Amtrak Vacations Arvostelua 

Where to start?? Made this a gift for my 89 year old mother so I was looking for an all inclusive vacation with minimal walking. They guaranteed me they would make it seamless. Ha! Amtrak Vacations isn’t even part of Amtrak! They are just a travel agency that leases their name! The hotels were fine but that was about it. We were in charge of getting to each place to catch the bus or train. Thank goodness for Uber! At one point the bus left us off blocks from the Amtrak station. We struggled with our luggage and my mom walking with a cane only to find out they were closed for another 5 hours!! We had no where to go so we took an Uber to the airport to sit until it opened.
I paid an amount that would have paid for a week at an all inclusive resort in the Caribbean. The hotels were 3 stars and the transportation a mush mash of ok and rickety. At one point we felt like we were on a school bus for a 5 hour transfer!
I would never recommend this company to anyone and will never use them again!

DISAPPOINTED AND FEEL CHEATED!!!
We booked the Glacier Park round trip Amtrak getaway for July 7the returning on July 12, 2024. This trip goes to East Glacier with lodging at The Glacier Park Lodge. Two tours are included since the stay at the hotel is for 2 days and 3 nights. There is the boat tour of Medicine Lake (east side of Glacier and the 2nd tour was the Big Sky Circle Tour. This tour was supposed to take you to West Glacier and drives through the entire park with several sightseeing stops. TODAY they canceled this tour and put us on the Sun Tours trip from East Glacier straight to Logan Pass and back to Medicine Lake. Called and got some ridiculous excuse and. now there's no remedy.

Date of experience : April 23, 2024

Horrible experience! We are so scarred from the train trip that we shudder every time we hear or see a train. A man sitting in the seat behind us threatened to kill his parents. A Hispanic woman called us white trash and threatened us. They would not let us in the dining car to eat and had to pay for frozen burgers that they warmed in a microwave. When we filed a complaint, they gave us a credit for another trip which we would never use!! Do not give these people your money!!

This review is for Amtrak Vacations not Amtrak.
1. Amtrak Vacations is NOT Amtrak despite using the Amtrak logo.
2. Bookings on AV do not show up on the Amtrak phone app
3. Amtrak is prohibited from changing an AV booking because AV is a travel agent.
4. If you have trouble AV closes at 5 pm Eastern time and despite pressing "3" for travelers who have missed a connection or train, you get a recording the office is closed. You are on your own...
5. With limited phone service on a train and the hold times for AV your call gets dropped before you can get help.
6. They have to call Amtrak to get answers to specific questions, so you are better off just booking directly with Amtrak.
7. Any issues with Amtrak and compensation or reimbursement from Amtrak have to go back thru AV, not directly to you.
8. I am running out of room to give more horid details. DO NOT USE AMTRAK VACATIONS or their sister company Yankee Travel

The company is not affiliated with Amtrak. It's a rip off scam company using the good name of Amtrak. They take your money offer
crap vacations that they mess up so bad. You can't get a refund . Don't use Amtrak Vacations

We took the National Parks tour to Arches, Zion, and Grand Canyon. They did not inform us we had to find our own way to get the rental car at Grand Junction. We had to get a cab and it was $30. They also did not inform us we had to pay the one way drop fee for the car. The tour guide at Moah for Arches and Canyonlands was wonderful! The trip was as they advertised and was great. Good hotels and Grand Canyon train was the best. You need to make sure you get dinning reservations in GC (on line) as they are all booked up. Except for lack of transportation to get car and charging us one way fee it was great.

Our family of 4 visited Canada for the first time. We enjoyed the entire itinerary. We only had one problem with one tour that was scheduled for wrong time but once I called customer service they had no problem reimbursing us for that tour. We never stayed overnight on train before so that was one of the highlights. Even though we were disappointed that our sleeper was one of the older ones and was in back of train so far from dining car. All of the hotels were in great locations and beautiful accommodations. I would definitely use Amtrak Vacations again!

I set out on my my first employee FAM with Amtrak Vacations back in August with lots of excitement and ready for the adventure that awaited me. And an adventure it was. I loved the fact that everything was planned out for me. The trip was awesome from the deep dish pizza in Chicago to watching the sunrise at the Grand Canyon to eating the food on the train, which was vegetarian friendly which was my fear before taking the train.

I am planning my next trip and it will be by using Amtrak vacation.

Mercifully, the threatened RR strike cancelled my vacation, But in 4 days:

1. FORMAL COMPLAINT: Instructions for meeting SLC Xpress.

Cabby had no detail where the SLC Xpress stop was on SLC Temple Square. Temple Square is pretty big and pretty crowded on a Sunday morning. It is difficult and exhausting to relocate our luggage and disabled spouse in wheelchair a little over 1/2 mi. from where I was dropped off. Bad directions? I got plenty of them.

The only way I made it was that I allowed 90 minutes for the transfer. Couldn't you have just provided an address or intersection?

With everything else that was going on I forgot this irritation with the lack of competency in your travel documents. They were worthless.

2. FORMAL COMPLAINT: please forward to the appropriate department and respond in 10 days.

DURING BOOKING I POINTED OUT THAT OUR AMTRACK PROFILE HAS MY WIFE AS DISABLED. I'M A COMPANION.

I'M SURE THAT IF YOU CHECK OUR TRAIN RESERVATION YOUR AGENT TOOK CARE TO BOOK ACCESSIBLE ROOMS, EXCEPT IN ONE CASE WHERE AN ACCESSIBLE ROOM WAS NOT AVAILABLE. LITTLE AMERICA DID NOT HAVE US IN AN ACCESSIBLE ROOM UNTIL I COMPLAINED. A LOT.

I GIVE SALT LAKE EXPRESS GOOD GRADES FOR ACCOMODATING US. BUT THERE WAS NO HEADS UP FROM YOU TO SALT LAKE EXPRESS.

MY WIFE HAD TO BOARD AND DE-BOARD ON HER OWN. IT WAS SLOW FOR ALL SLC XPRESS VEHICLES, DIFFICULT AND HUMILIATING.

THE 9/12 YELLOWSTONE LOOP TOUR VEHICLE HAD A LIFT BUT DRIVER SAID IT DIDNT WORK (OR WAS TOO LAZY TO TRY TO USE IT) UNTIL HALF WAY THROUGH THE TOUR WHEN HE REALIZED HOW THOROUGHLY EXHAUSTED MY WIFE WAS GETTING. EITHER DUE TO EXHAUSTION OR TO KEEP FROM SLOWING THE ENTIRE TOUR DOWN, MY WIFE DEFERRED ON GETTING OFF FOR HALF THE STOPS.

GRRRRR

I just got back from an amazing first trip with Amtrak Vacations traveling to Chicago, Grand Canyon National Park, and Los Angeles. I got to see the U.S. from a completely different perspective and I met some great people along the way.

I am an Amtrak Vacations employee and we get to go on trips like these every year to get firsthand knowledge on the services we provide and the places customers can go.