Rail & Drive

“The train is quite comfortable, the staff is fantastic and Rocky Mountaineer is very generous with food (which was quite good) and drink. But this is a very loooong train ride. The trip from Vancouver to Kamloops was really nothing all that special. And although the second day scenery was much better we were delayed 3 hours, putting us into Banff at 11:30 p.m. So we saw none of the stunning scenery around Lake Louise and Banff from the train. We did meet many wonderful people and enjoyed the company and camaraderie; especially during the long delay. Once we picked up our car in Banff, we were able to explore on our own and that was much more enjoyable - the area is just stunning and we were treated to perfect weather. The hotels arranged for us were good, The Post in Lake Louise was outstanding! The Westin in Calgary was not, a tiny room in a generic corporate hotel with some very rude staff. But we enjoyed the city of Calgary quite a bit. All in all, we enjoyed the trip and we're glad we did it. Although I hope to return to some of the areas we explored in Western Canada, I don't think I'll be using Vacations by Rail anytime in the future. They were not particularly helpful or communicative. When I asked them to help arrange a few extra nights throughout the tour, there was initially no response to my request - you'll never get anyone to answer their phone, it's all email - and when I followed up a week later, I was simply told that nothing was available. I called the various hotels myself and made my own arrangements for the additional nights. I could have easily done that for the entire trip rather than dealing with VBR.