August 9, 2025 • 53 mins
The Wishing Well's Terrie Dean and Harry Reif discuss group travel and Harry's recent trip to Canada for a once in a lifetime experiemce on the Rocky Mountaineer!
Harry reflects on his journey through the breathtaking landscapes of the Canadian Rockies, aboard the world-renowned Rocky Mountaineer train. You’ll hear the rumble of the tracks, the whisper of the wind through the pines, and the stories of the places and people that make this journey so unforgettable.
Harry reflects on his journey through the breathtaking landscapes of the Canadian Rockies, aboard the world-renowned Rocky Mountaineer train. You’ll hear the rumble of the tracks, the whisper of the wind through the pines, and the stories of the places and people that make this journey so unforgettable.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is a Lifeless Ordinary, the travel show and podcasts
from your friends at the wishing Well two forty three
f Avenue in Harsmert and online at the wishing Well
dot biz. The wishing Well is your ultimate luxury concierge,
travel agency and a Lifeless Ordinary is a travel show
and podcast hosted by Terry Dean, bringing her over forty
years of experience in the travel industry to help guide
(00:21):
you to great experiences in your travel, whether it be
around the block, around the country, or around the world.
Let's bring in Terry Dean.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
And say hello, Hey, Chris, how are you?
Speaker 1 (00:30):
You know what I'm doing?
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Great? Happy weekend.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
It's always going to see on a Saturday morning. We
do this every Saturday. We sit down, we talk travel.
If you're smart, you grab yourself a cup of coffee
and you settle in for the next fifty some minutes
and enjoy. We don't always get to have Harry in
the studio. And I'm so excited Harry that you are
here this week. Carry right from the wishing Well.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
You guys are too kind.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
If we try to be so, Terry wantn't you to
explain what we're going to be talking about? Today.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
We are actually going to be talking about group travel
here on a Life Less Ordinary today, and that's really
relative because Harry just got back from escorting one of
our Rocky Mountaineer trips. Prior to that, he had done
a Spain in Portugal and Morocco trip. So we want
to talk through this with Harry. We want to talk
(01:21):
about the ease that group travel presents to people, the
convenience of it, the seamlessness, the worry free movements. This
is a great show today. It's entitled doing It Together,
and we entitled it that because we really are going
to highlight some of the group travel that we do.
You have escorted a number of the wishing Wells most
(01:43):
recent trips, Harry. There's particular luxuries that are forded to
travels who travel by group. And before we launch into
the actual trip details of the Rocky Mountaineer that you did,
I want you, if you will, to walk our audience
through the beauty of traveling with groups at the Wishing Well.
Chris and I are going to be firing a lot
(02:04):
of questions at you today and so I want you
to start from the in office prep that's involved in
some of these group trips and the behind the scenes
efforts that go into that.
Speaker 4 (02:16):
Sure.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Group trips are especially fun for people, and they're especially
relevant for people who may have some fear about travel.
They want to make sure that nothing goes wrong. They
want to make sure that when they go on their
trip that everything will be taken care of. And as
in life, things happen, so they want to make sure
that if something happens, or when something happens, there's someone
(02:39):
there that can take care of that immediately, can smooth
it over and pretty much make it invisible to them.
So there's a lot of prep that goes into a
group trip, and that's why we don't do them every
single week.
Speaker 4 (02:53):
But when we prep for a.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Group trip, we have to foresee all of the things
that are relevant for that trip, starting with making sure
that we have easy air traveltary. You speak all the
time about you know, connectionless flights, you know, one stop
kinds of flights, So we look for things like that.
We look for properties that are proven, properties, that are
(03:17):
properties with great reputations for service, properties that we can
depend on. We lean heavily on our virtual so network
properties when we do that, and we look at the
same kinds of things with our tour operators, whether it's
a train trip, whether it's a cruise, whatever the mode
is of service along that trip, or for the extra
(03:38):
activities that we're going to be doing, Chris, we want
to make sure that those folks have a solid track
record and putting that together, like pieces of a puzzle,
is making that trip happen, and that has extra pieces
in there when you talk about group travel, because you're
not just talking about driving your car up to doll
(04:00):
Us and jumping on a plane. But when we do
group travel at the Wishing Well, we always include a
component that says you drive to our door, you park
at our door, and you jump onto transportation there and
at that point we're holding your hand the rest of
the way. We do have people that may join us
in Dallas, and on this trip we did have people
(04:22):
that joined us in Dallas. We had people that flew
in from Dallas, not Dallas, but we put that all
together and that's I think what you were referring to, yeah, area.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
And just as important as the airlines and several of
the other components the hotels, transfers, ground operators and things
like that, our tour operators are our great partners in
travel as well, and in this particular trip, the one
that we're going to be highlighting today, Harry, the one
that you're going to be talking us through was Rocky Mountaineer,
and we had a great relationship with them throughout this
(04:54):
booking process. I want to remind our listeners though, as
we talk about this trip, it was a rich planned
for departure in twenty twenty four, and the reason that
that trip did not occur in twenty twenty four is
because of the Canadian wildfires that took place, and we
worked diligently with our partners at Rocky Mountaineer to ensure
(05:16):
that the folks who went on this trip, this group trip,
were going to have the best experience that they could
and that meant we had to move that trip. And
so when we talk about groups, there's some optimums that
I want us to highlight to Harry. And my next
question to you is what, in your opinion, you've led
a couple of these trips, now, what in your opinion
(05:38):
would be the optimum size group for group tours.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
That's a great question, Terry. And we've had groups that
have ranged from about I think twenty people somewhere smallest
group to one time I did over ninety people. Oh,
there will not be a second time when I do
ninety people. That was you know, you kind of stress test.
Let's stress test to me a little bit an optimal number.
Speaker 4 (06:02):
For the trip.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Though, to answer your question directly, Terry is somewhere about
twenty five. Thirty five is a good number because that
means we can deal with motorcoach transportation in numbers that
fit the sizes of the transportation modes. It means that
we can deal with airlines and numbers that are reasonable
for groups. It means that we can deal with properties
(06:24):
in numbers that are reasonable for groups, and cruise lines
and all the other modes of transportation that.
Speaker 4 (06:29):
Are a part of doing that trip.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
Absolutely, And I think, you know, having that secret sauce
in developing a group is part of the magic in
that is getting at the right number, that sweet spot,
because if you have too many people, not everybody feels
like they get personal attention. If you don't have enough people,
(06:52):
everybody feels like, well, you know, maybe this is just
not enough, not enough of the enthusiasm from coming from
all the other travelers. So I think you're right. I
think you know, we've been able to kind of magically
come up with some of those great numbers. So I
want to begin, Harry, to start painting the picture of
(07:12):
this glorious trip that you've just completed to the Canadian Rockies.
So I want to give you a minute to start
talking about what it was exactly that you experienced from
the beginning.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
So that's easy, Terry. When you talk about a group
trip and you talk about putting together a group trip,
it's a combination of things. It's a combination of things
that we talk about all the time. It's a combination
of the mode. And we talk about top shelf on
this show. That's the name of the show, and it's
you know the name of what we it's the basis
(07:46):
of our business is to try and talk about luxury
travel and keep it affordable. So we look for experiences
that are going to be top shelf. We look for
experiences that are going to be unique. And oh my god,
this trip, I think I came back. In one of
the first remarks I made to Terry when I came back,
Chris is I said, I believe in heaven more than
(08:08):
ever because I really came back with a sense for
what heaven should look like, and I hope I'm right.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
Was this your first time being on the Rocky Mountaineer.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
Yes, it was, and it was my first time in
the Canadian Rockies, and it was my first time at
staying in nothing but luxury hotels for an entire you know,
better than a week.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
So you just compared it to heaven. So I sort
of know the answer to this question. Were you even
close to preparing yourself for what you saw?
Speaker 2 (08:38):
I was prepared for what I had to do, But
to answer your question, I don't think I was fully
prepared for what I was going to see and experience
because every night I wanted to, you know, tap myself
on the on the on the cheek, you know, a
little little slap there, and say is this real? Yeah,
because it was an experience. All of us have traveled
(09:00):
and we've experienced people, we've experienced cultures, we've experienced events,
you know, whether it's a Super Bowl or you know,
or or New Year's Eve, but we haven't experienced Mother
Nature in the way that you experience it. On this trip,
(09:20):
we we moved through three time zones. We saw warm
days in the eighties. We stood on a glacier nice.
We went, you know, from the middle of Canada all
the way to the westernmost edge. We experienced people from
(09:40):
different cultures around the world. But the best part of
this trip was experiencing the world itself by going on
train tracks, seeing you know, the glaciers, seeing the natural rivers,
the gorges, the mountains, and all of the things that come.
And that's what we're going to talk about today.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
Yeah, and Harry, we used top quality hotels for this
luxury travel experience, and those were Fairmont Hotels. So I
want to spend just a minute educating our audience about
the Fairmont hotel product. First of all, most of them
fall under the Virtuoso partnerships that we have, which is
(10:24):
absolutely fantastic. But it was really important to me as
I began to start putting this trip together back in
the trenches at the Wishing Well, I have to say,
while Harry was planning to go on the trip, nothing
wrong with that, Harry, what was so great about the fairmonts, Harry?
And what did these travelers experience at those luxury properties?
Speaker 2 (10:46):
Well, they experienced both the Fairmont quality and they experienced
the virtuoso brand, and they are really synonymous in many
many ways because it means top shelf. The Fairmont is,
for those of us who are not familiar with the brand,
a brand that we know in the United States when
we hear you Ritz Carlton, you're thinking top shelf. Well,
(11:08):
Fairmont is very much a top shelf brand that I
would compare neck to neck, shoulder to shoulder with the
Ritz Carlton. Yeah, I think that's fair. And we also
on this particular trip. The particular Fairmonts that we experienced
on this trip are historic Fairmonts. We're talking about hotels
(11:28):
that came to life in the eighteen hundreds. The hotels
we experienced on this trip, the rail trip, not surprisingly,
are hotels that were built by the Canadian Pacific Railroad
back in the late eighteen hundreds early nineteen hundreds. So
we stayed in historic properties, the ones with the architecture
that you stand outside and look at it and say,
(11:51):
oh my gosh. The kind of feeling that we get
in the United States when we go to places like
the White House or Independence Hall and you look at
the those buildings, you say, there's some serious historic significance there.
There's some serious architectural features there. When we go to
Europe or other places around the world and we say,
oh my gosh, that's what we experienced, Terry, every time
(12:14):
we stood outside these properties and then we went inside
some more of the same. So that's what we're talking
about with luxury properties and the service levels. You're talking
about people inside that are trained. They're not hired and
put at the front desk. They go through rigorous training.
So they're addressing you, you know, and you know as
(12:35):
sir and ma'am. They're courteous, they're kind, they're attentive, they're
asking what Instead of what must I do, they're asking
what can I do for you?
