Ep.9 | Travel Disaster in London

Belmond Britannic Explorer ***SCREWED UP OUR TRAVEL PLANS***

When disaster strikes your business it should be defined by the way you handle it.. It's all about customer service. As business owners we have all dealt with customer services issues. We have all made mistakes. I think a business can really define themselves, not by the mistake itself, but by the way they deal with it. 

In this video, Alissa and Sal discuss a recent luxury train trip that got cancelled the night before they were supposed to board the train.... in London! 

Imagine, traveling halfway around the globe and having a trip cancelled on you. You have no hotel reservations, no way to travel back home without incurring additional penalties or fees. 

We talk about Belmond Britannic Explorer - https://www.belmond.com/trains/europe/uk/britannic-explorer/

I CAN NOT RECOMMEND THEM ENOUGH!! 

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Transcript

Sal 0:00

Alright, everybody, welcome back to another episode of Talkin' Shit with the Sinkadas. Uh Sal Sinkata here with my wife, Alyssa Sinkata. You you ready for today?

Alissa 0:10

Yeah, I actually have no idea what we're talking about.

Sal 0:12

You know, I think uh we should talk about our recent train trip um and the customer service aspect of it.

Alissa 0:24

So would you call this like making it right when you do wrong as a business owner?

Sal 0:29

I think so, but we need a we need a catchy opening. So it's gonna be um what was the name of it?

Alissa 0:34

The name of what?

Sal 0:35

The train.

Alissa 0:36

Um it is the Belmont Britannic Explorer.

Sal 0:41

Um all right, so we'll open it up with saying the um Belmond D.

Alissa 0:47

Yeah.

Sal 0:48

Belmont Britannic Explor Britannic Britannic It's a fucking mess. The Belmont Britannic Explorer when disaster strikes. I feel like that's I feel like that's a good uh clickbaity title. Alright, so let's we gotta paint the picture for everybody. Um and uh, you know, don't get mad at us for you know, this is a bougie trip. It was a very bougie trip.

Alissa 1:13

Yeah, this is like once in a lifetime bucket list. Yeah, there was an opportunity, we were like, we're doing it.

Sal 1:18

We're doing it. So we went over to uh the UK. We were we spent some time over in Ireland and then uh London and we were taking this train trip. Look it up, it's uh it's an incredible trip. So it's bougie as hell. It's owned by the parent company who owns Louis Vuitton. They uh own a train, which by the way, now it's starting to turn out that a lot of these luxury brands are investing in uh these high-end train trips where you have your own suite on the car. It's not like Amtrak. Oh, no, it's a sleeper car.

Alissa 1:51

It's a sleeper car, like cart, train car.

Sal 1:56

Yeah, yeah, that's um you get your own car, uh, Michelin level chef on board. Uh is it three days? Three full days, yeah. Three full days on the train, multiple stops, activities when you stop. This is a $15,000 trip, not including airfare, right? So we went over there, we flew first class uh over there. Like I said, this is it's a bougie trip. Uh flew first class.

Alissa 2:22

I just know people are gonna be like throwing shade, and it's like oh, you should see the comments people throw at Belmond about this trip.

Sal 2:30

Uh whatever, man. Teach their own. You know what I mean? I'm not gonna apologize for being successful.

Alissa 2:35

Apparently, that these train trips were designed specifically for the rich Saudis.

Sal 2:39

Oh, the rich Saudis. Yeah. Well, I am not Saudi. I wish I had some oil money. Um, anyway, so we we're all excited. We're there with two two very good friends of ours. So it's uh it's a you know, it's a thing. We're traveling with everybody. I'm just trying to give you the background so you understand all this. The night before, so we went over there, spent some time in Ireland, and then we had to make our way back to London to go on the train trip. Literally the night before, 8 p.m., 9 p.m., Alyssa gets a phone call, and uh, I just see everything on her face change.

