On your bucket list of life, we have always wanted to take the Rocky Mountaineer through the Canadian Rockies. Having heard from many friends how wonderful it was, we couldn't wait to go and finally had the chance. Regrettably, our trip did not meet our expectations and there were multiple problems that will preclude us from ever going again or recommending it. There are some Pros to the trip, the chief of which is the views. There is no question in an open Dome car that you can see 360 Degrees, you are going to see a landscape that most human beings will never see. The scenes were phenomenal and spectacular. We also saw wildlife, mountain sheep, Elk, Eagles, and yes bears in the wild which was exceptional. It was clearly the best thing the train trip had to offer. You have two seats together, and in what they called their gold leaf service you have 2 power outlets and 2 USB ports. You also have the same in the Silver Leaf service but the Silver Leaf service from what we could tell you would not want to take because everything is pretty much crammed in and it doesn't look like it's that comfortable though we met some of the Silver Leaf passengers who indicated to us that service was quicker in those cars. The power outlets didn't do us a lot of good because the train has no Wi-fi for passengers which they don't tell you upfront. They advertised gourmet food, I wouldn't call it gourmet but I would say it's very good food very tasty, and well-prepared. One of their selling points is that you travel all day and see the scenery and then spend your nights at the hotel. The hotels they provide you are above average but there are problems with the Hotels also. One of the good things about this tour is that they do tag and pick up and deliver your luggage room to your room and on our trip, it was always accurately done and our baggage was always waiting for us except in only one case when it was 2 hours late. On most tour trips that we've taken in the past, the luggage arrives much later if it all sometimes. The problems however in our opinion outweigh the positive aspects of this trip. To begin with the transfers from the hotel to your train and then your train back to your hotel we're completely chaotic and no better than a fire drill. There are no provisions made for disabled people when waiting, which seemed to the majority. There was a hurry up and wait for aspect to it and if you were disabled you had to stand for prolonged periods of time waiting to board. Staff seemed to be more interested in following the protocols and procedures than keeping the passengers comfortable. On the last day if you had not paid and booked your final transfer with Rocky Mountaineer you were on your own. I witnessed a wheelchair-bound passenger trying to move her bags with staff standing around not offering to help. On the first day of your trip, you have to have a safety briefing which is fine but you wait a long time to get on the train and once you get to your seat you sit there for some time waiting. It generally took about an hour after boarding to get the breakfast and you were offered nothing to drink during that time. Not even water. Yet the staff was at the back drinking their own personal coffee while everybody else waited. Would it really cut into their profit margins to offer water to everybody when they got on the train initially? There again were times when the comfort of the staff was more important than the passengers. As previously stated there is no Wi-Fi on the train and they don't tell you that. Thankfully we had a data connection that we could use at a reasonable price but I find it quite unacceptable that they don't have Wi-Fi for the passengers. In that they do have Wi-Fi for the staff so if they have it for the staff why can't they provide it for the passengers. There was more than one incident where I was flat lied to. On the second day of the trip, you arrived late after dinner time. Being a diabetic I need to eat so I asked one of the staff on the late day if dinner was going to be served and they told me yes dinner is going to be served. Dinner was not served it was a flat lie. Their second biggest lie is it at the hotels they allegedly have a guest services Center and a phone number to call for assistance for anything. It never happened. We made multiple phone calls that were not answered and their voice mailboxes were always full so you couldn't even leave a voicemail. At every hotel, we looked for the guest center and there were none and there was no Rocky Mountaineer staff to assist you another, flat lie. We did find one at the Lake Louise Hotel where the sign said staff available 5 to 8 PM Tuesday and Saturday so only 6 hours a week. In that our bus left Tuesday morning at 7 AM what were we supposed to do? Miss the bus and wait until 5 PM to speak with someone? And lastly, in their brochures, they tell you that you can get a great rest on the train because their seats recline and this is not true. They move the bottom which moves forward but the back does not recline back. In truth, the seats are fairly uncomfortable and we were not able to even nap on the train. In that especially going east some of the trains arrive late we actually found it was difficult to find dinner reservations and dinner was always on you. You may want to make dinner reservations before you leave but in Kamloops, this is impossible because they do not tell you the name of the hotel until you are off the train and our hotel was far out with no surrounding business and the hotel restaurant was fully booked when we arrived for dinner. Everywhere we ended up seemed to be quite busy and there really weren't any restaurant reservations to be found. And even though you spend the night at a hotel you are there 8 hours or less because of the early rising and you really get no benefit from the hotel. Finally, in their brochures, they certainly don't mention this and after you book they tell you last minute but going east you're required to get up and be out of the room at a very early hour sometimes as early as 5 a.m. For someone who is not a morning person, this was quite difficult for me especially given the fact that I had to wait on the train to be seated for breakfast before I even got coffee. The trains going from the west from Jasper and Banff leave a little later so it's not as much an issue for those trips. Having all of that information I would recommend that if you want to take this train you always take the westbound trains from Jasper to Vancouver or from Banff to Vancouver, and that one is the more scenic. Something we found interesting from the staff is that the staff at least considers these train trips just a two-day one-way trip, either going east or going west. Even though we did it round trip as far as the Rocky Mountaineer staff is concerned it's two separate train trips. Once we got to Banff for example we stayed five days in the area and then after five days took the Rocky Mountaineer back to Vancouver. Once you are off the trains there is no assistance or communication regarding Rocky Mountaineer from anyone. Again the scenic views are spectacular even epic and something that most human beings will never see. It made up for a lot of the negatives on the trip. Knowing what I know now I would not really want to take another trip with this company and if I was I would make sure that it was going west to east and not the opposite. I should also mention the hotels that we stayed at, both the ones that the Rocky Mountaineer booked as well as the ones we booked on our own all had very few electrical outlets in the room, Most had no USB ports. You need to be sure and take a power strip and enough USB and regular electrical ports on the strip to meet your needs. This seems to be peculiar to Canada for some reason. It's one way to save power.