Speaker 3 (12:46):
Yeah, So I know that a lot of folks are
probably interested in the life of a tour escort. We
talked about that here once before on a Lifeless Ordinary
in a previous episode that we did, Harry, would you
say that staying in luxury hotels and top of the line, upgraded,
(13:08):
more elevated type properties eases your job as a tour
escort while you have a group of folks into.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
Most Certainly, that's my preference to stay in a property
where I have liaisons. Terry. I didn't even tell you
all of this. But before I arrived at the properties,
I received emails from my liaison at the property, you know,
two days ahead, three days ahead, letting me know who
they were, introducing themselves, giving me a cell phone number
(13:41):
for contact purposes, and asking me what special needs my
travelers had. Maybe they needed an accessible bathroom, maybe they
needed a special distilled water in their room, for a
CPAP machine. All of those things they asked about before
or I arrived, so that when I arrived, I didn't
(14:02):
have to call down ask for them.
Speaker 4 (14:04):
They were there, they were in place.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
I know that if I was traveling by myself, not
part of a group, I could expect some of that,
if not all of that kind of service. But isn't
it nice to just be able to be on vacation,
to be in the moment and not have to worry
about any of the logistics in the background, because Harry
as they're doing it for you. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
And my job is to know in advance what my
travelers need, if we needed. In some cases we needed
multiple wheelchairs because we had a long distance to travel.
At the airport, once we checked in, we had a
fleet of five wheelchairs, you know, waiting for us if
that's what we needed. Again, simple things, accessible bathrooms, distilled
(14:50):
water for a seapap machine. Those are needs that you
don't think about in advance. Dietary needs are another important
thing on this trip. We went into these restaurants and
when our people sat down to eat, whether it was
for one of our planned meals or whether it was independent,
the people in the restaurants knew we've got somebody that's
(15:15):
you know, that lactose intolerant or vegan or whatever it was.
And if those people just went in on their own
to have a meal, these are the kind of restaurants
where the first thing they ask you and besides you know,
you know, what do you want to drink? The first
thing they ask you is is there anything that we
need to know about as we're preparing, you know, service
(15:37):
for you tonight. What a reassuring feeling if you're a traveler,
has to have somebody concerned about your personal preferences and needs.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
Yeah, and I want the listeners to know that while
it seems like with a tour escort on a group trip,
everything seems to happen with a magic wand I think
it's important to realize that when we at the wishing
Well began the process of developing a group and planning
for a group, a lot of that groundwork is laid
(16:07):
over a year in advance. And so while it might
look like that Harry does have a magic wand as
the tour goide on some of these trips, truth be told,
a lot of that is really done in the as
I said, the trenches at the office way before the
trip takes place. And I know a lot of you
(16:27):
are sitting there listening with your cup of coffee, going
when are they going to get to the trip? When
are they going to get to the actual experiences that
Harry had with this group. So I'm going to turn
you loose.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
Harry.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
I want to know, and I think our listeners want
to know too, about the standout features of the Canadian
Rockies and this trip that included Calgary, bamp Jasper Lake, Louise,
the glaciers of course, and then finishing up in Vancouver.
So tell us about this experience.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Sure, I'm going to skip the parts we've already talked about,
all the prep and getting ready and getting to the
airport and all that, and I'm going to jump right
into that. Our first stop was in the town of Calgary,
which is in the province of Alberta. We were met
with our private coach and went to the Fairmont Pallister Hotel.
One of the hotels we just talked about a virtuoso
property that goes back to nineteen fourteen, built by the
(17:23):
Canadian Pacific Railroad, and that was the gateway to Western
Canada at that time. You walked inside, you saw the
marble floors, the Louis the fourteenth inspired crystal ballroom. But
we were also in the middle of downtown. So it's
a hotel that Queen Elizabeth visited in nineteen ninety. If
it's good enough for her, it was great for us.
(17:44):
We had the afternoon in the evening to explore Calgary,
very safe, very congenial city, and I want to just
put this piece in there too. A lot of people
are concerned about international travel now, Terry, I couldn't have
been to.
Speaker 4 (18:00):
A friendlier place.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
I felt at home, I felt at ease, I felt
comfortable with my travelers spending time in the Canadian cities
we were in. Calgary is a decent sized city. We
explored it, spent the night there, but The next morning,
we got on our way towards Bamf. Bamf is a
city that was also historic, founded in eighteen eighty three
(18:22):
along the Canadian Pacific Railroad. That was our theme for
the trip, and we are now headed for the heart
of the Canadian Rockies. At home, we're blessed by being,
you know, on the Appalachian Mountains. They're absolutely fantastic, awe inspiring, beautiful.
The Canadian Rockies are a cousin, but they're the older,
(18:45):
bigger cousin, more magnificent, taller, different in many many ways
as you look at them, different in their history. We entered.
As we entered and headed towards Baff, we entered one
of the large Canadian national parks, Baff National Park. I'm
(19:06):
talking chris one point seven can I say million million acres.
That's a big park. It's one of the three large
parks in Canada that are also part of the UNESCO
World Heritage Site. We're going to start in Baff Park.
We're going to head toward Jasper, which is a little
bit larger. It's two point seven seven million acres. So
(19:28):
I'm not talking about you know, city parks. I'm talking
about some big parks. The areas that we were also
stood out because they have a history with the First
Nations people, the indigenous people that have populated the valleys
that we were in for thousands of years, not hundreds,
but thousands of years we're going to be traveling in
(19:50):
this trip. We did travel along this trip on what's
called the trans Canada Highway. This is the Canada that
goes across. The highway goes across Canada forty six one
hundred and some miles. It was absolutely amazing. On our
first day's journey, we passed part of recent history. I
remember the Olympics back in nineteen eighty eight, the ski jumps,
(20:13):
remember the guys from was it Jamaica Terary and we're
in those Olympics. We passed the hills where they rode down,
so we saw some recent history. But on our way
to Banff, we also stopped at the gondola. This gondola
starts about fifty two hundred feet above sea level where
in the mountains already. We took an eight minute ride
(20:35):
on this enclosed gondola. Some people were like a little
sketchy about whether they were going to get in or not,
but I got all of our travelers inside. I convinced
him it would be okay. We took an eight minute
ride up to a fantastic observation tower over seventy five
hundred feet elevation, and the views were outstanding.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
And I think it's of note to say this is
a good place. I think to interject this, Harry, you
said you worked hard to get some of these people
up on the gondola. We have folks who join us
on group travel of ages, you know, from youthful to
more mature audiences. So really, if you're listening today and
(21:19):
you fall anywhere between you know, twenty to sixty years
old or older eighties, eighties, you know you can feel
very comfortable joining a group trip and know that all
of the all of your worries, all of the travel
arrangements are going to be handled seamlessly, especially with an
(21:40):
on site escort like Harry when he goes with you.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
Yeah, we've we've had travelers that took this trip. They
knew there was going to be a little bit of
walking and things. They brought along a walking stick, so
you know, we made things easy up there. I didn't mention,
but this is really important to me and maybe some
people listening to When we go to places like the gondola,
we don't stand in line and buy tickets. Now, how
(22:05):
does that work? We purchase them in advance. We buy
group tickets in advance. We go there, I walk up
to the counter as people are unloading off of our
motor coach. I get our group ticket and I move
our group into the line immediately, sometimes even special lines,
and we avoid the crowds so to speak. Thought maybe
you were rushing the gate and no, no, no, no,
(22:27):
no no no. So after we got done with our
gondola ride, we headed out to our nighttime a bow
and that was the Fairmont Baff Springs Hotel. Another virtuoso hotel,
also known as the Castle in the Sky. This hotel
goes back to eighteen eighty eight with its Scottish style architecture.
It's got a championship golf course, a spa and alpine experiences.
(22:50):
It's also at the junction of a couple very important
rivers in Canadian history, the Bow and Spray Rivers. A beautiful,
beautiful property right on the shores of Lake Louise, where
we had time to explore historic Lake Louise Moraine lakes.
There's four ski areas in the winter here, so that
if you are a skier, you got from mid November
(23:12):
all the way into May to do what is reputed
to be some of the best powder skiing in the world.
If you want to hike, if you want to take
a nature tour, this is where we started to see
the wildlife. Chris the bear. We saw black bear, brown bear.
They have foxes, coyotes, moose are up there, the ospreys
and eagles too. So we're in the mountains now.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
Nice.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
The next morning we got up and we headed for
the Continental Divide. I know you're a geography history guy,
so you know all about the Continental Divide.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
No, probably not the water sheds either to the Atlantic
or the Pacific from that point right. Yep, you scored
one hundred at some point it gets there, but yeah,
and we took a road there.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
This also known as the Ice Fields Parkway, which continas
traveler rates, is one of the top drives in the world.
We're still on our motor coach driving up to the
con to the Continental Divide, up on the ice Fields Parkway,
and we are now at the boundary between the.
Speaker 4 (24:14):
Two national parks.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
We spoke about earlier Banff National Park and Jasper National Park.
There's no sign says you are moving from one to another,
but we have made that transition, and our destination is
the skywalk. We're talking about a glass walkway, arc shaped
walkway nine hundred and eighteen feet above this gorge that
(24:38):
is the lookout point for the Columbia ice Field going
back two hundred and forty thousand years.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
Terry and I got to tell you walking on a skywalk.
I did this myself in the Grand Canyon and I
did not make it. I can tell you this is
not for the faint of heart. Because I thought I
was going to be brave. I really have an aversion
to heights. It's nope, it's not good for me. And
(25:08):
so I got on this skywalk in the Grand Canyons.
I got halfway out there and then could not move.
I froze and I literally Chris had to crawl back
to where my port was so that I could actually
see a floor under me and nutglass. So I'm impressed
(25:31):
that all of these folks with Harry's group did this skywalk.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
That's impressive, every single one of them. And what I
did a little coaching again and you know, I did
my research. This is a glass walkway. It's steel, you know, structure,
but with thick, thick, thick I say, three times big
thick thick glass on it. It can support a seven
(25:55):
thirty seven aircraft, fully loaded, fully fueled with passengers.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
I would have brought celery and been crunching it watches
to see people's reaction.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
No, we that would have been so mean. We know.
We made it out there. Again. We talked about support
for some people who need a little extra help. I
was out there to coach.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
Be glad Chris wasn't one of your group members.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
It was a sixth sense a year. He's just tough.
We would we would have put him in the detention
seat in the coach, but we we did have wheelchairs available.
Some people were a little concerned about walking out there
and you know, and and locking up not being able
to walk back. So we had some folks with wheelchairs.
You know that that made their way across there and.