Alissa 3:11

And like it was so bad. I've never been this speechless before in my life. And I remember one of the people with us grabbed me and was like, I thought your parents, one of your parents died. Right. That was the kind of level of reaction you presented to us.

Sal 3:24

Uh, your body like that. I'm sorry, very dramatic. So we find out that the the trip's being canceled, the train's being canceled due to mechanical issues, and we're kind of devastated. And the main reason is is because we are in London. We have no hotel where, you know, to change your plane tickets four or five days early, that's gonna cost us a shit ton of money. So we can't do that.

Alissa 3:47

And you're hoping they even have availability on the flights back.

Sal 3:49

Right, right. I mean, it's just so all of a sudden you're you're like thrust into this situation where you're like, honestly, what the fuck? Right now what? Um and so this is where, you know, when disaster strikes, so what do you do? You're overseas, trip is canceled. Now we come to find out that the trip before ours was also canceled. So they already knew that there was problems going on. So once again, you're you're back to what the fuck, guys? Um, like what kind of mechanical issues are going on?

Alissa 4:19

It was the the doors wouldn't close, which is a big deal. Like, don't get me wrong, if you're on a train trip and the doors won't close, it just smells like it just smells like bullshit.

Sal 4:26

Like you how long does it take to figure out how to close doors on a train?

Alissa 4:29

Well, apparently months. So the bullshit part was the fact that they knew the train prior didn't go and they didn't tell us that. Right. Like, at least prepare us.

Sal 4:39

So that's the disaster, right? So we're on the phone with him, and you know, we're like, well, guys, we're literally here for one reason. We're not local, we're here for this trip. Don't worry, we're gonna get you hotel accommodations, we're gonna cover that. And I'm like, when I heard this, I'm just like, all fucking stop. Like, we are not staying in some like holiday. You know how it is when you travel international. Like what they call a four-star accommodation is just bullshit, right? It's like not, like you're lucky if the air conditioning works, especially if you fly to to Italy. The air conditioning and ice cubes in Italy are it's its own story. So I'm like, we're not we're not doing that. And they're like, they kind of laughed at us on the phone, and they're like, What'd they say exactly?

Alissa 5:27

Um she said, Don't worry. I promise you it's not a bad hotel. I promise you, you'll be very pleased with the accommodations.

Sal 5:36

Yeah, now mind you, prior to this, we once again, bougie trip, we were staying at what was the hotel?

Alissa 5:41

We were at the peninsula. The peninsula, which is we went all out, like we nothing was missed, no detail was missed.

Sal 5:47

Just a ridiculous high-end hotel. It's beautiful. Look it up. So that's that's our bar. I'm like, we're not going backwards. That's not gonna happen. So they kind of like, you know, don't worry about it, blah, blah, blah. And and at the time, we don't really understand that this is a hotel that's owned by a luxury company, right? So they have this whole like hospitality wing of you know, LVHM.

Alissa 6:12

Well, Belmont is actually a hotel brand, right?

Sal 6:14

Which I'd never heard of shows you I'm not fully bougie yet.

Alissa 6:18

You're you're entry-level bougie. I'm entry-level. Yeah, yeah.

Sal 6:21

So we show up, so we show up to this hotel, and it turns out like the hotel they got us up in, this is where the company makes it right, right? So, and I think that's the whole point of this is learning how corporations make things right. Because as photographers, uh, in our business, that's what we do, we we understand we have to make it right. When we screw something up, we gotta make it right. And a lot of photographers, I think, don't want to do that. And here's a company that I cannot sing enough praise to. And when we explain to you what they did to make it right, you're gonna be like, holy shit.

Alissa 6:52

Yeah, we're gonna talk about what they did right, we're gonna talk about what they did wrong and the experience and the way it made us feel as we spent all this money.

Sal 7:00

So um, I will say because they they did do something, they did do some things wrong, I think, and I think you think as well. So the experience could have been even better uh when they screwed it up. But go ahead, what were you gonna say?

