Top Tips for Travel on the Rocky Mountaineer

[Music] [Music] [Music] hello having just returned from a fabulous visit to Canada and Alaska and having been on the Rocky Mount Ayr I thought it might be helpful to some folk if I give some ideas information and what I consider to be top travel tips if you are thinking of planning a journey on the Rocky Mountaineer first thing is consider the journey that you're going to undertake the route or if you are in America the route now if you go onto the Rocky Mountaineer website they have got plenty of maps showing the routes available most of them would be starting in Vancouver and ending up in Banff or you can go on to Calgary by coach but I mean if you go on to their website look at the routes available and you can do circular ones you could start at Calvary and work your way to Vancouver or you can do a complete entire circle starting and finishing at the same place now this is the first tip that I'm going to give to you figure out whether you're going to be traveling east to west or west to east because it really does make a difference if you were to ask a travel advisor you know what is the best seat is it best to travel on the left hand side or the right hand side of the coach that I'm on when I say coach I'm talking about the carriage on the Rocky Mountaineer which is best left or right and they'll say ah makes no difference the views are fantastic and if you're in gold leaf you've got these beautiful glass dome roofs and so on well to a certain extent that is all very true but if you are going from east to west so that's heading toward Vancouver the left hand side is the best place to sit because that's where your best views are continually going to be over your left shoulder if you are traveling westward to Vancouver you want to be on the right-hand side of the carriage so left hand side if you're traveling east right hand side if you're traveling west and that's how you're going to get the best scenery now again depending on whether you're going to be traveling on gold leaf or silver leaf service that is quite a considerable difference in my opinion so first of all let's look at the difference between the two with silver leaf you travel in a simple domed carriage car whatever you want to call it it's a single deck it's like being on a single decker bus or a single decker airplane your breakfast your lunch will be served in the seat where you are on that silver leaf carriage so it's very very similar to being on an aeroplane where the meals are brought to you and you eat them in your seat beverages will not include anything alcoholic the difference with the gold leaf service is considerable you're in a double-decker carriage car okay and again you've got fabulous views because on the top deck you've got all the glass dome you're high up and your visibility is really really good underneath where you're sitting there is a dining carriage so you are called down when the meals are ready and they take 72 passengers on the gold leaf in one carriage and 36 will be called out or call down for the first sitting and a couple of hours later the second lot another 36 people will be called out for for the next sitting of the meals and the meals in that dining room are absolutely amazing I love my food and this is gourmet dining all the way I promise you you're not going to be disappointed with the food they give you a terrific menu there is tremendous choice now when you're when you have eaten or before you've eaten and you're sitting up on the top deck you are continually all day on being invited to have snacks and drinks and here is a difference between the gold and the silver you have unlimited alcoholic drinks you can have soft drinks coffees teas all rest of it but unlimited alcoholic drinks and I fell in love with casino what did they call it creme Royale or something like that the Canadian rye whiskey very very nice I wouldn't have the alcohol in the morning although red wine as well by the way is absolutely fantastic but I wouldn't touch the alcohol in the morning because you'll want to be falling asleep with the motion of the Train early in the afternoon you'll be wanting to close your eyes and what a waste of money you know so my alcohol intake started at lunchtime and through the afternoon in the gold leaf you have reclining seats you've got drop-down tables and again downstairs it has the dining room again with very good views but not with the glass top over the carriage because that's where your seat when traveling is now on the back of the gold leaf they've got like an open box isn't that similar to what we used to remember in the cowboy and Indian films on the rail trucks it's an open deck area on the back of every gold leaf service carriage I must have spent a third of all my journey time on that because I'm a keen photographer and I didn't want reflection from the windows inside the dome and I would be down there and there was usually two or three of us down there most of the time everybody is welcome of course from that carriage but you'll find that when it first starts off you'll get quite a few standing now there and then they decide to sitting comfortably the keen enthusiastic photographers stay downstairs and we make the most of our cameras and the views that are available now this brings me onto another really top tip where do you want to sit now if you've chosen silver leaf service you're going to be in one of the low single deck carriages end of story but if you're going to travel gold leaf are you wanting to be like me and go to the