Speaker 4 (26:38):
It was worth it.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
You're talking about in a gorge on the edge of glaciers,
looking around, seeing scenery that I've got photographs. I know
Terry's posted some of them on our Facebook page. There's
not a single photograph I have that captures what I
saw that day. Justice, It's just an attempt because we
(27:02):
were up there. We're talking about glaciers that, like I said,
two hundred and forty thousand years old, one hundred and
twenty five square miles.
Speaker 4 (27:13):
This glacier is that it covers.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
And you're talking about thicknesses that are from three hundred
feet all the way up to twelve hundred feet thick
in glaciers, that's a lot of ice. You're talking about
a place that's got ninety three feet of snow annually
building these glaciers as they move across in the continental divide,
(27:36):
Atlantic and Pacific. When you get up to the top
of this glacier, it also feeds the Arctic Ocean, So
you are literally as close to the top of the
world as you can get in the glacier world without
you know, being in an aircraft.
Speaker 3 (27:53):
Harry, I'm enjoying hearing about all of these experiences that
you had. But what trust me, even when you made
some calls into the office telling me how things were
going on this trip, was how you felt, Yeah, your emotions.
What did the visuals of this kind of landscape and
(28:16):
this kind of experience do for you and what.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
Did you see?
Speaker 3 (28:20):
How did you see it affecting the people that were
on these groups.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
These were life changing moments for people, Terry, and I
mean seriously life changing moments. It was, without a doubt,
amongst the most spectacular scenery I had ever seen in
my life. And I've traveled to a lot of places,
seen a lot of things, been to a lot of experiences,
but this is Mother Nature at her finest in some
(28:48):
of the places where the planet is changing. I mean
literally the planet is changing. We're taking pictures. I'm trying
straight shots, I'm trying panoramic shots, I'm trying videos. As
I looked at him, I couldn't look back at those
videos and get exactly the same feeling as I had
when I was there. I mentioned having it at the beginning, Chris,
(29:12):
we want to talk to you. It was life changing
to see these things and to experience them, and to
be around other people and talk to other people experiencing
the same as well.
Speaker 4 (29:26):
We talked about groups at the beginning.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
Groups are what makes this happen, Harry. We're going to
take a quick break when we come back. We need
to get on the train Yeah, our show is running
out of time, so we'll talk more about doing it
together group travel. Harry took his trip to Canada for
the Rocky Mountaineer and we'll talk more about that next
Here on A Life Less Ordinary.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
Who would think of driving off to a new destination
without guidance from Google or Syria? It's not the Wishing
World guide your next travel experience. Travel the world as
you enjoy the very best destinations and all they offer
at the best prices. Our mobile travel app keeps your
vacation on track and keeps you connected with our team
of experts.
Speaker 4 (30:06):
For help.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
If you need it, call us at five four zero
nine zero eight two three three three stop buy two
forty three nef Avenue or visit us at the Wishingwell
dot biz.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
Hey, welcome back to you A Life Less Ordinary, the
travel showing podcast from your friends at the Wishing Well.
You can find them on nep Avenue in Harsenberg. Give
him a call five four zero nine oh eight twenty
three thirty three. You can also find them online at
the Wishingwell dot bus. And while you're there on the website,
look at past episodes of A Lifeless Ordinary. And I
would like for you to look specifically for one entitled
(30:39):
It's Better in the Rockies. This was from October back
in twenty twenty three when Terry spoke with the company
that runs the Rocky Mountain Absolutely and it was a
great conversation about what Harry just experienced. And so if
you'd like to get a little bit more behind the
scenes point of view from the Rocky Mountain near, listen
(31:00):
to that episode.
Speaker 3 (31:01):
Thank you Chris for mentioning that, because the other thing
I want to do is put out a sincere and
heartfelt thank you to everybody who tells us you listen
to us every Saturday faithfully. Here on a lifeless ordinary,
we love to bring you the travel experiences that are
life changing and bring you the travel experiences that take
(31:25):
you from ordinary to extraordinary. When it comes to travel,
we talk about a lot of luxury travel. We talk
about a lot of new and exciting destinations and maybe
even sometimes destinations you've never heard of before.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
So I had never heard of the Rocky Mountaineer until
we did that episode, And was one evening my wife
and I were watching YouTube on TV and there was
a video about the train and what the trip through
the Canadian Rockies was all about, and I was like,
we talked about this, so we watched it, and of
course fell in love with the whole idea if we
(32:02):
want to now go and just live on the train,
if that was a possibility. But I fell in love
with it, right, and so I'm so excited. I'm so jealous,
let me just say that, so jealous of you, Harry,
But I'm so excited that you got to first hand
experience the Rocky Mountain near the sites. I really regret
(32:24):
that our show today is on radio because I would
love for you to be able to see exactly what
Harry saw. I'd recommend maybe check out the Facebook page
for the Wishing Well because there are some pictures there
for you. But man, Harry, come on.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
So after we got John, would you do right to
get this trip. It's a little bit of work, but
this was a tremendous reward. But we got done looking
at what we're looking at, but we're getting to the train.
We spent the night in Jasper another and it's weird
to say another, but just another historic nineteen twelve or
(33:00):
nineteen twenty one hotel again, a virtuoso hotel, Fairmount Jasper Park,
which is a recreational lodge kind of property, a little
different than big city properties. We spent the night in there,
but we got up, we got on our motor coach
and we went to the train station, which is I
know where you want.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
Me to get to, Chris right, Well, I just want
I want our listeners today to be able to picture
what the experience was. I would like for you to
describe the train station. I want you to describe what
the train looks like. I want to know. I know
there are different levels you can take silver leaf or
gold leaf seating. I'd like to know what the difference
(33:41):
is between all of those.
Speaker 4 (33:42):
I already know, but.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
I want everyone else to understand too, because this is
luxury on the rails.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
Well, and train day is a very exciting day. We
made it to the train station. You asked what it
was like if you use your imagination, and you said,
what did an old time train station look like? It
looked exactly like where we went that morning. We went
to the to the train station downtown Jasper and saw
(34:09):
the rail building and we got our first glimpse at
the Rocky Mountaineer. The Rocky Mountaineer is an exquisite and
I'll use that word exquisite train. You look at it
and it's like if you looked at a luxury car
and you see a Lamborghini or a Rolls Royce. You
look at it and you go wow. That's what the
(34:31):
first experience was of the train as we looked at
it that morning and looked at the cars that you're
asking about.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
So it's a double decker train, yes it is.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
It's a train that's got two classes of service. You
asked about that. We have silver a Leaf service, and
we have gold Leaf service. Our group chose gold Leaf
service obviously, which is they have both kinds of cars
in the train. And there's nothing shabby about any of
the service on this train, but the gold Leaf service
(35:03):
is the upper level.
Speaker 3 (35:05):
That What struck me about the pictures that Harry sent
when he immediately got to the train was the paint
scheme on the Rocky Mountaineer. It looked Chris ever so
much like an eagle. If you looked at it from
a distance, it looked like an eagle flying. And when
I looked at the pictures, I went, how clever is
(35:27):
that that the train actually looks like.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
That, very purposefully painted, and it impressed me so much
so that if you do come visit us at the
Wishing Well. I have purchased both the locomotive and one
of the cars that will run on my HO Railroad.
They're available for purchase from Rocky Mountaineer. Not doing a
plug for them. But they were so impressive. The train
(35:52):
was so impressive. I bought, you know, the car that
we were in and the locomotive. The boys have these
toys and I do so when we talk about the service,
we were on a train and we were very, very
fortunate because we were on the last car of the train,
which is a double decker car, and there was nothing
(36:15):
behind us. So I'm going to tell you about that,
and just the second as to why that was so important?
Speaker 1 (36:20):
Can I jump in and tell you why I think
it's important. Go ahead, don't they turn your seats around
for the second part of the trip.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
You can do that if you want to. But that's
not That wasn't ther what do they say, the PA
the resistance, So I can't say I tried all right,
it wasn't a top shelf.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
I'll wait to find out why we started.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
And we board the car and we go to the
second level, of these car of our car. These cars
are two million dollar cars. We went up to the
second level and we had seats up there that were
every bit as good as the best first class airline
seat I've ever flown in. It had every button on there,
from our support to foot rest to lean back, and
(37:03):
there was nobody that you disturbed when you lean back
because there was that much space between your seats in there.
We relaxed, got ourselves comfortable in the car, and we
began our journey down the tracks. The trains moved about
twenty twenty five miles an hour, so you are seeing
scenery all the way. The views are magnificent because these
(37:25):
cars are domed, and it's not just glass all around,
but at the top part of the dome it's tinted
glass because you don't want the sunlight to disturb you
while you're sitting in your luxury seat. There are attendants
in the car. The car holds about fifty couple people,
I believe fifty to sixty people, so we had two
(37:45):
attendants for you know, sixty people. There is a beverage
section of the car. There's a snacks section of the car,
so all the way along our journey. We've got the
you know, beverages, snacks. There's also a little library that
was on board that our hosts had for us, some
of the best professionally trained hosts on that train. We're
(38:08):
talking about the hotels, same thing goes for our hosts,
And I.
Speaker 3 (38:11):
Think it's important to note that as Harry's talking about
the kinds of things that they enjoyed, like beverages and
food and all of that. Rocky Mountaineer is all inclusive.
When you get on board, everything is included. You pay
nothing extra, especially in that gold Leaf service.
Speaker 4 (38:31):
That's true.
Speaker 2 (38:31):
And some people might be wondering, could I get up
the second floor on a train car on the nswer
is Yes, there are two staircases that'll let you get
up there. But if that's an issue for you, they
also have an elevator in there, because what is a
train without an elevator to get up to the second floor?
Speaker 4 (38:47):
Right?
Speaker 2 (38:48):
Why were we up on the second floor. The scenery
is a little better out there. And when we decided
to have our breakfast and lunch, which is served at
the first level, because you don't want to eat.
Speaker 4 (38:59):
Breck us at your seat, right, Chris, I.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
Mean, so first class.
Speaker 2 (39:04):
We went down. We know that's what that's and that
is what silver service is, like you get a first
class meal, but you're at your seat. We went down
the stairs and elevator and went down to the first
level of the train where we had our individual white
clothed tables and another set of service personnel that were
(39:26):
serving us our meals that were prepared in the kitchen
in that car for us. All right, So you ordered
off a menu just like in a fine restaurant, about
six choices for entrees. Of course, there are appetizers and desserts,
because what's breakfast and lunch without appetizers and desserts and beverages.
(39:48):
You could order off this menu customized if you didn't
like And some people who know me and this this
should elicit a few laughs. For those listeners who know me,
I'm not a big fan of green beans, the entrees
that I wanted. Listen to Terry, Do I like green beans?
Not even at Terry's house while I eat green beans.
Are you gotta let me make you green beans? Then
(40:09):
I've heard that one hundred times and only one that's
come through that I've all.