Alissa 7:11

Uh the night that they called to tell me that it was canceled, I remember standing, you're you know, you're getting this terrible news, and I'm standing there trying to process everything because, like you said, we flew over here for this trip. So what next? And so she's telling me, I'm asking her about the hotel, she's telling me, don't worry, we we'll put you up at one of Belmont's properties. It's called the and you know, first of all, you're under all this stress, you can't process anything. You got the thick British accent, so I'm really like, what is she saying? I kept hearing turducken.

Sal 7:42

Turducken.

Alissa 7:43

Yes, which is like a turkey, duck, and a chicken on Thanksgiving. And I was like, what? They're putting us up at the Turducken? Like, what is this? And so I'm later I'm trying to Google it, and I can't find this hotel anywhere.

Sal 7:56

Right.

Alissa 7:57

So it I had to get a text message from there is no hotel called the Turducken. Correct. All right, continue with the story.

Sal 8:03

Well, what was the hotel they put us up at?

Alissa 8:05

The Kaduggan. The what? Kadogan.

Sal 8:08

Kadogan.

Alissa 8:08

Yeah.

Sal 8:09

Okay.

Alissa 8:09

Kadogan, Kadogan. I still don't really know.

Sal 8:12

So that's where everything starts going right. Uh, and we realized what we're in for. And it's not all roses, so I'm gonna tell you what can be learned from this. So we show up at this hotel, it's it's $2,500 a night.

Alissa 8:26

Uh they pick us up in a Mercedes van to take us down the street, literally down the street. Right.

Sal 8:31

So they pick us up from our uh original hotel, bags, everything. We walk into the hotel, it's the front desk people, the concierge, uh, and then the doorman. The the doorman, everyone knew who we were.

Alissa 8:46

There was no one in the hotel. We were the only ones in the lobby.

Sal 8:49

Welcome, Mr. and Mrs. Sincata. We are so, you know, sorry for the inconvenience. They said our friends' names as well. They had two separate, you know, guest services take us, right? So our friends were being taken care of, we were being taken care of, and uh the in so every night at the hotel, was it four nights we were stayed there? Yes, so four nights free include for the inconvenience. They ate the bill on that. Not only did they eat the four nights free, all meals, drinks, alcohol, all services in the hotel complimentary. So, right out of the gate, you're like, holy shit, talk about making it right. This was amazing. But here's part of the problem, and I do want to keep expanding on what went right. We still don't know what's going on at this point in time at this point in time with the trip. Getting communication from whoever was in charge at corporate, so the hotel staff, top-notch. They they had a mission, they understood the mission to make it right for us, and they did their jobs, can't sing enough praise. Above and beyond, above and beyond. Um, and there's even more to it, which makes it even better. But corporate on the cancellation of the trip and communicating to us, honestly, do better. It was a fucking disaster.

Alissa 10:06

And I felt terrible because I was following up every single day. We're on day three at this new hotel. We don't I still don't know if we're getting reimbursed, yeah, reimbursed like they promised. Yes.

Sal 10:16

The 15 grand. Yes. What are we doing with that?

Alissa 10:18

Yeah, they told us we would be reimbursed for it, but it's how is it being reimbursed?

Sal 10:22

They're telling you this on a phone call, though. Correct. Nothing's in writing. Nothing's in writing. I don't even know if this is actually happening. And at this point, why would I trust you? Right. Right? You've already just proven that your corporate structure. I don't think anyone there was being disingenuous, right? It's obviously a top-notch company. But you're you're just your communication was garbage. Um, so we don't really know what's going on.

Alissa 10:45

I would send a text message to get an update and they would go days. Right. And so finally I found the like the director of something, the director of the Britannic Explorer. I found his email address, started copying him on every email and responses got quicker. I don't like to do that. Like I actually hate it. You don't want to have to escalate. Yeah.

Sal 11:03

Um, so let's go back to the hotel, right? So this is over $10,000 in complimentary.

Alissa 11:10

The hotel rooms were what, $2,500 a year?

