New Williams, AZ Grand Canyon Shuttle?

[Philly Amtrak Fan]

Not sure this is official and I couldn't find this on Amtrak's page but I found this on "Amtrak in the Heartland".

https://csanders429.wordpress.com/2018/01/09/amtrak-establishes-williams-shuttle/

According to the article it replaces the Williams stop which if I remember from my talk with Neroden he visited on his recent trip to the Grand Canyon.

 

[greatcats]

It is official. It shows as an alert with a ! When booking Southwest Chief. In some respects this is s better arrangement, not so much to and from the west. I am kind of sorry that Williams Junction is no more, but it was a peculiar setup. The new way is also more bucks for Arizona Shuttle.

Sent from my iPhone using Amtrak Forum

 

[neroden]

This is definitively a lot worse than the prior arrangement, but it's also a lot better than nothing.

I guess Xanterra didn't want to pay for the previous arrangement (they were paying for it), so it is what it is. I'm glad I went while the previous arrangements were in place; I wouldn't have been happy with this arrangement while staying at the Grand Canyon Hotel, not least because of the midnight walk between the Holiday Inn and the Grand Canyon Hotel, and the 4 AM wait at the Holiday Inn. (Grand Canyon Hotel is pretty comfortable to wait in at 4 AM).

The employees at the Grand Canyon Hotel were saying they thought Arizona Shuttle didn't know what they had gotten themselves into (as in, there are often quite a lot of people on the shuttle route, and they may not have large enough buses; and if it snows, they have a pile of displaced passengers to handle).

Delayed trains may hit the hours when the Flagstaff station building is closed.

 

[TinCan782]

My wife and I did this 6 years ago this week. As it was "off season", we were put in a room shortly after we arrived at "oh dark thirty" (we arrived from LA) and had minimal time in the lobby...we had reservations for later that same day and night. On the return, we spent several hours in the lobby after dinner waiting for the westbound SWC. We just enjoyed the fire in the fireplace waiting for our departure. The GCRY hotel was in contact with Amtrak to keep us up-to-date on the arrival time (late).

Sorry to see the GCRY shuttle service go away....it worked very well for us.

 

[crescent-zephyr]

Agree with the above post... I used it about a year ago and loved it. Was super convenient and I felt like a celebrity being taken from the door of my sleeper to the door of my hotel!

I was hoping to repeat it for years to come as the Grand Canyon railway is a great destination.

 

[SanDiegan]

I usually am not the one who will say this very tired cliche, but “only in America”