Speaker 1 (40:13):
Right, hold on eat, we're taking a detour from the
Rocky Mountaineer. It's a pound of bacon.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
No, you can put caviat on them. I'm not eating them, Chris.
And here's what I did on the train. Entree I
wanted was served with green beans. I let them know
that I was not a fan of green beans. They said,
that's not a problem. How many times do you get
not a problem. They asked me what vegetable I would like,
and I looked at the other entrees. I found they
were serving some squash. So they prepare. The point is
(40:44):
they prepare your meal for you individually. Again, they're asking
our travelers about allergies, about you know, food that they
have to avoid, and everybody got a customized meal. We
had one person on board that is completely you know,
dairy intolerant. They prepared special desserts because they knew in advance.
They had special desserts prepared for this traveler, and he said,
(41:07):
this is some of the best non dairy chocolate cake
I've ever had.
Speaker 4 (41:12):
Nice.
Speaker 2 (41:12):
So we enjoyed our meals, our customized meals, with our
customized beverages. Nice selection of wine, custom Canadian you know
beverages there too, including Canadian beers which I made a
point of trying. And then we get to that part
of the car that I really liked, and again I
(41:33):
think we'll at least get a picture of the video
out there. You walked out to the back of the
dining car and it was an open observation platform. Nothing
behind me on the train.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
Oh yeah, because you were in the last train.
Speaker 2 (41:47):
I was again in a special part of heaven where
you could be out in the in the warm air.
Temperatures were, you know, in the seventies and eighties surprisingly
warm for that part of the world. Standing out there
there with you know, my little phone camera taking pictures
up the tracks, down the tracks I could film ahead
as we were going around the curves, seeing our locomotive
(42:10):
pulling the whole train, going around the curve, through these valleys,
following the course of the river. Does this sound exciting yet?
Speaker 1 (42:19):
Everything about this is exciting to me, But I do
actually want to find out what the journey was. Once
you got on the train, and we've got about ten
minutes left in our show. Okay, so we leave were
we in Vada? We left Jazz Jasper. We left Jasper,
and we're heading toward Vancouver. We're heading west so what
do we see along the way. We have two days
(42:41):
of scenery to see along the way. We are still
up in the mountains, at the top of the mountains,
you know, not far from where we were at the
glaciers and the ice fields, so we're seeing that kind
of you know, tunder outside.
Speaker 2 (42:54):
The Canadian rockies are full of the tall Douglas fir
pines and their pack tighter than match sticks in a
match box, so they're thin, you know, and just everywhere
you see them. As you get up high, you start
to see the open parts of the mountains. We're traveling
on the train tracks, so we're moving along the rivers. Okay,
(43:17):
at parts there wide, at parts the're narrow. Where we're
traveling across old train bridges that were constructed in the
nineteen hundreds. You know, they're just as solid as the rocks.
And we are traveling not ten feet in some cases
maybe six feet away from the edge of rocks. We
traveled through probably I want to say, at least fifty tunnels,
(43:41):
some of them pretty short, some of them a little
bit longer. Carved through these tunnels right at the edge
of the rocks. We are on an active railway, so
we're we're seeing some of the Canadian Pacific and Canadian
National trains along that same railway. We may be on
a siding from minute as they passed us or as
(44:01):
we passed them. So we're seeing nature and we're seeing
nothing but nature. So the wildlife that we were talking
about earlier. We're seeing mountain sheep, We're seeing elk, we're
seeing we saw black bear. We're seeing eagles. We're in Canada,
but we're seeing the bald eagles up there, flying osprey.
(44:24):
You're seeing all kinds of fantastic things that are just
raw nature. You're not seeing people, you're not seeing cars.
Sometimes we're traveling along the highways, but in many cases
we are right at the river's edge. Scenery that's just
journey through the clouds is the right name for this,
(44:46):
because we were in the clouds.
Speaker 1 (44:48):
And this would be scenery that you would not be
able to see if you weren't on the train. There
aren't roads that you can be trying to see this.
Speaker 2 (44:57):
This is the railroad. Road is the only road that's there.
Speaker 3 (45:00):
I mean, I could think the only other way you
could see it, probably Chris, with the route that this
rail takes you through would be as if you were
a hiker. Perhaps you could see it maybe backpacking through
the Canadian Rockies, but wow, wouldn't be nearly as luxurious.
Speaker 2 (45:15):
Well, the places that we were on, many of the
places we were on there were no trails beside this.
I have no idea, you know, what was involved in
creating the rails that we were riding on. I can't imagine,
you know what that was like at the you know,
back you know, over a century ago, as as you know,
the people were building these railways and probably many of
(45:40):
them you know, lost their lives doing it, the labor
involved in all the blasting and everything. And they still
have rock slides along these railways. So there, you know,
we saw all of the systems that are built over
the years to protect against these these rock slides. And
the people on the train that the attendants were saying,
you know sometimes yeah they have the wait, they stopped
(46:00):
the train, there's been a rock slide. They send somebody out,
They cleared the tracks, and they you know.
Speaker 4 (46:06):
They move on.
Speaker 2 (46:07):
Just incredible scenery as we passed through and the train ride, Chris,
you were asking about, we started up high in the
Rockies and as we moved to Vancouver over the course
of two days riding you know, on the train. Of course,
we stopped at night and stayed in the luxury hotel
and boarded the next day. But two days of riding
(46:29):
the train, we moved from the top of the Rockies
to the lower lands in Vancouver, and we saw the
transformation of the mountains into some of Canada's highly productive
agricultural areas where they're raising beef, they're raising blueberries. We
saw blueberries along the way and it was, you know,
(46:53):
amazing to see all the all the different agriculture. And
then we finished our ride in the large railroad rail
yard in Vancouver, absolutely amazing. As we moved in the city,
it was like a transformation, almost like getting up before
the sun rises and you know, sitting your chair out
in your backyard and watching that transformation of the stars
(47:16):
in the night into the day as the sun rose
and you know, came up and you start to see
everything light up and activities start to hustle and bustle.
Moving At the end of our journey to the city
of Vancouver, which is the third largest city in Canada
and the largest city on the West coast of Canada.
Because that's where a lot of the ports are shipping
(47:39):
things coming into Canada, and we ended our journey there
staying in yet another historic virtual also Fairmont Hotel, right
in the middle of the city, and got it to experience,
you know, a full day and a half in the
city of Vancouver.
Speaker 1 (47:59):
So who is this tour designed for?
Speaker 4 (48:05):
Great question.
Speaker 2 (48:06):
This tour is designed for I would say for seniors.
You saw a lot of seniors on board, but you
also saw a lot of people. We had a honeymoon
couple in there, probably in their thirties. They were taking
it as a I don't know what you call it,
a baby cation or something. She was in the first
(48:27):
trimester of her pregnancy and they took it as you know,
their big trip together before someone moved into their family.
So what a tremendous you know, reason to take that trip.
They were from England. As a matter of fact, they
traveled all the way from England to take that trip.
We saw international travelers, a lot of Americans on the trip.
Speaker 1 (48:46):
Well, I mean, even for those of us who've lived
around mountains, this is I'm sure one of those once
in a lifetime. Can you imagine if you live in
England being able to come and see this in person,
it's got to be just mind blowing.
Speaker 3 (48:59):
Yeah, And I mean book a lot here on a
Lifeless Ordinary about how travelers today have evolved. They're looking
for experiences. Chris. So, while it might be kind of
interesting to put an age on who would be the
demographic for this trip, I don't think you can do
(49:20):
that anymore because people of all ages are looking for
those Instagram moments. They're looking for the unique experiences. They're
looking for vacations to be something other than ordinary.
Speaker 2 (49:33):
And what I didn't see on this trip, and I
think it was mainly because of the class of service.
And we were in the Gold Service, which is the
premium service. But I imagine if I had made it
into the Silver level service cars, I might have seen
some families we stay. The difference, the big difference on
this particular trip, as Terry was talking about earlier, was
(49:54):
the level of service. The Gold Service is at Premium
is stay in the premium hotels, you ride in the
pre imium car. But the Silver level of service is
not shabby either. And were I traveling this with my
family or if a family came in to talk to us, Terry,
I'd probably have them take a good look at that
Silver Service because they get a very very similar experience.
(50:16):
They get to see all of the beauty and the wonders.
They saw the same things we saw. The difference was
the class of service for riding in the car and
the class of service for sleeping at night and for
eating during the day.
Speaker 3 (50:29):
And there is a premium for luxury service like with
Rocky Mountaineer. So for families who are perhaps more budget minded,
the Silver Service would be a great.
Speaker 4 (50:39):
A wonderful idea.
Speaker 2 (50:40):
They got everything that we got, except you know, at
a different level for the services. They got the same
scenery and the same experience of getting to know the
Canadian rockies and the city so we visited.
Speaker 1 (50:53):
So is the pricing based on which route you take
when you go? Is it like trying to book a
vacation and you need the airline to be cheaper at
a certain time of year. How does that all work?
Speaker 3 (51:04):
Yeah, it can be. The journey that we chose for
this particular group trip Chris was called Journey through the Clouds,
including vamp. Now, Rocky Mountaineer has many many other itineraries
that you can choose, and those also come with different
price points, So that's a great question. So people who
(51:25):
are looking to modify or control their budgets a little
bit more might be interested in looking at some of
the other itineraries that Rocky Mountaineer offers.
Speaker 2 (51:35):
And it includes an itinerary that they have in the
United States as well. They travel out west and they
visited Moab and the American Rockies, so that's an alternative
that they have that I think you might be right
for some people too. The trick is to figure out
which is right for you and to use the services
(51:56):
of someone that has the experience. I can tell you
a lot about this trip, more than I can fit
into a one hour show. That to help people make
the right decision, and to point people to the special
things about the different itineries it might be attractive, and
also to point people to the special promotions. Because we
receive regularly promotions from Rocky Mountaineer. I know if you're
(52:20):
traveling into twenty twenty six, this is a good time
to look at some of the promotions.
Speaker 1 (52:25):
This is one of the many reasons that I love
the Wishing Well is because if we come in to
talk to you about what our vision for a luxury
travel experience is you can go sit down. Let me
tell you about my personal experience with it, because you
guys have traveled to so many of these locations personally
experienced the type of luxury experiences that you're telling us
(52:49):
that we're going to expect, and I just love that
we are down to the last few seconds. Terry, tell us,
as you do every week at the end of the show,
how we can get in touch with you.
Speaker 3 (52:58):
We are easy to find. Were located at two forty
three nef Avenue in the Valley Center in Here'sonburg, Virginia.
You can find us on the web where Atthwishingwell dot
biz or give us a call where at five four
oh nine oh eight two three three three.
