The dining car supervisor said that they had been instructed to charge for more then one beverage. I argued that The comma in the printed text clearly separates "juice" from "coffee or tea, or milk"

I paid it, but I think it was wrong.

The Amtrak menu says:

If so, it's possible that this is a new "regulation." It's equally possible that it's a petty scam -- not dissimilar to the way hotel restaurants (operating on the assumption that most customers won't notice) will overcharge or even "sneak" an extra breakfast item you didn't order onto the check.

While traveling in a sleeper, though, I've never had trouble ordering juice, coffee, AND milk with the same meal. Occasionally, I'll even ask for two desserts.

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Trust God, love your neighbor, and never mistake opinion for truth.
-Mr. Toy

If you're paying $250 per night for a standard room (a price tag that doesn't even include the rail fare), there's nothing wrong with politely asking for -- and getting -- all the orange juice, coffee, and milk you desire.

My simple requests have never been refused, and no dining car server has ever had a bad attitude about it.

On a number of trips, I didn't even ask; the crew simply offered to bring me extra beverages or another dessert. And on the Lake Shore Limited, I was once offered an entire second dinner simply because the kitchen had tons of food left over.

I declined, but appreciated the offer. And the servers continued to refill my coffee cup, automatically, long after the other passengers had left and the diner had officially closed.

[This message has been edited by dilly (edited 06-28-2003).]

As I understand it, the current Amtrak breakfast menu includes one beverage in the price of the meal. If a coach passenger wants an additional beverage he should expect to pay for it. Since all meals are covered by sleeping car fares, a sleeper passenger should not have to pay extra.

But Amtrak may be altering its policies to reduce deficits. There are signs they are tightening up on freebies. For example, until recently you could take your sleeping car meal from the lounge cafe instead of the diner. Now you can only take your meal in the diner. Sleeper passengers now have to pay hard cash to eat at the lounge cafe. (I don't like that, either, but I can live with it.)

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Trust God, love your neighbor, and never mistake opinion for truth.
-Mr. Toy

All breakfast entrees include your choice of one of the following beverages:
juice (orange, apple, or cranberry)
coffee
tea
milk

Mr. Toy is correct, I was a coach passenger on this trip. Most of my travel in the past has been in sleepers, so getting juice with my breakfast was never a problem.

I normally would book a sleeper for an overnight trip, however this trip involved a scheduled 3:20 AM departure, and an 8:20 PM arrival, which at best would have given us a couple of hours in the sack during the hours we normally sleep, so we decided not to spend the $239 extra for the sleeper.

I asked the Conductor about sleeper availability when we boarded the train at about 4:00 AM, he indicated that there was availability, but didn't get back to us until around 9:00 AM, almost 5 hours later.

By that time we had already had breakfast, and had settled in and made friends with some of the nearby coach passengers, so we declined the offer of $69 for an economy sleeper for the remainder of the trip.

I totally agree that Amtrak needs money, and a lot more then they'll ever get from a couple of glasses of juice.

I support Amtrak by paying for services, and by writing to my Congressmen to urge them to continue to support our national passenger rail system. I have to admit that writing my Senator, John McCain, a vocal foe of Amtrak funding, is probably a lost cause, but it's not my first lost cause.

quote:

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Originally posted by dilly:
The way the line on the menu is worded, it's open to different interpretations by passengers and crew members alike. For clarity, it should be reworded to read:

All breakfast entrees include your choice of one of the following beverages:
juice (orange, apple, or cranberry)
coffee
tea
milk

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Suggestion:
Why not drop an e-mail to Amtrak with the suggestion, while the original poster also sends an e-mail to Amtrak.

That might get more action than just posting on a Message Board

No fatal problem with that. It's a typical list, with "or" qualifying it as an exclusive list, rather than an inclusive one.

It is poorly written, though. Having a parenthetical sub-list and an extra "or" before the qualifying "or" can have the mind doing cartwheels before the statement is understood (especially in the morning, after sleeping in coach). Most people would have to read it twice before realizing that the choices are exclusive of each other.

At the very least, they should get rid of the "or" between "coffee" and "tea." It doesn't need to be there.

This would be better:

"All breakfast entrees include, coffee, tea, milk, or juice (orange, apple, cranberry)."

quote:

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Originally posted by JFB:
"

At the very least, they should get rid of the "or" between "coffee" and "tea." It doesn't need to be there.

This would be better:

"All breakfast entrees include, coffee, tea, milk, or juice (orange, apple, cranberry)."

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Not to beat this subject to death, but your idea does not work because you DO get juice and coffee or tea or milk. You do NOT get coffee and milk, or coffee and tea or tea and milk...you pick either coffee, tea or milk but you also get juice. Confused? I thought so.

quote:

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Originally posted by pismobum:
I WAS IN A DELUXE SLEEPER ON THE BUILDER. AT BREAKFAST MY WIFE WANTED WAFFLES AND AN EGG. SHE WAS REFUSED UNLESS WE PAID FOR AN EXTRA BREAKFAST, AS EGG WAS NOT ON THE MENU AS AN 'ADDON' SO IT WOULD BE 2 BREAKFASTS ACCORDING TO INVENTORY CONTROL, AND SLEEPER PASSENGERS ARE ONLY ALLOWED ONE BREAKFAST.

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Excluding meals from the diner for sleeping car passengers would help the accounting department keep things straight between sleeping and coach passengers, but so would making sleeping car passengers sign their bill (consistently on trains), or matching it to a guest registry while enroute (or some other control factor). I've seen coach passengers get free meals on my trips and sleeping car passengers taking advantage of the "meals included" fare.

Whenever I try to persuade my parents in taking a long trip by Amtrak with a sleeper a good line to get them to go was the free meals on the train, especailly since the steak is like 16 bucks.
I mean for the price of food for 4 people on the Southwest Chief from LAX-CHI could be(Based on Dinnig Car menu 1 on my computer for train 4 and knowing everything my family likes, plus drinks)-
Dinner:$71.00
Breakfast:$26.00
Lunch:$29.75
Dinner:$71.00
Breakfast:$26.00
Lunch:$29.75

THAT EQUALS A WHOPPING:$253.50
Holy Crap. You could get another economy room for that price(I think) and starve for 2 days.LOL
Usually we order whatever food item we'd like when its compliments of the sleeping accomadations, but when we go from CHI-STL we always bring McDonalds from the Train station.
Thats how the meals would be served on the Chief from LA to CHI trains leaves LA at 6:45PM and arrives Chicago at 3:20PM.

I think they would serve Dinner out of LA am I right or wrong.

quote:

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Originally posted by rmiller:
...you pick either coffee, tea or milk but you also get juice. Confused? I thought so.

I have a menu in my hand right now and it reads "All breakfast entrees include juice (orange, apple, cranberry), coffee or tea, or milk". Despite the problem of all the "or"s, it does seem clear.

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Actually, you don't get juice with any of the other items listed. That was the problem the original poster had when asking for OJ, and that's why I think it's a poorly written exclusive list. Grammatically correct, but confusing. Besides, if juice were a fixed option, the line should read ". . . entrees include juice and (or with) coffee, tea or milk."