Amtrak Traps People Still Fall For

hey guys welcome back to the channel today we are sharing Amtrak traps that people still fall [Music] for yeah we meet a lot of firsttime Riders on the train and some of them are kind of shocked they like to tell us their story of what things they've been uh you know were how they expected it to be and what things were wildly different and the first one that they always say is how big or small the room Mets are because I mean look at this picture let's just put a picture up from the Amtrak website this is a picture of how they're representing the roomette to be and in order to get this picture they must have duct taped the camera to the ceiling or put it in the air vent put it on the widest angle possible because this is not at all how big these rooms are when you're actually in them right it looks like there's a ton of space it's really hard to convey through picture or video how small they really are um and I mean we've had several people one person was like way more claustrophobic than I am and he was like there's no way we could stay in that room like we had to ask if there was an extra room on on the train that we could trade with and I mean like you know he was kind of freaking out which I totally sympathize with but he was like I just did not understand how small those room Mets were going to be and you know everybody is different so you know for some people it's going to be a lot harder uh to be in a smaller space some people don't mind at all it just depends you know on your preferences and you know what you like what you don't like so you do have to keep in mind that not only the room Mets but all of the rooms really because uh you know they all are a little bit different than the way that they are portrayed like say the family bedroom for instance right the family bedroom is not this big luxurious spacious giant room it's actually much smaller than you think um for four people especially if you're all trying to cram in there same thing with the bedrooms we've talked about it before the bedrooms yeah you get the extra space but that bathroom and shower combo is super tiny um and can be a little bit of a challenge to use as well yeah so we do have videos on the Channel giving a roomat tour where I'm up there if you're on a super liner which is the ones going to the West Coast and you're laying on your back you're only going to have about that much space from your you to the ceiling so just think about that uh make sure there's someone that is okay with sleeping in a tight space because it is going to be tight there's no way you can sit up uh up there so that that can be a problem for a lot of people all right the next thing trap of am tracks that people fall for is business class now this one's kind of funny because there there are some nice business class options on Amtrak but there are some options where they basically took a coach car and they changed a sign from coach to business and they just give you free drinks that's essentially it so you're paying an upcharge for free drinks you'd have to drink a lot of soda to get your money is worth out of that and so I think the Trap here is not knowing exactly Which business class ticket you want to get and you know some of them are nice and sometimes we do upgrade so we have videos here and articles on our website about which ones you should actually pay the premium for but don't just think because it says business class that you're getting some amazing new experience now again on the website they got pictures of these awesome business class seats you may get on your train and it's just a reg regular coach seat yeah and I think that's really the most interesting part when we noticed that one day we noticed that um you know we were on a train that had business and obviously coach and the seats were actually newer and nicer in the coach car than they were in the car the train car that was labeled business and we were like wait a minute are we in the wrong one and we've looked around we're like no this is this is the business car but the nicer seats are in the coach car yeah but they did give us free drinks they did so you know if that's worth it to you then then that's something uh that you might do but uh next trap that people fall for and we hear this one all the time and they say to us well we we watched your video and we went to your website then we booked the vacation and they'll say it was kind of more expensive than you said it was going to be it was quite expensive it was like $8,000 $10,000 and then they come to say they used Amtrak vacations which they thought was Amtrak and those are two different things so you can book your trip yourself through Amtrak at amtrak.com but they also have packages and you can link to that from MRA vacations which is more of a full service travel agency and so they will book your train your hotel your car put it all together in one package for you but the price is going to be three to four times what you would pay booking it on your own so on am track you can only book your train you can also book a hotel individually through them but you cannot book one of these ones it's like a a package that goes all over the place and does all this and gets you all that stuff without paying a premium so if you're able to book stuff on your own confidently you're going to save a lot of money just booking directly on Amtrak if you think the price is way higher than it should be you may be on am track vacations uh I do want to also point out that a lot of people use am Trak vacations because they can sometimes get hotel rooms near the national parks or get you a spot on a soldout train that might be a good reason to use it but even then you're still paying three to four times what you normally would so we would just say probably just pick a different date yeah and we do have on our website grounded LIF travel.com we do have on there on all the route guides like depending on which train you're looking for like say if you want to do the California Zephyr just look for the California Zephyr on our website and we do have Hotel recommendations right on there um of which ones we recommend you could book them yourself