Speaker 1 (53:13):
This has been a Life Less Ordinary, the travel show
from your friends at the wishing Well at two forty
three nef Avenue in Harrisonburg. If you have any questions
on topics discussed today, please reach out to The wishing
Well online at the Wishingwell dot biz or five four
oh nine oh eight twenty three thirty three. Past episodes
are available on the iHeartRadio app. And we'll see again
next Saturday morning at ten for a Life Less Ordinary
(53:36):
from the wishing well
This is a Lifeless Ordinary, the travel show and podcasts
from your friends at the wishing Well two forty three
f Avenue in Harsmert and online at the wishing Well
dot biz. The wishing Well is your ultimate luxury concierge,
travel agency and a Lifeless Ordinary is a travel show
and podcast hosted by Terry Dean, bringing her over forty
years of experience in the travel industry to help guide
(00:21):
you to great experiences in your travel, whether it be
around the block, around the country, or around the world.
Let's bring in Terry Dean.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
And say hello, Hey, Chris, how are you?
Speaker 1 (00:30):
You know what I'm doing?
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Great? Happy weekend.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
It's always going to see on a Saturday morning. We
do this every Saturday. We sit down, we talk travel.
If you're smart, you grab yourself a cup of coffee
and you settle in for the next fifty some minutes
and enjoy. We don't always get to have Harry in
the studio. And I'm so excited Harry that you are
here this week. Carry right from the wishing Well.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
You guys are too kind.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
If we try to be so, Terry wantn't you to
explain what we're going to be talking about? Today.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
We are actually going to be talking about group travel
here on a Life Less Ordinary today, and that's really
relative because Harry just got back from escorting one of
our Rocky Mountaineer trips. Prior to that, he had done
a Spain in Portugal and Morocco trip. So we want
to talk through this with Harry. We want to talk
(01:21):
about the ease that group travel presents to people, the
convenience of it, the seamlessness, the worry free movements. This
is a great show today. It's entitled doing It Together,
and we entitled it that because we really are going
to highlight some of the group travel that we do.
You have escorted a number of the wishing Wells most
(01:43):
recent trips, Harry. There's particular luxuries that are forded to
travels who travel by group. And before we launch into
the actual trip details of the Rocky Mountaineer that you did,
I want you, if you will, to walk our audience
through the beauty of traveling with groups at the Wishing Well.
Chris and I are going to be firing a lot
(02:04):
of questions at you today and so I want you
to start from the in office prep that's involved in
some of these group trips and the behind the scenes
efforts that go into that.
Speaker 4 (02:16):
Sure.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Group trips are especially fun for people, and they're especially
relevant for people who may have some fear about travel.
They want to make sure that nothing goes wrong. They
want to make sure that when they go on their
trip that everything will be taken care of. And as
in life, things happen, so they want to make sure
that if something happens, or when something happens, there's someone
(02:39):
there that can take care of that immediately, can smooth
it over and pretty much make it invisible to them.
So there's a lot of prep that goes into a
group trip, and that's why we don't do them every
single week.
Speaker 4 (02:53):
But when we prep for a.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Group trip, we have to foresee all of the things
that are relevant for that trip, starting with making sure
that we have easy air traveltary. You speak all the
time about you know, connectionless flights, you know, one stop
kinds of flights, So we look for things like that.
We look for properties that are proven, properties, that are
(03:17):
properties with great reputations for service, properties that we can
depend on. We lean heavily on our virtual so network
properties when we do that, and we look at the
same kinds of things with our tour operators, whether it's
a train trip, whether it's a cruise, whatever the mode
is of service along that trip, or for the extra
(03:38):
activities that we're going to be doing, Chris, we want
to make sure that those folks have a solid track
record and putting that together, like pieces of a puzzle,
is making that trip happen, and that has extra pieces
in there when you talk about group travel, because you're
not just talking about driving your car up to doll
(04:00):
Us and jumping on a plane. But when we do
group travel at the Wishing Well, we always include a
component that says you drive to our door, you park
at our door, and you jump onto transportation there and
at that point we're holding your hand the rest of
the way. We do have people that may join us
in Dallas, and on this trip we did have people
(04:22):
that joined us in Dallas. We had people that flew
in from Dallas, not Dallas, but we put that all
together and that's I think what you were referring to, yeah, area.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
And just as important as the airlines and several of
the other components the hotels, transfers, ground operators and things
like that, our tour operators are our great partners in
travel as well, and in this particular trip, the one
that we're going to be highlighting today, Harry, the one
that you're going to be talking us through was Rocky Mountaineer,
and we had a great relationship with them throughout this
(04:54):
booking process. I want to remind our listeners though, as
we talk about this trip, it was a rich planned
for departure in twenty twenty four, and the reason that
that trip did not occur in twenty twenty four is
because of the Canadian wildfires that took place, and we
worked diligently with our partners at Rocky Mountaineer to ensure
(05:16):
that the folks who went on this trip, this group trip,
were going to have the best experience that they could
and that meant we had to move that trip. And
so when we talk about groups, there's some optimums that
I want us to highlight to Harry. And my next
question to you is what, in your opinion, you've led
a couple of these trips, now, what in your opinion
(05:38):
would be the optimum size group for group tours.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
That's a great question, Terry. And we've had groups that
have ranged from about I think twenty people somewhere smallest
group to one time I did over ninety people. Oh,
there will not be a second time when I do
ninety people. That was you know, you kind of stress test.
Let's stress test to me a little bit an optimal number.
Speaker 4 (06:02):
For the trip.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Though, to answer your question directly, Terry is somewhere about
twenty five. Thirty five is a good number because that
means we can deal with motorcoach transportation in numbers that
fit the sizes of the transportation modes. It means that
we can deal with airlines and numbers that are reasonable
for groups. It means that we can deal with properties
(06:24):
in numbers that are reasonable for groups, and cruise lines
and all the other modes of transportation that.
Speaker 4 (06:29):
Are a part of doing that trip.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
Absolutely, And I think, you know, having that secret sauce
in developing a group is part of the magic in
that is getting at the right number, that sweet spot,
because if you have too many people, not everybody feels
like they get personal attention. If you don't have enough people,
(06:52):
everybody feels like, well, you know, maybe this is just
not enough, not enough of the enthusiasm from coming from
all the other travelers. So I think you're right. I
think you know, we've been able to kind of magically
come up with some of those great numbers. So I
want to begin, Harry, to start painting the picture of
(07:12):
this glorious trip that you've just completed to the Canadian Rockies.
So I want to give you a minute to start
talking about what it was exactly that you experienced from
the beginning.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
So that's easy, Terry. When you talk about a group
trip and you talk about putting together a group trip,
it's a combination of things. It's a combination of things
that we talk about all the time. It's a combination
of the mode. And we talk about top shelf on
this show. That's the name of the show, and it's
you know the name of what we it's the basis
(07:46):
of our business is to try and talk about luxury
travel and keep it affordable. So we look for experiences
that are going to be top shelf. We look for
experiences that are going to be unique. And oh my god,
this trip, I think I came back. In one of
the first remarks I made to Terry when I came back,
Chris is I said, I believe in heaven more than
(08:08):
ever because I really came back with a sense for
what heaven should look like, and I hope I'm right.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
Was this your first time being on the Rocky Mountaineer.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
Yes, it was, and it was my first time in
the Canadian Rockies, and it was my first time at
staying in nothing but luxury hotels for an entire you know,
better than a week.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
So you just compared it to heaven. So I sort
of know the answer to this question. Were you even
close to preparing yourself for what you saw?
Speaker 2 (08:38):
I was prepared for what I had to do, But
to answer your question, I don't think I was fully
prepared for what I was going to see and experience
because every night I wanted to, you know, tap myself
on the on the on the cheek, you know, a
little little slap there, and say is this real? Yeah,
because it was an experience. All of us have traveled
(09:00):
and we've experienced people, we've experienced cultures, we've experienced events,
you know, whether it's a Super Bowl or you know,
or or New Year's Eve, but we haven't experienced Mother
Nature in the way that you experience it. On this trip,
(09:20):
we we moved through three time zones. We saw warm
days in the eighties. We stood on a glacier nice.
We went, you know, from the middle of Canada all
the way to the westernmost edge. We experienced people from
(09:40):
different cultures around the world. But the best part of
this trip was experiencing the world itself by going on
train tracks, seeing you know, the glaciers, seeing the natural rivers,
the gorges, the mountains, and all of the things that come.
And that's what we're going to talk about today.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
Yeah, and Harry, we used top quality hotels for this
luxury travel experience, and those were Fairmont Hotels. So I
want to spend just a minute educating our audience about
the Fairmont hotel product. First of all, most of them
fall under the Virtuoso partnerships that we have, which is
(10:24):
absolutely fantastic. But it was really important to me as
I began to start putting this trip together back in
the trenches at the Wishing Well, I have to say,
while Harry was planning to go on the trip, nothing
wrong with that, Harry, what was so great about the fairmonts, Harry?
And what did these travelers experience at those luxury properties?
Speaker 2 (10:46):
Well, they experienced both the Fairmont quality and they experienced
the virtuoso brand, and they are really synonymous in many
many ways because it means top shelf. The Fairmont is,
for those of us who are not familiar with the brand,
a brand that we know in the United States when
we hear you Ritz Carlton, you're thinking top shelf. Well,
(11:08):
Fairmont is very much a top shelf brand that I
would compare neck to neck, shoulder to shoulder with the
Ritz Carlton. Yeah, I think that's fair. And we also
on this particular trip. The particular Fairmonts that we experienced
on this trip are historic Fairmonts. We're talking about hotels
(11:28):
that came to life in the eighteen hundreds. The hotels
we experienced on this trip, the rail trip, not surprisingly,
are hotels that were built by the Canadian Pacific Railroad
back in the late eighteen hundreds early nineteen hundreds. So
we stayed in historic properties, the ones with the architecture
that you stand outside and look at it and say,
(11:51):
oh my gosh. The kind of feeling that we get
in the United States when we go to places like
the White House or Independence Hall and you look at
the those buildings, you say, there's some serious historic significance there.
There's some serious architectural features there. When we go to
Europe or other places around the world and we say,
oh my gosh, that's what we experienced, Terry, every time
(12:14):
we stood outside these properties and then we went inside
some more of the same. So that's what we're talking
about with luxury properties and the service levels. You're talking
about people inside that are trained. They're not hired and
put at the front desk. They go through rigorous training.
So they're addressing you, you know, and you know as
(12:35):
sir and ma'am. They're courteous, they're kind, they're attentive, they're
asking what Instead of what must I do, they're asking
what can I do for you?
