was quite unhappy with this. It put a damper on the entire experience, truly. #1, my son can’t sit up in bed, it’s too close to the ceiling on his bunk, and we have no backrest to lean against to sit and read now with the beds down. Instead of being in the comfort and privacy of our room, we ended up going to the public lounge so we could sit up for awhile. This frustrated me, as we got the larger bedroom for the comfort of quiet, privacy and reading.
5 Great trips in the past, 1 bad experience means they may have lost a future passenger who paid $1000 for round trip accommodations for 2 people and a car. Not good.
What are your employees saying or doing when you aren’t standing over their shoulder?
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