Sal 11:12

$2,500 a night. They had us in the suit. Amazing. But here's another level of service worth noting that I now, you know, we're we're normally we're a Hilton brand property. That's we love Hilton, we get their points or whatever. This is the brand for us now. I don't know if I can afford the $2,500 a night that we were.

Alissa 11:31

Like maybe we maybe it's not our brand. Maybe it's like a splurge trip every now and then.

Sal 11:35

I love it. So here's where I thought I was like blown away by the level of service. We would go down to the restaurant uh at the hotel. So they had uh two restaurants, if I'm not mistaken. No, no, no. What was that other for the high tea? That was a restaurant.

Alissa 11:49

Oh, yeah. Afternoon tea it wasn't one spot, not technically a restaurant.

Sal 11:52

It's the Brits. You gotta have tea in the afternoon, right? High tea.

Alissa 11:55

They had a bar, they had a restaurant, they had high tea.

Sal 11:57

So breakfast every morning, uh, dinner, lunch, everything. They had an amazing restaurant. I'd eat there even if I wasn't staying at the hotel. Agreed. So we showed down, we show up in the morning and um we have breakfast, and then uh we show up for dinner, and the hostess who we was not there for breakfast, uh, the hostess, as soon as we walked in, she's like, uh, good evening, Mr. and Mrs. Sengata. We'll Good morning.

Alissa 12:23

Uh uh for breakfast.

Sal 12:25

No, no, no. Breakfast, she she was not there for breakfast.

Alissa 12:28

Oh, oh, oh, I'm sorry, yeah, yeah.

Sal 12:29

She was there for dinner. Yeah. So she hadn't seen us, is my point. And this is where I'm going with this story on the level of service. I don't know if they've got a database of pictures, guest names, and how they knew who we were, but this hostess knew who we were. So she was like, Good evening, Mr. and Mrs. Cincata. Will the I'm not gonna say their name, uh, I'm not gonna violate their privacy. Let's just call them the Jones. Uh, will the Joneses be joining you uh for dinner this evening? I was like, what the f how do you even first of all who we are? And then how do you how do you even remember the or know the correlation?

Alissa 12:58

She knew our room number too.

Sal 13:00

Crazy.

Alissa 13:00

Yep.

Sal 13:01

So I don't know what they're doing from a level of service perspective. Like if there's a database and they train their staff for that, top freaking notch.

Alissa 13:10

Or if it's just this one-off because of the circumstances that they wanted to go right next level with it.

Sal 13:15

I don't believe that. I think this is built into their DNA at that level of service. Yeah, yeah, it needs to be. You'd have to. Yep. Even to the the turndown service in the evening, right? So the lady comes in for turndown service.

Alissa 13:27

Um I don't think typically, like, again, we're new to this this level of bougie. I don't think you're supposed to be in the room during turndown service because she was very uncomfortable with us sitting in there.

Sal 13:39

Yeah, I I don't know what to say about that. But yeah, she just she was a little awkward. Yeah. She did her job, she did it great. But with the service level is she saw me huffing on my reading glasses and trying to clean them. Yeah. And she was like, Do you need, do you need a I don't know what it's called, like a cloth wipe? And I'm like, no, that you know, that's okay. Like, you know, I have one somewhere. She didn't care what I said. She went in, she had like branded uh stuff like the microfiber, yeah. The microfiber, right? And she's just like, and I'll leave you a couple of extra. I'm just like, dude, we've stayed at hotels where just getting room service is a nightmare. Everybody's got attitude about it. Yep. So again, I cannot sing enough praises for this brand's the hotel and the staff at that hotel. Highly recommend you, if you can in your life, this is a brand you want.

Alissa 14:27

Oh, and the concierge got us into uh twinings tea tasting, even though they were sold out online. Yeah, he somehow got us in.