Speaker 3 (12:46):
Yeah, So I know that a lot of folks are
probably interested in the life of a tour escort. We
talked about that here once before on a Lifeless Ordinary
in a previous episode that we did, Harry, would you
say that staying in luxury hotels and top of the line, upgraded,
(13:08):
more elevated type properties eases your job as a tour
escort while you have a group of folks into.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
Most Certainly, that's my preference to stay in a property
where I have liaisons. Terry. I didn't even tell you
all of this. But before I arrived at the properties,
I received emails from my liaison at the property, you know,
two days ahead, three days ahead, letting me know who
they were, introducing themselves, giving me a cell phone number
(13:41):
for contact purposes, and asking me what special needs my
travelers had. Maybe they needed an accessible bathroom, maybe they
needed a special distilled water in their room, for a
CPAP machine. All of those things they asked about before
or I arrived, so that when I arrived, I didn't
(14:02):
have to call down ask for them.
Speaker 4 (14:04):
They were there, they were in place.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
I know that if I was traveling by myself, not
part of a group, I could expect some of that,
if not all of that kind of service. But isn't
it nice to just be able to be on vacation,
to be in the moment and not have to worry
about any of the logistics in the background, because Harry
as they're doing it for you. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
And my job is to know in advance what my
travelers need, if we needed. In some cases we needed
multiple wheelchairs because we had a long distance to travel.
At the airport, once we checked in, we had a
fleet of five wheelchairs, you know, waiting for us if
that's what we needed. Again, simple things, accessible bathrooms, distilled
(14:50):
water for a seapap machine. Those are needs that you
don't think about in advance. Dietary needs are another important
thing on this trip. We went into these restaurants and
when our people sat down to eat, whether it was
for one of our planned meals or whether it was independent,
the people in the restaurants knew we've got somebody that's
(15:15):
you know, that lactose intolerant or vegan or whatever it was.
And if those people just went in on their own
to have a meal, these are the kind of restaurants
where the first thing they ask you and besides you know,
you know, what do you want to drink? The first
thing they ask you is is there anything that we
need to know about as we're preparing, you know, service
(15:37):
for you tonight. What a reassuring feeling if you're a traveler,
has to have somebody concerned about your personal preferences and needs.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
Yeah, and I want the listeners to know that while
it seems like with a tour escort on a group trip,
everything seems to happen with a magic wand I think
it's important to realize that when we at the wishing
Well began the process of developing a group and planning
for a group, a lot of that groundwork is laid
(16:07):
over a year in advance. And so while it might
look like that Harry does have a magic wand as
the tour goide on some of these trips, truth be told,
a lot of that is really done in the as
I said, the trenches at the office way before the
trip takes place. And I know a lot of you
(16:27):
are sitting there listening with your cup of coffee, going
when are they going to get to the trip? When
are they going to get to the actual experiences that
Harry had with this group. So I'm going to turn
you loose.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
Harry.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
I want to know, and I think our listeners want
to know too, about the standout features of the Canadian
Rockies and this trip that included Calgary, bamp Jasper Lake, Louise,
the glaciers of course, and then finishing up in Vancouver.
So tell us about this experience.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Sure, I'm going to skip the parts we've already talked about,
all the prep and getting ready and getting to the
airport and all that, and I'm going to jump right
into that. Our first stop was in the town of Calgary,
which is in the province of Alberta. We were met
with our private coach and went to the Fairmont Pallister Hotel.
One of the hotels we just talked about a virtuoso
property that goes back to nineteen fourteen, built by the
(17:23):
Canadian Pacific Railroad, and that was the gateway to Western
Canada at that time. You walked inside, you saw the
marble floors, the Louis the fourteenth inspired crystal ballroom. But
we were also in the middle of downtown. So it's
a hotel that Queen Elizabeth visited in nineteen ninety. If
it's good enough for her, it was great for us.
(17:44):
We had the afternoon in the evening to explore Calgary,
very safe, very congenial city, and I want to just
put this piece in there too. A lot of people
are concerned about international travel now, Terry, I couldn't have
been to.
Speaker 4 (18:00):
A friendlier place.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
I felt at home, I felt at ease, I felt
comfortable with my travelers spending time in the Canadian cities
we were in. Calgary is a decent sized city. We
explored it, spent the night there, but The next morning,
we got on our way towards Bamf. Bamf is a
city that was also historic, founded in eighteen eighty three
(18:22):
along the Canadian Pacific Railroad. That was our theme for
the trip, and we are now headed for the heart
of the Canadian Rockies. At home, we're blessed by being,
you know, on the Appalachian Mountains. They're absolutely fantastic, awe inspiring, beautiful.
The Canadian Rockies are a cousin, but they're the older,
(18:45):
bigger cousin, more magnificent, taller, different in many many ways
as you look at them, different in their history. We entered.
As we entered and headed towards Baff, we entered one
of the large Canadian national parks, Baff National Park. I'm
(19:06):
talking chris one point seven can I say million million acres.
That's a big park. It's one of the three large
parks in Canada that are also part of the UNESCO
World Heritage Site. We're going to start in Baff Park.
We're going to head toward Jasper, which is a little
bit larger. It's two point seven seven million acres. So
(19:28):
I'm not talking about you know, city parks. I'm talking
about some big parks. The areas that we were also
stood out because they have a history with the First
Nations people, the indigenous people that have populated the valleys
that we were in for thousands of years, not hundreds,
but thousands of years we're going to be traveling in
(19:50):
this trip. We did travel along this trip on what's
called the trans Canada Highway. This is the Canada that
goes across. The highway goes across Canada forty six one
hundred and some miles. It was absolutely amazing. On our
first day's journey, we passed part of recent history. I
remember the Olympics back in nineteen eighty eight, the ski jumps,
(20:13):
remember the guys from was it Jamaica Terary and we're
in those Olympics. We passed the hills where they rode down,
so we saw some recent history. But on our way
to Banff, we also stopped at the gondola. This gondola
starts about fifty two hundred feet above sea level where
in the mountains already. We took an eight minute ride
(20:35):
on this enclosed gondola. Some people were like a little
sketchy about whether they were going to get in or not,
but I got all of our travelers inside. I convinced
him it would be okay. We took an eight minute
ride up to a fantastic observation tower over seventy five
hundred feet elevation, and the views were outstanding.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
And I think it's of note to say this is
a good place. I think to interject this, Harry, you
said you worked hard to get some of these people
up on the gondola. We have folks who join us
on group travel of ages, you know, from youthful to
more mature audiences. So really, if you're listening today and
(21:19):
you fall anywhere between you know, twenty to sixty years
old or older eighties, eighties, you know you can feel
very comfortable joining a group trip and know that all
of the all of your worries, all of the travel
arrangements are going to be handled seamlessly, especially with an
(21:40):
on site escort like Harry when he goes with you.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
Yeah, we've we've had travelers that took this trip. They
knew there was going to be a little bit of
walking and things. They brought along a walking stick, so
you know, we made things easy up there. I didn't mention,
but this is really important to me and maybe some
people listening to When we go to places like the gondola,
we don't stand in line and buy tickets. Now, how
(22:05):
does that work? We purchase them in advance. We buy
group tickets in advance. We go there, I walk up
to the counter as people are unloading off of our
motor coach. I get our group ticket and I move
our group into the line immediately, sometimes even special lines,
and we avoid the crowds so to speak. Thought maybe
you were rushing the gate and no, no, no, no,
(22:27):
no no no. So after we got done with our
gondola ride, we headed out to our nighttime a bow
and that was the Fairmont Baff Springs Hotel. Another virtuoso hotel,
also known as the Castle in the Sky. This hotel
goes back to eighteen eighty eight with its Scottish style architecture.
It's got a championship golf course, a spa and alpine experiences.
(22:50):
It's also at the junction of a couple very important
rivers in Canadian history, the Bow and Spray Rivers. A beautiful,
beautiful property right on the shores of Lake Louise, where
we had time to explore historic Lake Louise Moraine lakes.
There's four ski areas in the winter here, so that
if you are a skier, you got from mid November
(23:12):
all the way into May to do what is reputed
to be some of the best powder skiing in the world.
If you want to hike, if you want to take
a nature tour, this is where we started to see
the wildlife. Chris the bear. We saw black bear, brown bear.
They have foxes, coyotes, moose are up there, the ospreys
and eagles too. So we're in the mountains now.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
Nice.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
The next morning we got up and we headed for
the Continental Divide. I know you're a geography history guy,
so you know all about the Continental Divide.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
No, probably not the water sheds either to the Atlantic
or the Pacific from that point right. Yep, you scored
one hundred at some point it gets there, but yeah,
and we took a road there.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
This also known as the Ice Fields Parkway, which continas
traveler rates, is one of the top drives in the world.
We're still on our motor coach driving up to the
con to the Continental Divide, up on the ice Fields Parkway,
and we are now at the boundary between the.
Speaker 4 (24:14):
Two national parks.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
We spoke about earlier Banff National Park and Jasper National Park.
There's no sign says you are moving from one to another,
but we have made that transition, and our destination is
the skywalk. We're talking about a glass walkway, arc shaped
walkway nine hundred and eighteen feet above this gorge that
(24:38):
is the lookout point for the Columbia ice Field going
back two hundred and forty thousand years.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
Terry and I got to tell you walking on a skywalk.
I did this myself in the Grand Canyon and I
did not make it. I can tell you this is
not for the faint of heart. Because I thought I
was going to be brave. I really have an aversion
to heights. It's nope, it's not good for me. And
(25:08):
so I got on this skywalk in the Grand Canyons.
I got halfway out there and then could not move.
I froze and I literally Chris had to crawl back
to where my port was so that I could actually
see a floor under me and nutglass. So I'm impressed
(25:31):
that all of these folks with Harry's group did this skywalk.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
That's impressive, every single one of them. And what I
did a little coaching again and you know, I did
my research. This is a glass walkway. It's steel, you know, structure,
but with thick, thick, thick I say, three times big
thick thick glass on it. It can support a seven
(25:55):
thirty seven aircraft, fully loaded, fully fueled with passengers.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
I would have brought celery and been crunching it watches
to see people's reaction.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
No, we that would have been so mean. We know.
We made it out there. Again. We talked about support
for some people who need a little extra help. I
was out there to coach.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
Be glad Chris wasn't one of your group members.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
It was a sixth sense a year. He's just tough.
We would we would have put him in the detention
seat in the coach, but we we did have wheelchairs available.
Some people were a little concerned about walking out there
and you know, and and locking up not being able
to walk back. So we had some folks with wheelchairs.
You know that that made their way across there and.
Speaker 4 (26:38):
It was worth it.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
You're talking about in a gorge on the edge of glaciers,
looking around, seeing scenery that I've got photographs. I know
Terry's posted some of them on our Facebook page. There's
not a single photograph I have that captures what I
saw that day. Justice, It's just an attempt because we
(27:02):
were up there. We're talking about glaciers that, like I said,
two hundred and forty thousand years old, one hundred and
twenty five square miles.
