A slightly disturbing early start the earliest so far. It was still dark when we went for breakfast mainly as although the sun had risen it was still behind the mountains. I attempted to get some atmospheric photos but they didn’t come out very well. Anyway at 7:15 we were on the bus and ferried to the Rocky Mountaineer train station in Jasper and boy was it cold. No kidding here you could see your breath, when the train pulled in it was a mad rush onto the train. Due to the size of our group we had a carriage to ourselves and being the youngest by far we were the first on. But again all seats had been pre allocated so we were stuck with what we were given. The seat area was huge with plenty of leg room, but we had a window divide was just in front of us so we didn’t have the best view. There was a viewing platform at one end of the carriage but it wasn’t very big and could only hold 4 people at a time, this didn’t really matter today as the trackside was obscured by trees a lot of the way. We did manage to see some wildlife fairly early on both bears and elk. I think in total we saw 5 bears which brings the bear count to roughly 9 although I’m kind of losing track so I may have that a bit out. One interesting thing about the journey was that we crossed a time line leaving mountain time and entering pacific time gaining an hour in the process. The train journey in total was about 8 hours so slightly exhausting.
Our hotel stop for the night was not a Fairmont as the rest have been but a Best Western. To say it was slightly lower class was an understatement. The rooms themselves were ok and fairly big. Ours had a balcony but unfortunately overlooked the main state highway so not much opportunity for sitting out.
There was a shopping centre across the road so we had a wander around this before heading for a drink in the bar. Unluckily we got the dippy waiter who got my drink wrong so not a great start, then after charging the bill to the room we got a snotty phone call saying we couldn’t do this as we didn’t register a credit card at check-in. This hadn’t been a problem at any other hotel and given the amount of business the train company were putting through the hotel you would have thought they’d give better service. I think Princess should be the ones arranging the accommodation here instead of leaving it to the train company as the quality and service is so different of that of the rest of the hotels. The restaurant didn’t get any better and despite the reservations put through for everyone no tables were ready and everyone had to queue. I won’t even bother to go in to the food and wine service……..
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