Sal 14:33

Yeah, the concierge uh just next level. So, okay, so that's great, right? We're we're stuck over there and you took care of all hotels, but what the fuck with the train? What are we doing? We've paid 15 grand for this. We have first class tickets that we bought. Well, we're gonna reschedule that on another trip. We're like, well, fuck, man. Now we got to pay for more first class tickets to come back here, or just tickets in general, right? Uh, to come back. They're like, no, no, no. We're going to refund you the $15,000 for the trip, and we're going to give you your next trip free. We're like, huh?

Alissa 15:11

Like, I I had to ask that probably three or four times because I'm like, did you say this? Right. Did you mean something else? I just want to make sure our English is the same. Right. Yeah. Like English. No, it's the British English. You know, they could be saying anything. It could mean anything, exactly. Yeah.

Sal 15:28

Um, no, so and they did. Uh within a couple of weeks, we got uh month the money to our account. But the over the top for me was, and of course, the trip is scheduled for next year, so we can't wait for that.

Alissa 15:40

We're just doing a round two. Yeah, round two. Try again.

Sal 15:42

That was like a starter trip. Yeah, um, see if we're really interested. Uh yeah, they refunded our first class tickets.

Alissa 15:51

Not just the flight home, but the entire thing.

Sal 15:54

Yeah. And so now we have a free trip next year to go on this. So I think, you know, for me, I think businesses and brands always get hammered online. Um, and sure, the opening to this was a little misleading, but disaster did strike. But the reality is this is a company that I have confidence in now. Uh, I would spend more money with now. I'd encourage anyone who wants to go on these kinds of trips to spend it with a company like this, right? At some point in your life. You may look at you know, a train trip through Europe or something like that. There's a lot of brands adding this to their uh lineup. But I have never in my entire life, I don't know about yours, experienced a brand that went so far above and beyond to make it right, uh, like this brand did. But again, the downside, the takeaway, the lesson learned for even us as business owners is how important communication is. That is where I give them an absolute fucking F. Like they failed. You guys, if you're watching this, you failed. That's where you failed. Because this process, you already had to cancel the first trip. So you already kind of took your lumps, right? And you go, okay, you already had to go through refunding people, explaining it to them, whatever. And that probably didn't go smooth either. So now you had that was your kind of trial run. Well, now you've got us. Why is it so hard getting answers from you? Why is it so hard telling us, like, here's when you can expect money to hit you know your account, here's what we're gonna do for you, and here's what you can expect. Like at some point, get someone on your PR team or your marketing team to draft something that goes, hey, in the event the train door can't close again, here's what we're gonna look like from messaging. Susie's in charge of communication with the clients, and here's the internal steps. Like there was no reason for us to be because I think by the time we finally got money refunded, it was almost a month post-trip, something like that. Like, and I didn't need it 24 hours later, but I did need communication to know that this company that we have no experience with, that we don't necessarily trust, that just kind of blew up our plans, that you guys are going to do what you say you're going to do when you say you're going to do it. And and I think that's the F. The A, A plus, if you will, um, is in the team on the ground that and overall the final refund, like wow, uh the uh you know, rescheduling this for free, wow, and uh the team the team on the ground, the service there was just top notch. And I don't believe it was just because our trip got cancelled. I feel like that's what that brand stands for.

Alissa 18:33

Yeah, I agree with that.

Sal 18:35

So anything else you want to add to it?

Alissa 18:38

Yeah, I mean, we just told a story. Like how do you what's a scenario that you've had something like this happen in the business? Like where you royally fucked up.

Sal 18:51

Yeah, I mean, you know, all of us as business owners, well, they you already got my my mouth. Um, all of us as business owners, you know, you you can't run a business and not screw something up. It's gonna happen. You're gonna you're gonna make a mistake, right? Uh and it doesn't matter what your line of business is. You can own a restaurant, a beauty salon, a photo studio. The the takeaway really, I think, is to own your fuck up, right? If you fuck up, just own it. Stop making excuses. That's the one thing that will enrage me. Uh, and you know, I will say an industry we see this more in than not is anything related to homes. Plumbers, carpenters, construction, landscaping, landscaping. That's a tough one for us right now. We got another story. Yeah. Um, yeah, let's flip it. Let's tell this story. We're in a new home in our backyard. We you know, we paid for landscaping in May. We are sitting here filming this in the first week of October, and it is still not done.