back of the carriage downstairs which is all open and you can take fantastic photographs to the sides or are you going to be more comfortable sitting in comfort for the journey and you want the really best view now if it's the latter and you're wanting the really best view when you make your booking and this isn't in any of the brochures when you make your booking what you want to ask for is to be in the first carriage of gold leaf service and as near to the front as possible now why is this so important really tops if why is it so important because in front of the gold leaf carriages are the silver leaf and the silver leaf a low down so if you're at the front or near the front in the gold leaf up stars are upstairs you have got an amazing view forward right above where the silver leaf carriages are so you can see to the left ahead to the other side of you turn round stand up whatever you can see out the back as well so if you're not a keen keen keen photographer leading gold leaf coach is definitely the place to be now if you're wanting to get the very best of photographs and videos and you're travelling gold where they've got this area at the back of the carriage let's imagine there are six gold leaf carriages on every one you've got this viewing area at the back of each carriage if you're standing in the first gold leaf carriage in that viewing area and you look directly behind you you are looking straight into another carriage which has got another carriage behind that so if photography really is your thing and your thing the very best what I would suggest is here's another top tip what I would suggest is you ask for the very last coach on the gold leaf service that means there's nothing behind you so you've got fantastic views to the left to the right and behind you you can't get better than that so some of the video shots that you'll be seeing on this very brief video will illustrate perfectly there is nothing at all behind me and that's the way that I wanted it to get the best photographs so that open a viewing platform it is terrific it's windy and some of my little videos I didn't how I wasn't wearing a clip-on microphone it was just straight from most of the videos were taken on my iPhone yeah I think every video was taken on the iPhone I didn't take a video camera with me I did take a large camera which is capable of taking video but that was not used on the Rocky Mountaineer now in each carriage for gold leaf you have two attendants and they are amazing because everybody on the train from the driver right through to the very last carriage they are all miked up and got earpieces and they are in constant communication with each other so that when somebody spots something let's say them it's a grizzly bear a black bear or an elk or whatever that information is relayed right the way through the train train rapidly and you're one of your two attendants we'll just stop what they're doing and say hey fam they've got a microphone so everybody on that carriage is gonna hear hey folks look to the left now and you'll see an elk and and so on that's very good for your safety of course but they are there to make sure that you have the very best possible experience so it's drinks snacks all the way absolutely amazing are these two attendants and they're like travel guides as well because they tell you about the journey what you're going to be experiencing and when you actually have something to experience they make sure you know about that now how can we save some money the Rocky Mountaineer it's an amazing experience of my goodness I am gonna do it again without any doubt but I want to choose a different journey my wife and I we traveled from Vancouver overnight stopping Kamloops in the hotel recommended by the Rocky Mountaineer the sandy man and then the next day we travel from Kamloops to Banff then spent a few days in Banff hired a car and I wanted to drive the journey back to Vancouver now that sounds like cool you know what a good idea and in all of my planning I thought yeah this is brilliant but it wasn't the best I did know ahead of time that when I booked the hire car you are traveling out of what they call a province and it was a 300 UK pound Great Britain pound sterling 300 pound sterling addition to the car rental because it was one way out of the province of Alberta so what would I do different next time I would do a circular trip and not hi the car to do a portion of that rail journey so I would want to do a lovely circle whether it commence it commences in Calgary or whether it commences in Vancouver doesn't really matter to me haven't thought that far ahead yet but I know I want to do a lovely circular route all the way around now another top tip I always like to do my own travel arrangements I don't use a travel agent as such so with the Rocky Mountaineer I booked with them direct cut out all the middlemen cut booked with them they give the best discount in my opinion but the benefit of booking with them if you ask them to book your hotels as well my word the advantage this has got now we stayed at the hotel at the Rocky Mountaineer booked for us and I wanted the ultimate experience so we stayed in the gold leaf hotels and it was the Fermont in Vancouver four hundred and twenty pound a night really expensive and sadly it's not value for money so this is something I would definitely do different will definitely do different next time around when we stayed at Banff I did exactly the same thing again stayed at the Fairmont in Banff beautiful castle oh wow absolutely fantastic but