G
guest in the west
Guest
Some observations at LAUS:
1.The new LAUS lounge is everything it should be and better. Spacious with comfortable soft furniture and tables/chairs setups. Plenty of soft lighting. Windows viewing the platform areas where you can watch all the trains, including the Metro Gold Line, arrive and depart. A nice big-screen TV. Two coolers filled with Pepsi, Sierra Mist, OJ, Cranberry Juice and Perrier. Chips and related snacks. Coffee machine and hot tea. Tap water. CLEAN and spacious restrooms (and that's a HUGE plus for anyone who has had to deal with the regular LAUS bathrooms, one male and one female restroom for the entire station, which are perennially crowded and dirty). A nice selection of magazines and Amtrak schedules for every train using LAUS plus the national schedules and guides. Friendly, attentive AND knowledgeable staff. In short, a first-class operation from A to Z.
There is no signage still as of Thanksgiving night. You really need to know how to find the elevator or else ask for directions. Otherwise, you could spend a day at LAUS without locating it. Even after reaching the second floor from the elevator, the entrance is by no means intuitive. So even though business class was sold out on 796 to San Diego on Thanksgiving night, there was only one guest using the lounge--me.
2 The 796 Surfliner left LAUS on the button at 10:10 p.m., without waiting for the CS, which was pulling into the station as 796 was departing; 796 indeed had to stop for a couple of minutes less than 100 yards out to wait for CS 11 to cross over the tracks into its platform. I am curious as to why the Surfliner did not wait. Surely there were pax on 11 who were connecting. Those pax must have ended up waiting for the 2 a.m. Ambus to San Diego, a situation which would leave most very unhappy, especially since the first-class lounge closes at 10:30 p.m. Perhaps the Surfliner would be too much delayed if some pax had to wait for their checked baggage to be transferred? It just seems odd that 796 was not held for 10-15 minutes. I hope this is not standard operating procedure.
3, Most Surfliners are now actually making all the Coaster stops in San Diego County instead of the stops just being listed on schedules. It is a bit jarring to stop every four or five minutes between Oceanside and San Diego after years of speeding down the coastline with but one station, but even late at night there were one or two pax detraining at each stop and all the additional station pauses only took 5 minutes longer than had the Surfliner only stopped at Solana Beach. So past negative comments about this new minor revenue producer seem overblown.
And Southern California had its spat of horrible Thanksgiving weather too! Some clouds and even a few sprinkles here and there with temperatures only into the mid-60s.
1.The new LAUS lounge is everything it should be and better. Spacious with comfortable soft furniture and tables/chairs setups. Plenty of soft lighting. Windows viewing the platform areas where you can watch all the trains, including the Metro Gold Line, arrive and depart. A nice big-screen TV. Two coolers filled with Pepsi, Sierra Mist, OJ, Cranberry Juice and Perrier. Chips and related snacks. Coffee machine and hot tea. Tap water. CLEAN and spacious restrooms (and that's a HUGE plus for anyone who has had to deal with the regular LAUS bathrooms, one male and one female restroom for the entire station, which are perennially crowded and dirty). A nice selection of magazines and Amtrak schedules for every train using LAUS plus the national schedules and guides. Friendly, attentive AND knowledgeable staff. In short, a first-class operation from A to Z.
There is no signage still as of Thanksgiving night. You really need to know how to find the elevator or else ask for directions. Otherwise, you could spend a day at LAUS without locating it. Even after reaching the second floor from the elevator, the entrance is by no means intuitive. So even though business class was sold out on 796 to San Diego on Thanksgiving night, there was only one guest using the lounge--me.
2 The 796 Surfliner left LAUS on the button at 10:10 p.m., without waiting for the CS, which was pulling into the station as 796 was departing; 796 indeed had to stop for a couple of minutes less than 100 yards out to wait for CS 11 to cross over the tracks into its platform. I am curious as to why the Surfliner did not wait. Surely there were pax on 11 who were connecting. Those pax must have ended up waiting for the 2 a.m. Ambus to San Diego, a situation which would leave most very unhappy, especially since the first-class lounge closes at 10:30 p.m. Perhaps the Surfliner would be too much delayed if some pax had to wait for their checked baggage to be transferred? It just seems odd that 796 was not held for 10-15 minutes. I hope this is not standard operating procedure.
3, Most Surfliners are now actually making all the Coaster stops in San Diego County instead of the stops just being listed on schedules. It is a bit jarring to stop every four or five minutes between Oceanside and San Diego after years of speeding down the coastline with but one station, but even late at night there were one or two pax detraining at each stop and all the additional station pauses only took 5 minutes longer than had the Surfliner only stopped at Solana Beach. So past negative comments about this new minor revenue producer seem overblown.
And Southern California had its spat of horrible Thanksgiving weather too! Some clouds and even a few sprinkles here and there with temperatures only into the mid-60s.