Alissa 19:57

And and it's not cheap if anybody's going through.

Sal 20:00

Yeah, if you're doing landscaping, uh, you know, on any, you know, we've got uh our property here is almost uh I think it's six and a half acres or something like that. And if you know, we're just doing landscaping around the house. We're not doing it for six acres.

Alissa 20:12

But no, but this is a big project. They're they're grading the ground, right? They gotta grade it, flooding our whole backyard.

Sal 20:18

Some French drains, we're planting, I don't know, 15, 20 trees, shit like that. So we paid for this in May. We're sitting here in October, still not done. The excuses have been fucking endless.

Alissa 20:31

Throwing people under the bus. Like people that we're friends with, throwing Well, they don't know we're friends with them, right?

Sal 20:35

So they're blaming the general contractor who has nothing to do with it. It's you're you're the landscaping company. Um in May, they told us it was too wet, they couldn't do it. In July, it was too hot, they couldn't do it. Then we heard another excuse from them that they got all of their team got pulled on to a bigger project. Yeah. Who the fuck says that to a customer? You I mean You're not important enough to me. You're just telling me we're not important. And again, so now it's like uh mid-September, and I light the owner up because it's bullshit at this point, right? I know you're full of shit. I know you know you're full of shit, but you're not owning it. You're not owning it and going, you're right, we're gonna get this done by end of next week, right? I light him up, doesn't respond to me, doesn't even acknowledge it. All I know is 24 hours later, four of his team show up and start laying down sod and a uh, you know, like a um one of those trucks. Um I for always forget what they are, but anyway, yeah, I know what you're doing. To level the the ground uh show up one day, still not done. No, and they didn't even finish the sod laid half sod, so now the rest has just got weeds growing in it. Um the trees still aren't planted. Yeah, it's just dirt, and now every time it rains turns to mud. Uh, and you didn't finish the job. So here we are, don't know what to expect. Now, this company, I'm going to light up and leave a bad review.

Alissa 22:07

You gave them a chance to make it right.

Sal 22:09

Yeah, because I, as a business owner, I cannot stand leaving bad reviews for businesses because I really do believe in my heart, give them a chance to make it right. Bro, we are six months into this. You have not only not made it right, there's been absolutely no communication from you uh on this. And that to me, back to communication, is just shitty service. So, your takeaway as a business owner, I would say, if you screw something up, own it. If you really did screw it up, own it. There are times where the customer is not always right. I I believe in that in my heart. Uh, you know, you just got customers who have ridiculous expectations sometimes. You got to let them know that's not a reasonable expectation. That's okay too. But when you do screw it up and you know you screwed it up, fucking own it. And then communicate to the client, you're right, we screwed this up. Thank you for being patient with us. Here's what we're gonna do to make it right. And then, of course, do those things. That should be the takeaway from everybody.

Alissa 23:08

Do those things and update the customer as the process is going on. Yeah.

Sal 23:13

And then, you know, beyond that specific customer, fix your company, right?

Alissa 23:18

Yeah, make sure it doesn't happen again. Right.

Sal 23:20

New run into a new wall, right? I mean, that's the definition of insanity. If you keep running into that same wall expecting a different result, you're an idiot at that point. So fix it, acknowledge, hey, we got a problem with communicating expectations to clients. We're not communicating correctly. Maybe that's a front office person you're gonna handle or a coordinator or a liaison, somebody who's gonna own that and communicate, do that, hire that person. They're they're worth their weight in gold, uh, versus always having to be in like damage control because you screwed something up. So again, every business owner has been on the other side where we screw things up. That's why I try to be patient with businesses, but where I lose my patience always is with lack of communication from the customer. And I think if you incorporate that into your business, you will see customer service issues drop tremendously. Not that you're not gonna screw up, but they're not gonna bubble up into bad reviews online. We all hate bad reviews online. It's hard enough to get people to leave good reviews. So when you get that one bad review, man, it it weighs a lot. But you can avoid this because it's very rare that a customer just has a bad experience and then runs to, you know, online to leave a bad review. It's usually escalated because they've tried to reach out to you to resolve it, you've ignored them, or you're slow in responding. So you've kind of created your own mess.

