Mystic River Dragon
Engineer
- Joined
- Dec 26, 2014
- Messages
- 4,536
I am on a short mini-trip--Philly and a bit of VIrginia--and I will not bore you with the details, since I've mentioned visiting these places before. However, my main Christmas present to myself was a roomette in 19 this afternoon from PHL to ALX (all of three hours). I talked myself into it because business class on the Regional was almost as expensive, so I went for the roomette and dinner included.
The good: The train was on time, and I had an absolute wonderful SCA, an older man named Vincent. He welcomed me as I boarded, then said "I'll stop by in a minute," which he did to explain the roomette. I politely told him I had been on the Silvers so knew how things were set up, and he said that was good but to ask him if anything was unclear. He had put a large bottle of water in my roomette before I got on. I said I'd like to go to dinner early so I could get off at WAS and see the engine change, and he told me to go at 5:00 when they opened and he would tell the dining room staff I was coming then. Then, when I was having dinner, he stopped in to tell me we would be in WAS shortly and which door he would have open. He got a $5.00 tip from me. (I did ask him if he had someone else coming into the roomette later, and he said yes, so I hope they give him a nice tip at the end of their trip.)
The mixed: The dining car was the one with the green chairs and curtains, which I like. There were two dining room staff, a man and a woman. I stood and waited to be seated, like you're supposed to, and the woman told me to sit across from a woman and her grandson. So far, so good. Then I ran into an awkward situation. The woman said that her husband, who was quite large, would be coming and so I could sit across from them. I told her I wasn't sure I was allowed to change once they tell you where to sit, but I said I would check. So I told the woman who had seated me, and she said, "Well, it's a table for four, but sit where you want." So I sat across the aisle from them.
The man was the waiter and very pleasant. However, I ordered the steak (which was fine), then the woman across from me ordered the shrimp/crab thing, and the waiter said, "We don't have that today--they gave us salmon instead." Heck, I love salmon and would have had that if I'd known.
After I was so careful to follow protocol, just about everyone else came in (qjuite a crowd at 5:00, surpisingly) and sat wherever they felt like.
So it wasn't that the dining staff was rude or mean--they just seemed a bit disorganized. I asked for dessert and coffee to go so I could watch the engine change. I had a lot of chocolate over the holidays, so I decided to try the cheesecake, thinking it couldn't be as bad as it looked. It was--I ate about half of it and gave up.
Aside from the cheesecake, there was nothing truly awful about my three hours on the Crescent. Maybe I'll get adventurous in the future and go all the way to Charlottesville on it!
The good: The train was on time, and I had an absolute wonderful SCA, an older man named Vincent. He welcomed me as I boarded, then said "I'll stop by in a minute," which he did to explain the roomette. I politely told him I had been on the Silvers so knew how things were set up, and he said that was good but to ask him if anything was unclear. He had put a large bottle of water in my roomette before I got on. I said I'd like to go to dinner early so I could get off at WAS and see the engine change, and he told me to go at 5:00 when they opened and he would tell the dining room staff I was coming then. Then, when I was having dinner, he stopped in to tell me we would be in WAS shortly and which door he would have open. He got a $5.00 tip from me. (I did ask him if he had someone else coming into the roomette later, and he said yes, so I hope they give him a nice tip at the end of their trip.)
The mixed: The dining car was the one with the green chairs and curtains, which I like. There were two dining room staff, a man and a woman. I stood and waited to be seated, like you're supposed to, and the woman told me to sit across from a woman and her grandson. So far, so good. Then I ran into an awkward situation. The woman said that her husband, who was quite large, would be coming and so I could sit across from them. I told her I wasn't sure I was allowed to change once they tell you where to sit, but I said I would check. So I told the woman who had seated me, and she said, "Well, it's a table for four, but sit where you want." So I sat across the aisle from them.
The man was the waiter and very pleasant. However, I ordered the steak (which was fine), then the woman across from me ordered the shrimp/crab thing, and the waiter said, "We don't have that today--they gave us salmon instead." Heck, I love salmon and would have had that if I'd known.
After I was so careful to follow protocol, just about everyone else came in (qjuite a crowd at 5:00, surpisingly) and sat wherever they felt like.
So it wasn't that the dining staff was rude or mean--they just seemed a bit disorganized. I asked for dessert and coffee to go so I could watch the engine change. I had a lot of chocolate over the holidays, so I decided to try the cheesecake, thinking it couldn't be as bad as it looked. It was--I ate about half of it and gave up.
Aside from the cheesecake, there was nothing truly awful about my three hours on the Crescent. Maybe I'll get adventurous in the future and go all the way to Charlottesville on it!