right from the website yeah because there is also no difference between if you're on an Amtrak vacation or if you're just on an Amtrak ticket that you booked yourself there's literally no difference you're going to be sitting with the same people same dinner same room same room attendant everything will be exactly the same only difference will be the price that you paid to get on the train uh so the next thing that people fall for is thinking that you'll get to your destination on time or that you'll be able to make your connecting train all the time yeah I think this is the one that really messes people up the most um there's nothing more stressful than knowing that you've got something that you have to get to we had some people uh some fellow passengers on one of our train rides that had a cruise that they were getting to and they kept looking at the time and we kept falling more and more behind on our arrival time and they were really really sweating it out um and they were so stressed the entire time by the time we got where were we going oh we were on the Empire Builder I think by the time we got to Seattle they were so frazzled and so stressed and it was cutting it so so close to the last minute that they could possibly get on the ship yeah it's just not a good idea and the other problem that you have is you say Well I booked two trains with Amtrak they're responsible to get me to the other one and that is true but they're not responsible to get you there in any particular way so if your train is going to be late they may get you off of that train and put you on a bus to go meet your other train somewhere else and you may skip part of the ride you all kinds of crazy things can happen if you rely on them to get you there or for that connection to be made so what we say to do instead is if you're going to take an Amtrak train just spend the night and you're in your destination city get up the next day take a train out of there the next day that way you can see the city you don't have to worry about being late none of your connections are going to get messed up and they're not going to put you on a bus uh just spending that extra night in a city is going to take care of all those problems yeah it makes your trip a lot more enjoyable when you don't have to think about timing um and the stress levels you know of having to deal with late trains next trap people fall for is paying for bad Metropolitan lounges you can pay for access to a metropolitan Lounge but they are not all the same now uh there's really only two probably lounges we would pay for access to and that is Chicago and New York the rest of them I would just avoid if you're having to pay extra to get into those loues yeah absolutely now you'll already have access to it if you have a sleeper car um and in like Washington DC you have access even with first car uh first class but um if you're going to pay for a metropolitan Lounge because you don't have access to it I would definitely stick to just those two bigger ones there's more offerings because really the other ones you're basically just paying to be waiting in a separate area than everybody else maybe have a couple of snacks uh you know chips and maybe some fresh fruit and a couple of drinks but other than that there's really not a lot to offer outside of those two bck ones all right the next trap is going to be travel insurance and it's not that travel insurance is bad but you can alleviate a lot of the problems that you have on am TR on your own so we've taken a lot of Amtrak rides we've never bought travel insurance and part of the reason for that is because Amtrak is really good at one thing and the thing that they're really good at is making things right once they've had kind of a big mess up so they there really isn't a need for travel insurance on am tr right now because if if your train is late by 12 hours and something goes terribly wrong they've always given us money back on our Tri trip so it really has never yeah it's been kind of a a disappointment but we've never lost money really on an Amtrak trip because of a late train yeah and they've always like even even when they've cancelled trips before we get either our money back right away or our points back right away and we're able to use this use them towards something else or for something else so that has always worked out really well I think it is a really nice uh you know a very good bonus that Amtrak does take care of things you know if you have a ride where things didn't work out the way you wanted them to you can always you know call them up and say hey I took this ride I had these problems and I will tell you for us 10 times out of 10 they have given us money back on a travel voucher to use for our next ride whenever I've called them up so you know travel insurance is not really you know something that you want to get unless you know there's a possibility of some bigger thing happening and even then you've got to read the fine print because a lot of these you know travel insurances don't cover a lot of things yeah travel insurance is not bad in some instances but we have never bought it for Amtrak and we probably never will and I think we've saved a ton of money over the years because I can't even think of a time when we would have used it so that would have all just been money down the drain and they took care of us anyway at the end of the day yeah so guys hopefully this has been helpful to you if you have questions for us leave those down in the comment section don't forget to subscribe give us a like and we'll see you guys next time

Channel: Grounded Life Travel

Views: 57,953

Keywords: first trip on amtrak, amtrak travel guide, dining options on amtrak, amtrak overnight, amtrak train, amtrak sunset limited, amtrak texas eagle, amtrak coast starlight, amtrak empire builder, amtrak california zephyr, amtrak observation car, amtrak guide, beginner guide to amtrak, amtrak, amtrak beginners guide, amtrak coach class, amtrak faq, amtrak tips, amtrak vacation, amtrak superliner, amtrak viewliner, amtrak tips and tricks, amtrak first time rider

Id: Y5j0XYHz5g4

Length: 12min 46sec (766 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 22 2024