Speaker 4 (27:13):
This glacier is that it covers.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
And you're talking about thicknesses that are from three hundred
feet all the way up to twelve hundred feet thick
in glaciers, that's a lot of ice. You're talking about
a place that's got ninety three feet of snow annually
building these glaciers as they move across in the continental divide,
(27:36):
Atlantic and Pacific. When you get up to the top
of this glacier, it also feeds the Arctic Ocean, So
you are literally as close to the top of the
world as you can get in the glacier world without
you know, being in an aircraft.
Speaker 3 (27:53):
Harry, I'm enjoying hearing about all of these experiences that
you had. But what trust me, even when you made
some calls into the office telling me how things were
going on this trip, was how you felt, Yeah, your emotions.
What did the visuals of this kind of landscape and
(28:16):
this kind of experience do for you and what.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
Did you see?
Speaker 3 (28:20):
How did you see it affecting the people that were
on these groups.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
These were life changing moments for people, Terry, and I
mean seriously life changing moments. It was, without a doubt,
amongst the most spectacular scenery I had ever seen in
my life. And I've traveled to a lot of places,
seen a lot of things, been to a lot of experiences,
but this is Mother Nature at her finest in some
(28:48):
of the places where the planet is changing. I mean
literally the planet is changing. We're taking pictures. I'm trying
straight shots, I'm trying panoramic shots, I'm trying videos. As
I looked at him, I couldn't look back at those
videos and get exactly the same feeling as I had
when I was there. I mentioned having it at the beginning, Chris,
(29:12):
we want to talk to you. It was life changing
to see these things and to experience them, and to
be around other people and talk to other people experiencing
the same as well.
Speaker 4 (29:26):
We talked about groups at the beginning.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
Groups are what makes this happen, Harry. We're going to
take a quick break when we come back. We need
to get on the train Yeah, our show is running
out of time, so we'll talk more about doing it
together group travel. Harry took his trip to Canada for
the Rocky Mountaineer and we'll talk more about that next
Here on A Life Less Ordinary.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
Who would think of driving off to a new destination
without guidance from Google or Syria? It's not the Wishing
World guide your next travel experience. Travel the world as
you enjoy the very best destinations and all they offer
at the best prices. Our mobile travel app keeps your
vacation on track and keeps you connected with our team
of experts.
Speaker 4 (30:06):
For help.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
If you need it, call us at five four zero
nine zero eight two three three three stop buy two
forty three nef Avenue or visit us at the Wishingwell
dot biz.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
Hey, welcome back to you A Life Less Ordinary, the
travel showing podcast from your friends at the Wishing Well.
You can find them on nep Avenue in Harsenberg. Give
him a call five four zero nine oh eight twenty
three thirty three. You can also find them online at
the Wishingwell dot bus. And while you're there on the website,
look at past episodes of A Lifeless Ordinary. And I
would like for you to look specifically for one entitled
(30:39):
It's Better in the Rockies. This was from October back
in twenty twenty three when Terry spoke with the company
that runs the Rocky Mountain Absolutely and it was a
great conversation about what Harry just experienced. And so if
you'd like to get a little bit more behind the
scenes point of view from the Rocky Mountain near, listen
(31:00):
to that episode.
Speaker 3 (31:01):
Thank you Chris for mentioning that, because the other thing
I want to do is put out a sincere and
heartfelt thank you to everybody who tells us you listen
to us every Saturday faithfully. Here on a lifeless ordinary,
we love to bring you the travel experiences that are
life changing and bring you the travel experiences that take
(31:25):
you from ordinary to extraordinary. When it comes to travel,
we talk about a lot of luxury travel. We talk
about a lot of new and exciting destinations and maybe
even sometimes destinations you've never heard of before.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
So I had never heard of the Rocky Mountaineer until
we did that episode, And was one evening my wife
and I were watching YouTube on TV and there was
a video about the train and what the trip through
the Canadian Rockies was all about, and I was like,
we talked about this, so we watched it, and of
course fell in love with the whole idea if we
(32:02):
want to now go and just live on the train,
if that was a possibility. But I fell in love
with it, right, and so I'm so excited. I'm so jealous,
let me just say that, so jealous of you, Harry,
But I'm so excited that you got to first hand
experience the Rocky Mountain near the sites. I really regret
(32:24):
that our show today is on radio because I would
love for you to be able to see exactly what
Harry saw. I'd recommend maybe check out the Facebook page
for the Wishing Well because there are some pictures there
for you. But man, Harry, come on.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
So after we got John, would you do right to
get this trip. It's a little bit of work, but
this was a tremendous reward. But we got done looking
at what we're looking at, but we're getting to the train.
We spent the night in Jasper another and it's weird
to say another, but just another historic nineteen twelve or
(33:00):
nineteen twenty one hotel again, a virtuoso hotel, Fairmount Jasper Park,
which is a recreational lodge kind of property, a little
different than big city properties. We spent the night in there,
but we got up, we got on our motor coach
and we went to the train station, which is I
know where you want.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
Me to get to, Chris right, Well, I just want
I want our listeners today to be able to picture
what the experience was. I would like for you to
describe the train station. I want you to describe what
the train looks like. I want to know. I know
there are different levels you can take silver leaf or
gold leaf seating. I'd like to know what the difference
(33:41):
is between all of those.
Speaker 4 (33:42):
I already know, but.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
I want everyone else to understand too, because this is
luxury on the rails.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
Well, and train day is a very exciting day. We
made it to the train station. You asked what it
was like if you use your imagination, and you said,
what did an old time train station look like? It
looked exactly like where we went that morning. We went
to the to the train station downtown Jasper and saw
(34:09):
the rail building and we got our first glimpse at
the Rocky Mountaineer. The Rocky Mountaineer is an exquisite and
I'll use that word exquisite train. You look at it
and it's like if you looked at a luxury car
and you see a Lamborghini or a Rolls Royce. You
look at it and you go wow. That's what the
(34:31):
first experience was of the train as we looked at
it that morning and looked at the cars that you're
asking about.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
So it's a double decker train, yes it is.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
It's a train that's got two classes of service. You
asked about that. We have silver a Leaf service, and
we have gold Leaf service. Our group chose gold Leaf
service obviously, which is they have both kinds of cars
in the train. And there's nothing shabby about any of
the service on this train, but the gold Leaf service
(35:03):
is the upper level.
Speaker 3 (35:05):
That What struck me about the pictures that Harry sent
when he immediately got to the train was the paint
scheme on the Rocky Mountaineer. It looked Chris ever so
much like an eagle. If you looked at it from
a distance, it looked like an eagle flying. And when
I looked at the pictures, I went, how clever is
(35:27):
that that the train actually looks like.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
That, very purposefully painted, and it impressed me so much
so that if you do come visit us at the
Wishing Well. I have purchased both the locomotive and one
of the cars that will run on my HO Railroad.
They're available for purchase from Rocky Mountaineer. Not doing a
plug for them. But they were so impressive. The train
(35:52):
was so impressive. I bought, you know, the car that
we were in and the locomotive. The boys have these
toys and I do so when we talk about the service,
we were on a train and we were very, very
fortunate because we were on the last car of the train,
which is a double decker car, and there was nothing
(36:15):
behind us. So I'm going to tell you about that,
and just the second as to why that was so important?
Speaker 1 (36:20):
Can I jump in and tell you why I think
it's important. Go ahead, don't they turn your seats around
for the second part of the trip.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
You can do that if you want to. But that's
not That wasn't ther what do they say, the PA
the resistance, So I can't say I tried all right,
it wasn't a top shelf.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
I'll wait to find out why we started.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
And we board the car and we go to the
second level, of these car of our car. These cars
are two million dollar cars. We went up to the
second level and we had seats up there that were
every bit as good as the best first class airline
seat I've ever flown in. It had every button on there,
from our support to foot rest to lean back, and
(37:03):
there was nobody that you disturbed when you lean back
because there was that much space between your seats in there.
We relaxed, got ourselves comfortable in the car, and we
began our journey down the tracks. The trains moved about
twenty twenty five miles an hour, so you are seeing
scenery all the way. The views are magnificent because these
(37:25):
cars are domed, and it's not just glass all around,
but at the top part of the dome it's tinted
glass because you don't want the sunlight to disturb you
while you're sitting in your luxury seat. There are attendants
in the car. The car holds about fifty couple people,
I believe fifty to sixty people, so we had two
(37:45):
attendants for you know, sixty people. There is a beverage
section of the car. There's a snacks section of the car,
so all the way along our journey. We've got the
you know, beverages, snacks. There's also a little library that
was on board that our hosts had for us, some
of the best professionally trained hosts on that train. We're
(38:08):
talking about the hotels, same thing goes for our hosts,
And I.
Speaker 3 (38:11):
Think it's important to note that as Harry's talking about
the kinds of things that they enjoyed, like beverages and
food and all of that. Rocky Mountaineer is all inclusive.
When you get on board, everything is included. You pay
nothing extra, especially in that gold Leaf service.
Speaker 4 (38:31):
That's true.
Speaker 2 (38:31):
And some people might be wondering, could I get up
the second floor on a train car on the nswer
is Yes, there are two staircases that'll let you get
up there. But if that's an issue for you, they
also have an elevator in there, because what is a
train without an elevator to get up to the second floor?
Speaker 4 (38:47):
Right?
Speaker 2 (38:48):
Why were we up on the second floor. The scenery
is a little better out there. And when we decided
to have our breakfast and lunch, which is served at
the first level, because you don't want to eat.
Speaker 4 (38:59):
Breck us at your seat, right, Chris, I.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
Mean, so first class.
Speaker 2 (39:04):
We went down. We know that's what that's and that
is what silver service is, like you get a first
class meal, but you're at your seat. We went down
the stairs and elevator and went down to the first
level of the train where we had our individual white
clothed tables and another set of service personnel that were
(39:26):
serving us our meals that were prepared in the kitchen
in that car for us. All right, So you ordered
off a menu just like in a fine restaurant, about
six choices for entrees. Of course, there are appetizers and desserts,
because what's breakfast and lunch without appetizers and desserts and beverages.
(39:48):
You could order off this menu customized if you didn't
like And some people who know me and this this
should elicit a few laughs. For those listeners who know me,
I'm not a big fan of green beans, the entrees
that I wanted. Listen to Terry, Do I like green beans?
Not even at Terry's house while I eat green beans.
Are you gotta let me make you green beans? Then
(40:09):
I've heard that one hundred times and only one that's
come through that I've all.
Speaker 1 (40:13):
Right, hold on eat, we're taking a detour from the
Rocky Mountaineer. It's a pound of bacon.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
No, you can put caviat on them. I'm not eating them, Chris.
