Our Grandluxe tour - or our $12,000+ mistake

train
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We arrived at the Hyatt a day ahead of the train departure in case of any delays.  Sunday afternoon we checked in with the Grandluxe in a meeting room at the Hyatt.  We were given a paper to sign and were told they would be taping an infomercial while we were on the train.  We were also promised that they would not interfere with out trip at any time.  I thought it was an incredible invasion of our privacy, but signed the paper because we were told to. (bad choice)  We were not told that they had arranged for tours of Albuquerque.  They forgot to give us the itinerary that explained that.  We were then told to go sit in a banquet room but we would not be having the intro meeting for 3 hours.

All in all, it was NOT a good start. When the meeting started, they told us what a great trip it was going to be and again promised that the filming would not interfere in any way.  They did not bother to tell us that they already knew that the air conditioning in most of the cars did not work and they had not been able to get parts for them.  Nor did they tell us that some of the toilets were broken in the sleeping cabins.  Both of these problems were not only occurances on the previous trip, but had plagued them since they aquired the train from the AOE (from a very good source who will remain anonymous)

Our Grandluxe rip-off

We boarded the train and found our cabin.  The toilet did not work.  Our rail car attendant stopped by to introduce herself, but unfortunately she offered no service to us for the entire trip.  She informed us that we would get fresh towels after three days.   Other cars had attendants that actually checked to see if there was anything they wanted.  Our attendant did not even respond to the call button in the cabin. Cleanliness was not high on their priorities.  We found personal items from the previous riders when pulling our luggage out under the bed (the only place to store it) The windows were filthy inside and out.  We used the same bed linens all week (I hope they were not left over from the previous tours!) If you were not the first to reach the dining cars, you used the same table linens as all the previous diners.