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[QUOTE]Originally posted by David: [QB] The same comparison can be made between a cruise and a long distance VIA Rail trip. Last year, for example, my wife and I wanted to bid farewell to our beloved Queen Elizabeth 2 with our fifth and obviously final Atlantic crossing on this fine ship. For a similar cost of three days on the Canadian we got six days in a first class stateroom (technically there's no first and tourist any more, but in reality it exists by dining room assignment based on the fare.) The best thing about "first class" on a ship is a dining room with one sitting, none of this three-sittings business you usually get on trains. Last month we made a crossing on the Queen Mary 2 and paid even less because we would be assigned to the Britannia Restaurant which has two sittings. But a free upgrade to a Princess Grill junior suite gave us the single-sitting dining room, not to mention a 381 sq. ft. room. All of this was for a per day rate way below that of the Canadian. One other thing no-one has mentioned yet is that modern ships provide lower berths or queen or king-sized beds. I'm afraid railways, due to space constraints, must still banish half of their passengers to upper berths. Yes, I am aware that Amtrak's lower berth in the bedrooms is acceptable to some couples, but really it doesn't compare to what is on offer at sea. VIA does have drawing rooms (now called cabins for three) and these offer two lowers, but these rooms are few and far between. I know Amtrak and VIA offer rooms en suite, but this option almost doubles the cost. On the subject of tipping, most lines do indeed have a per diem charge added to the account and some passengers do remove it and tip in the traditional way. But many of us who leave the charges on the account do give an additional gratuity personally to those crew members who have provided particularly good service. I don't want to totally give up on long-distance train trips, but I think we will be travelling more by sea as we did in the 1970s and 80s. [/QB][/QUOTE]
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