And here's what I did on the train. Entree I
wanted was served with green beans. I let them know
that I was not a fan of green beans. They said,
that's not a problem. How many times do you get
not a problem. They asked me what vegetable I would like,
and I looked at the other entrees. I found they
were serving some squash. So they prepare. The point is
(40:44):
they prepare your meal for you individually. Again, they're asking
our travelers about allergies, about you know, food that they
have to avoid, and everybody got a customized meal. We
had one person on board that is completely you know,
dairy intolerant. They prepared special desserts because they knew in advance.
They had special desserts prepared for this traveler, and he said,
(41:07):
this is some of the best non dairy chocolate cake
I've ever had.
Speaker 4 (41:12):
Nice.
Speaker 2 (41:12):
So we enjoyed our meals, our customized meals, with our
customized beverages. Nice selection of wine, custom Canadian you know
beverages there too, including Canadian beers which I made a
point of trying. And then we get to that part
of the car that I really liked, and again I
(41:33):
think we'll at least get a picture of the video
out there. You walked out to the back of the
dining car and it was an open observation platform. Nothing
behind me on the train.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
Oh yeah, because you were in the last train.
Speaker 2 (41:47):
I was again in a special part of heaven where
you could be out in the in the warm air.
Temperatures were, you know, in the seventies and eighties surprisingly
warm for that part of the world. Standing out there
there with you know, my little phone camera taking pictures
up the tracks, down the tracks I could film ahead
as we were going around the curves, seeing our locomotive
(42:10):
pulling the whole train, going around the curve, through these valleys,
following the course of the river. Does this sound exciting yet?
Speaker 1 (42:19):
Everything about this is exciting to me, But I do
actually want to find out what the journey was. Once
you got on the train, and we've got about ten
minutes left in our show. Okay, so we leave were
we in Vada? We left Jazz Jasper. We left Jasper,
and we're heading toward Vancouver. We're heading west so what
do we see along the way. We have two days
(42:41):
of scenery to see along the way. We are still
up in the mountains, at the top of the mountains,
you know, not far from where we were at the
glaciers and the ice fields, so we're seeing that kind
of you know, tunder outside.
Speaker 2 (42:54):
The Canadian rockies are full of the tall Douglas fir
pines and their pack tighter than match sticks in a
match box, so they're thin, you know, and just everywhere
you see them. As you get up high, you start
to see the open parts of the mountains. We're traveling
on the train tracks, so we're moving along the rivers. Okay,
(43:17):
at parts there wide, at parts the're narrow. Where we're
traveling across old train bridges that were constructed in the
nineteen hundreds. You know, they're just as solid as the rocks.
And we are traveling not ten feet in some cases
maybe six feet away from the edge of rocks. We
traveled through probably I want to say, at least fifty tunnels,
(43:41):
some of them pretty short, some of them a little
bit longer. Carved through these tunnels right at the edge
of the rocks. We are on an active railway, so
we're we're seeing some of the Canadian Pacific and Canadian
National trains along that same railway. We may be on
a siding from minute as they passed us or as
(44:01):
we passed them. So we're seeing nature and we're seeing
nothing but nature. So the wildlife that we were talking
about earlier. We're seeing mountain sheep, We're seeing elk, we're
seeing we saw black bear. We're seeing eagles. We're in Canada,
but we're seeing the bald eagles up there, flying osprey.
(44:24):
You're seeing all kinds of fantastic things that are just
raw nature. You're not seeing people, you're not seeing cars.
Sometimes we're traveling along the highways, but in many cases
we are right at the river's edge. Scenery that's just
journey through the clouds is the right name for this,
(44:46):
because we were in the clouds.
Speaker 1 (44:48):
And this would be scenery that you would not be
able to see if you weren't on the train. There
aren't roads that you can be trying to see this.
Speaker 2 (44:57):
This is the railroad. Road is the only road that's there.
Speaker 3 (45:00):
I mean, I could think the only other way you
could see it, probably Chris, with the route that this
rail takes you through would be as if you were
a hiker. Perhaps you could see it maybe backpacking through
the Canadian Rockies, but wow, wouldn't be nearly as luxurious.
Speaker 2 (45:15):
Well, the places that we were on, many of the
places we were on there were no trails beside this.
I have no idea, you know, what was involved in
creating the rails that we were riding on. I can't imagine,
you know what that was like at the you know,
back you know, over a century ago, as as you know,
the people were building these railways and probably many of
(45:40):
them you know, lost their lives doing it, the labor
involved in all the blasting and everything. And they still
have rock slides along these railways. So there, you know,
we saw all of the systems that are built over
the years to protect against these these rock slides. And
the people on the train that the attendants were saying,
you know sometimes yeah they have the wait, they stopped
(46:00):
the train, there's been a rock slide. They send somebody out,
They cleared the tracks, and they you know.
Speaker 4 (46:06):
They move on.
Speaker 2 (46:07):
Just incredible scenery as we passed through and the train ride, Chris,
you were asking about, we started up high in the
Rockies and as we moved to Vancouver over the course
of two days riding you know, on the train. Of course,
we stopped at night and stayed in the luxury hotel
and boarded the next day. But two days of riding
(46:29):
the train, we moved from the top of the Rockies
to the lower lands in Vancouver, and we saw the
transformation of the mountains into some of Canada's highly productive
agricultural areas where they're raising beef, they're raising blueberries. We
saw blueberries along the way and it was, you know,
(46:53):
amazing to see all the all the different agriculture. And
then we finished our ride in the large railroad rail
yard in Vancouver, absolutely amazing. As we moved in the city,
it was like a transformation, almost like getting up before
the sun rises and you know, sitting your chair out
in your backyard and watching that transformation of the stars
(47:16):
in the night into the day as the sun rose
and you know, came up and you start to see
everything light up and activities start to hustle and bustle.
Moving At the end of our journey to the city
of Vancouver, which is the third largest city in Canada
and the largest city on the West coast of Canada.
Because that's where a lot of the ports are shipping
(47:39):
things coming into Canada, and we ended our journey there
staying in yet another historic virtual also Fairmont Hotel, right
in the middle of the city, and got it to experience,
you know, a full day and a half in the
city of Vancouver.
Speaker 1 (47:59):
So who is this tour designed for?
Speaker 4 (48:05):
Great question.
Speaker 2 (48:06):
This tour is designed for I would say for seniors.
You saw a lot of seniors on board, but you
also saw a lot of people. We had a honeymoon
couple in there, probably in their thirties. They were taking
it as a I don't know what you call it,
a baby cation or something. She was in the first
(48:27):
trimester of her pregnancy and they took it as you know,
their big trip together before someone moved into their family.
So what a tremendous you know, reason to take that trip.
They were from England. As a matter of fact, they
traveled all the way from England to take that trip.
We saw international travelers, a lot of Americans on the trip.
Speaker 1 (48:46):
Well, I mean, even for those of us who've lived
around mountains, this is I'm sure one of those once
in a lifetime. Can you imagine if you live in
England being able to come and see this in person,
it's got to be just mind blowing.
Speaker 3 (48:59):
Yeah, And I mean book a lot here on a
Lifeless Ordinary about how travelers today have evolved. They're looking
for experiences. Chris. So, while it might be kind of
interesting to put an age on who would be the
demographic for this trip, I don't think you can do
(49:20):
that anymore because people of all ages are looking for
those Instagram moments. They're looking for the unique experiences. They're
looking for vacations to be something other than ordinary.
Speaker 2 (49:33):
And what I didn't see on this trip, and I
think it was mainly because of the class of service.
And we were in the Gold Service, which is the
premium service. But I imagine if I had made it
into the Silver level service cars, I might have seen
some families we stay. The difference, the big difference on
this particular trip, as Terry was talking about earlier, was
(49:54):
the level of service. The Gold Service is at Premium
is stay in the premium hotels, you ride in the
pre imium car. But the Silver level of service is
not shabby either. And were I traveling this with my
family or if a family came in to talk to us, Terry,
I'd probably have them take a good look at that
Silver Service because they get a very very similar experience.
(50:16):
They get to see all of the beauty and the wonders.
They saw the same things we saw. The difference was
the class of service for riding in the car and
the class of service for sleeping at night and for
eating during the day.
Speaker 3 (50:29):
And there is a premium for luxury service like with
Rocky Mountaineer. So for families who are perhaps more budget minded,
the Silver Service would be a great.
Speaker 4 (50:39):
A wonderful idea.
Speaker 2 (50:40):
They got everything that we got, except you know, at
a different level for the services. They got the same
scenery and the same experience of getting to know the
Canadian rockies and the city so we visited.
Speaker 1 (50:53):
So is the pricing based on which route you take
when you go? Is it like trying to book a
vacation and you need the airline to be cheaper at
a certain time of year. How does that all work?
Speaker 3 (51:04):
Yeah, it can be. The journey that we chose for
this particular group trip Chris was called Journey through the Clouds,
including vamp. Now, Rocky Mountaineer has many many other itineraries
that you can choose, and those also come with different
price points, So that's a great question. So people who
(51:25):
are looking to modify or control their budgets a little
bit more might be interested in looking at some of
the other itineraries that Rocky Mountaineer offers.
Speaker 2 (51:35):
And it includes an itinerary that they have in the
United States as well. They travel out west and they
visited Moab and the American Rockies, so that's an alternative
that they have that I think you might be right
for some people too. The trick is to figure out
which is right for you and to use the services
(51:56):
of someone that has the experience. I can tell you
a lot about this trip, more than I can fit
into a one hour show. That to help people make
the right decision, and to point people to the special
things about the different itineries it might be attractive, and
also to point people to the special promotions. Because we
receive regularly promotions from Rocky Mountaineer. I know if you're
(52:20):
traveling into twenty twenty six, this is a good time
to look at some of the promotions.
Speaker 1 (52:25):
This is one of the many reasons that I love
the Wishing Well is because if we come in to
talk to you about what our vision for a luxury
travel experience is you can go sit down. Let me
tell you about my personal experience with it, because you
guys have traveled to so many of these locations personally
experienced the type of luxury experiences that you're telling us
(52:49):
that we're going to expect, and I just love that
we are down to the last few seconds. Terry, tell us,
as you do every week at the end of the show,
how we can get in touch with you.
Speaker 3 (52:58):
We are easy to find. Were located at two forty
three nef Avenue in the Valley Center in Here'sonburg, Virginia.
You can find us on the web where Atthwishingwell dot
biz or give us a call where at five four
oh nine oh eight two three three three.
Speaker 1 (53:13):
This has been a Life Less Ordinary, the travel show
from your friends at the wishing Well at two forty
three nef Avenue in Harrisonburg. If you have any questions
on topics discussed today, please reach out to The wishing
Well online at the Wishingwell dot biz or five four
oh nine oh eight twenty three thirty three. Past episodes
are available on the iHeartRadio app. And we'll see again
next Saturday morning at ten for a Life Less Ordinary
(53:36):
from the wishing well
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