OT: Sick "little" april fools joke, Warning about Amtrak Options

[smrz914]

Sorry for the long post but I'm so irate. I'm sorry to vent like this here but you guys are my support group. So it started out nicely, my roomate wanted to go home this weekend and finish puting together his Fiat 124. We are in Chico and the car is in the Bay Area. The plan was to take Amtrak back to the bay area, get his car finished, and then take the car for a long drive up to Humbolt to visit a friend. The train we wanted was scheduled to leave at 3:50 AM on Friday morning. No problem we thought, we could drink a little to make the time go faster (IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/html/emoticons/beerchug.gif) and walk on down to the train station. So we called Amtrak Wednesday night, because we couldn't buy tickets on-line because it was to close to the departure time. the lady on the phone said that we would have to buy the tickets on the train in order to get the AAA discount (very important for college students). We called about 6 hours before our train was suppose to arrive and found out that the train was running about an hour late. Great so now we have to stay up even longer. About an hour befor the new arrival time we call again and now the train was only half an hour late. It probably takes about 30 minutes to walk there so we left our apartment. We get to the station and wait there with a few other people for the train to arrive. The train finally comes and we wait to get on the train. the condictor asks us where we are going and we say Martinez and then he asks for our reservation number. (IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/html/emoticons/blink.gif) Our what we say?

Then the conductor says we can't get on the train. I couldn't belive it. So my friend says ok lets go back to the apartment. On the way back I decide to give them a little piece of my mind about the whole thing. I feel a little sorry for the woman at the other end of the line untill she starts being rude. Well she practically hangs up on me. Now I'm even more pissed off. So there is a I call them again a couple of hours later and try to see when the next departure time is for something leaving chico. Well that is at 8:10 AM, so I tell the guy to book me a ticket and he says that's not necessary, that i can buy my ticket on the train. So I said OK, give me a reservation number, then the moron tries to tell me that I don't need one of those to get on the bus. So I interrupt him by saying, In the nicest tone I can, "No o no no no, give me a reservation number", and then there is silence at the other end. I say "Hello", in a provocative way and he says "I'm still here, hold on", in an irritated way. Well I get my reservation number.

Moral of the story, if you go with Amtrak for anything get a reservation number.

I'm still pissed about this. But thanks for listening. I hope yoru days are going better.