The tipping issue when I travel drives me crazy. I am never sure what’s expected, and I don’t ever seem to have the right denomination of bills or any change. It’s a constant hassle. Almost everywhere else in the world, of course, they have it figured out. Certainly that’s pretty much universally true in restaurants….
Almost everyone knows that, to save money, Amtrak has been cutting back on the little extras that sleeping car passengers have come to expect over the years. The token gifts were Amtrak’s way of saying thank you and welcome aboard to the people paying top dollar for their accommodations and I, for one, appreciated it….
There is a new Metropolitan Lounge for sleeping car passengers in Los Angeles Union Station. It’s certainly a welcome addition … quiet, tastefully decorated, and there are free munchies and an assortment of soft drinks and coffee, also free. But it’s quite small, at least compared to the lounges in Chicago or Washington. And it’s…
I have a lot of empathy for the people who work in the Amtrak dining cars. Consider the dining car crew on the California Zephyr, for instance. They leave Chicago at 2:00 in the afternoon and they get to Emeryville at 4:15 in the afternoon two days later. That’s if they are on time, of…