Alissa 24:42

Why do you think people don't go online to write good reviews when they have good experiences? Why is it always the bad?

Sal 24:48

Yeah. Well, I mean, you have to wait, you have to wait, kind of have that weighted in your mind too. Like if I read a review from uh, you know, if I'm looking for a product, I you know, I I don't put too much weight into bad reviews. I think a lot of people do put a lot of weight into the bad reviews. I don't, because I usually know a couple of things. One, is this a person who complains all the time? Because you can actually see their review history, right? And Google, there's a lot of people you'll go look up and you're like, this person's never left a good review, it's always bad reviews. Um but I think when somebody has a good experience, if you're not asking for the reviews, right, they're not they're probably not going to even think about it. And you know, we ask customers for reviews all the time. Maybe 10% actually leave the review. Um, and you know, it's always a very nice review, but when you piss somebody off and they feel like they have no recourse, that's why they go do it. So if I had a good experience and I'm happy, hey, I'm happy. Why do I have to go say anything? Um, I don't think people realize how important reviews are in this day and age, but then again, to that point, you can go out and buy reviews, right?

Alissa 25:54

If you go on Amazon, dude, Amazon is 99% bought reviews. Yeah, it's crazy.

Sal 26:02

Bought bots. Yeah, bought bots. Bought bots.

Alissa 26:05

No, I've I put a lot more weight into the like three three or four star reviews. Right. Because I feel like they had a good experience, but it's like there's this tiny little thing that's wrong. So just be aware of this. Right. But it's still an okay product.

Sal 26:18

Kind of like what we're talking about with the train. Yeah. I mean, right? We're I I'm hammering them on their lack of communication. I'm giving them an F. Uh, overall, though, I think it's it's an amazing experience. And we haven't even been on the train yet. I just have a feeling, based on everything I've experienced so far, that train trip is gonna be phenomenal next year. So I can't wait. Hopefully they get the doors fixed by then. Yeah, I'm hoping they can fix the doors. We'll let everybody we'll we'll do some behind the scenes and be like a follow-up part two. I know. Here's our experience, here's our experience. Can't wait.

Alissa 26:45

That's it's just I still can't believe. I remember we were like I don't know, two days before leaving, and we were all laughing. Like, what if they just canceled it? Like, what if we got there and the train didn't wasn't even a real thing.

Sal 26:58

You put that in the ether, man.

Alissa 26:59

I I did not. Somebody else with us may have done that.

Sal 27:03

You know who you are, that person. Um, all right. Well, I think that's a wrap. Uh, hopefully, you know, trip's gonna go amazing next year. We'll do a follow-up to this and show some behind the scenes. I'm definitely doing a photo shoot of you on this train. I would highly recommend you at least go check this out. It's it's pretty badass.

Alissa 27:20

So here's the thing: I got all these outfits for this trip. Yeah, because we were gonna go full character, like full era dresses, little hats. We were going all out. Um, but I don't know if they're gonna be in style still next year. So I might have to shop.

Sal 27:36

No, we're not reshopping. No, no reshopping. That is not happening. Maybe no, we'll consider it. Hard note. Oh yeah.

Alissa 27:44

Okay.

Sal 27:45

All right, everybody. That's it. Uh hope let us know your customer service uh experience down in the comments. Uh, would love to hear your thoughts on this and what you think of uh both companies we're telling you about here. So I think I think it's gonna be a good trip. I'd highly recommend them. And um, but check them out for sure. We'll talk to you in the next podcast.