by the time you get to your destinations you're on the train up to 12 hours a day all you want to do is to climb to bet and spending 400 to 450 pound and I just for the room no food to me that's not good value for money so I've been in touch with the Rocky Mountaineer since we got back we've only been back two days and they have put together a really good idea for me which would be available to any other traveler of course it's to book the silver leaf service now what this means with the silver leaf service you're getting a slightly lower standard for hotel but as for any sleeping in the hotel that's fine breakfast is on the train lunch is on a train and it's just then an evening meal to sort out where you are staying that evening and you'll be ready for bed trust me by nine o'clock ten o'clock you won't want to be going out partying you will be ready for depth ready for bed it's a tiring day but it's a fabulous day don't want to put you off it it's a fabulous day so you booked silver leaf that is less expensive but you then upgrade the travel on the train so we shall be traveling silver leaf in the hotels and gold leaf on the train so we're going to get the best train experience and we will get not the 400 plus pound per night hotel it will be less expensive that's going to save us a little bit of money now regardless of the hotel that you stay in if you book through Rocky Mountain here here is the next mega thing to tell you about top tip and again I didn't read this in the catalogs but this is how they do it we stayed as I told you in Vancouver on our first night in the Fermont we left our bedroom at 5:30 on our first day of travel it's an early start so be warned all we have to do was pack our cases unlock them and you leave them in the bedroom and you don't touch those cases again until you get to your final destination so we make our way where palak picked up on a coach outside the hotel taken straight to the railway station we board the train and breakfast is served round about half past seven so you might want to take some biscuits or something with you if you have tummy starts rumbling on that first morning but you don't see your baggage until you get into that hotel so our first night we were at Kamloops in the sandy man hotel walked into the bedroom straight off the train into the coach you're taken directly to the hotel into the bedroom our cases were already there now what an incredible service had a good night's sleep early start again picked up by coach taken to the train didn't touch our cases they are locked up you know padlocks and all the rest of it and they are transported by Road to the next destination what a fabulous idea now here is a gain an amazing benefit by booking this through the Rocky Mountaineer through their website on the train at the end of our first day we were tired and I think everybody was and one of the things that you don't look forward to is standing in a long line waiting to check in at your hotel and if you can imagine five six hundred passengers however many there are over all these carriages on there that's the last thing on earth you want to do so what do they do wait for it in the half hour before you get to your destination in this example it was Kamloops they gave out the tickets not a ticket sorry they gave out the room key to your hotel they had done the check-in for you so you've got your room Kate who he's one for Sally won't for me we get off the train don't have to worry about our luggage we know that our luggage is going to be in the bedroom for us we go straight to the elevator up to our floor put the key into the door walk in and we can start to unpack for that day now I've got hay fever and I'm sorry about this I'm going to have to blow my nose right now to me that is an amazing bonus when you can be given the key to your room and you haven't even arrived at the hotel and it was the same every single night so when we got to Banff same procedure bags already in the room and we had the room key and could just go straight up now when you are staying in the gold leaf you know if this is something you've been saving for and you want the ultimate experience you've got that choice between silver and gold and now for 2019 they're adding a gold plus service for the hotels that if you're wanting the ultimate bedroom at the lux bedroom as they call it that is even more money so for me it's not that I'm mean or stingy but I want the best value for money and for me that will be silver leaf in the hotel but gold leaf on the actual train itself I hope that sort of makes sense to you all your hotel transfers from the moment you get to the railway station well from your first hotel they take you by coach to the railway station you're picked up at the railway station that evening taken to the hotel picked up the following morning all of those transfers that they include in the price so I hope those few tips have been helpful to you you can save a bit of money but even if you went silver leaf for the entire trip it's still a considerable amount of money but believe me it's worth every single penny that you're going to spend and if you did decide to travel silver for the entirety of that journey you're gonna wish that you had booked gold and maybe saved for another year okay hope to see you on the Rocky Mountaineer next year all the best

Channel: The REAL David Abel

Views: 82,916

Keywords: rocky mountaineer, gold leaf service, whistler, banff, jasper

Id: A6472VRnh10

Length: 23min 9sec (1389 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 10 2018