Glacier National Park Family Adventure

The trip was definitely a different type of travel adventure but the travel vouchers were confusing and didn’t receive all that was advertised. Information said a dinner in Chicago was included along with two breakfasts. After spending an hour on hold (called AV numerous times for information and clarification, an hour wait time was typical) I learned that the Chicago restaurant was no longer in service. Never received any information on included breakfasts.

In May, 2021 I booked Amtrak Vacation tour from Seattle, WA to East Glacier & back for myself and my 13 year old grandson. Booking the trip was the only easy thing to occur. The trip was to leave Seattle at 4:40 pm and arrive in East Glacier at 9:40 am the next day. Dinner & breakfast were included since we had a sleeper compartment. The meals were horrible! They were microwave meals that were tasteless! The best food was the breakfast muffin, which they were out of on the return trip. We were also told there would be an observation car. Unfortunately we did not have it when we boarded and could not enjoy the views at all! We were told onboard that we would not pick up the observation car until Spokane, which for us was the middle of the night! When I booked the trip we were also told the shuttle would enable us to visit Glacier, take a boat cruise on Two Medicine Lake, etc. A car was not needed.
Unfortunately less than two weeks prior to the trip, I received an email that the shuttle was not running and the boat tour was canceled. I immediately tried calling, but they were closed for the weekend. On Monday morning I was on hold for 1 hour 45 minutes and finally hung up. In the afternoon I tried again; I was on hold for 2 hours and when I explained my needs, she said I had to talk to customer relations and proceeded to put me on another hold. When I finally got connected, I immediately asked for their direct number in case we were disconnected and - big surprise - there is no direct line! This is the poorest customer relations in the world! I should have guessed at that point that the company really does not care once they have your money. They were absolutely no help at all. They could not help me rent a car, offer solutions of how to get around, etc. I asked what were we going to do at the lodge, the agent said they do have a pool. When we arrived the pool was not open! The Amtrak representative just apologized, she could not connect me to a supervisor. When I suggested the supervisor could call me back within 24 hours, she took my name & number, but you guessed it - no one called. Customer Service is nonexistent. It was only when I called the Glacier Park Lodge that I learned they had known the shuttle was not running since at least April. Amtrak Vacations lied to me and sold the trip under false pretenses and made no attempt to help me. The Lodge was also able to give me the local name of the car rental and I was finally able to secure a car. To add insult to injury, Amtrak gave me a $100 voucher to use on a future trip with them. I will never go on another Amtrak Vacation! Frank Marini is the CEO of both Yankee Leisure Group (travel company) and Amtrak Vacations. He has worked in the travel industry for many years including Collette Vacations. He is familiar with travel companies and knows they offer great customer relations; and many offer refunds when things go wrong - why is so adamant about the "no refund" policy? I would question any company affiliated with him. Beware and do not book with Amtrak Vacations.

In July 2018 I booked a trip for 2 to GNP in July 2019. My husband and I are both older with some mobility issues, so I made sure to book a bedroom. I paid in full in January. 2.5 weeks before we were to depart, Amtrak notified my agent that they didn't have a bedroom and would give us two roomettes (room too small, bunks too small, no toilet for old people who need to pee a million times at night). My agent tried for a week to get them to give me a bedroom, but they kept saying "the trains were rearranged and we don't have a bedroom. But we'll keep trying to get one for them." Needless to say, we cancelled the trip (had to cancel or lose money on hotels) and figure out something else to do with our airline tickets. NEVER NEVER EVER WILL I USE AMTRAK; AND I WILL WARN ALL MY FRIENDS, RELATIVES, AND ACQUAINTANCES TO AVOID IT AS WELL. STAY AWAY!!!!!!

Avoid Amtrak VacationsAmtrak Vacations, Inc. let me tell you what a deplorable vacation we had on Amtrak. We scheduled a National Park Amtrak vacation June 2017 to travel July 2018. We were very excited to take this trip. Everyone knows that when you travel with Amtrak there will be delays because Amtrak does not own the tracks. The first part of the trip from Chicago to Salt Lake and the visit to Yellowstone were wonderful. From Salt Lake to Emeryville, CA they ran out of food and we only had a choice of hamburger or hot dog. Certainly not a deal breaker but at least poor planning on Amtrak's part. When we arrived in San Francisco and tried to check into our hotel we were told our reservation had been cancelled by Amtrak Vacations. The next day I was able to correct this after spending almost an hour on the phone with Amtrak Vacations. We waited for the bus to pick us up for our Yosemite tour and were told that the tour bus had already left even though we were where Amtrak Vacations told us where to pick up the bus and we were at this correct spot 35 minutes early. No trip to Yosemite for us. When we left Glacier National Park we had a two hour delay. The conductor made an announcement that several passingers needed to be put up in a hotel in Milwaukee because of the delay . These passengers were traveling on the same connecting train that we were. We questioned the conductor as to why were we not included with those passengers since we're were on the same connecting train. He assured us that we would make our connection. . . . ? How is that possible, of course it was not possible. We received no help from the customer service agent in Chicago. That particular day Chicago had two concerts,the Alzeheimers Conference, 50 years of Special Olympics and a Cubs vs. Card ball game. Needless to say there were no rental cars at either airport and the least expensive hotel cost $378 plus cab fare. We paid $799 for travel interruption insurance and were told today they would pay us $214 for the claim that we filed for $640. What a scam. Moral of the story AVOID Amtrak Vacations.

I rec'd a call the train has been cancelled and they can put me on a bus. that is not acceptable since I wanted the train experience. They refuse to refund me my money. Said only the train is cancelled. I can drive or take a bus. the bus is 2 days of traveling I will miss my tours. this is supposed to be my dream train trip. I've never been on a train before. Amtrak will refund $396 for the train. Amtrak Vacation will only is half $557 in a voucher and I lose out on $557 of my hard earn money due to no fault of mine. this is so unfair and should be illegal.

I found out too late that we had fallen for this company pretending to be part of Amtrak - how they have been operating without a cease and desist is beyond my comprehension.
They did nothing we couldn't have done ourselves on Amtrak's and hotel websites. Our train was delayed TEN hours, which made us miss our rental car pickup time. They did nothing to inform us of the cause for the delay (because they are not Amtrak, now it makes sense), nor did they take action to rebook the rental car. The train back was cancelled due to weather conditions. Again, not Amtrak, so naturally we found out through actual Amtrak's automated voice system which by the way, only said that (ellipsis for robot voice pauses) "your train to ... Chicago ... has been ... cancelled.". We had to separately rent a car to Phoenix (2hr drive) and a flight back home. While it's not their fault the train was cancelled, the complete inaction was a terrible experience. We paid many thousands of dollars for this trip, which honestly would be worth it if it ran smoothly, but putting us through this experience makes me regret the decision to go with such a poorly performing service. Had I known that "AMTRAK VACATIONS" are not affiliated with Amtrak, I would have certainly checked twice for reviews - hopefully this deters someone from making the same mistake we did.