Dear Jon,
I am writing to share my Polar Express experience with you. I will preface this by telling you that I have been an event planner and also a restaurant and hotel manager. I have been given lots of feed back over the years, some helpful some not. I will try to make this constructive as that is my intent.
I read about the Polar Express ride and was very excited to purchase tickets and share that experience with my husband and 3 children ages 8, 5 and 4. When I shared with a couple friends that we were going they decided to join us. We had 6 adults and 8 children total. Not only did we spend $300 on tickets we decided to make a whole weekend out of it. We stayed at a hotel and in total our weekend netted Hood River about $1000. Good for Hood River, they need it.
We had a great day on Friday in Hood River and needed to go to the train at 7:30 so we wrapped up our hotel fun. Everyone was very excited about the Polar Express. We boarded the train, found our seats. As the train left the station, there was no music that we could hear, there was no guidance on the train to find seats, there was no decor to make it feel special. There was a lot of noise and chaos. About 20 minutes in some high school aged kids came through the train car and handed out cookies out of a plastic laundry basket. Immediately following came the hot chocolate. It was awful. Made with powder and water in really cheap Styrofoam cups......that leaked....on my jacket.... That is just a side bar. There wasn't any personalization, no smiles, no Merry Christmas or Happy Hanukah, just a, "Here you go."
Next the story. It was a recording on the overhead and we couldn't hear it. The speakers were very poor and the volume was low. Again, the high school kids came in, this time with books. They moved fairly quickly through the train car but the kids didn't get to see most of the pictures and when they did it was a fast glance. It was pretty upsetting to my 4 and 5 year olds.
The lights inside the train were too bright and there was NO light outside the train. It was like being in a subway tunnel for 2 hours. All during this time my son wanted to see what was going on outside the train. I ended up giving him my jacket so he could put it over his head so he could see.
We arrived at the "North Pole" the train slowed. I was under the impression that we would get off to see Santa. Instead we could see Santa and some "elves" waving at us. There were some lights that showed some outlined houses and that was pretty much it. The train stopped, reversed direction and left town. I have to say I was shocked. Really, that would have been the perfect place to see Santa, add a gift shop and have some carolers.
The train pulls out and....we wait. About 10 minutes later and some disappointed kids later Santa shows up with an elf. This is my favorite part. The Santa was so bad that my 8 year old daughter burst into tears and says, "He's not real. He's not! I'm beginning to think it's just you and daddy. That you are Santa." She sobbed for a long while in my arms. It was a very hard thing to talk about in that venue. You may think that 8 is the right age to figure this out and that may be, but on your train, paying for this experience, it was NOT the place nor the time. Seriously. This was supposed to be part of the fantasy not the end of it.
Next the caroling..... Two more high school boys came in and announced, "Let's sing some carols." They yelled out a song title and we were supposed to sing along. Neither of these boys could sing, at all. They started out the songs with, "One......Two.......one, two, three, four." This is not a rock band and their counts had nothing to do with the beat that we were singing. They were so bad that a woman in the back of the train essentially took over. She got everyone singing the same songs. It was a relief. The boys stood in the middle of the train and sang badly, following this random woman's instructions.
FINALLY we arrive back at the Hood River station. We filed off the train and there were some high school kids singing one song or another. That was the most festive part of the whole thing. I am not sure if that is part of the "experience" it seemed like they just felt like singing. They were laughing with each other and not generally being silly. I felt like the people exiting the train were secondary to their good time. As we stepped off the train there were more high school employees standing next to exit on the outside of the train. I believe they were there to assist people so they didn't fall. They failed. My friends son fell down the stairs. Rather than attend to the situation one of the high school kids yelled at one of the other high school kids and said, "What are you doing?? You are supposed to help people." They never asked if he was alright and didn't seem to really care. It was very disconcerting.
We departed the train, stopped at the gift shop and hit the restrooms. I was very thirsty and I needed to go to the restroom during most of the trip. I found out after the fact that there was a restroom on the train and there was water available. If there had been an announcement early on I may have known that.
So that is our experience in brief. It was horribly disappointing and my daughter now had lost her belief in Santa. It was NOT worth our $300. Honestly, it wasn't worth much of anything. I felt cheated, lied to and disappointed not only for myself but mostly for my children. This is such an exciting time for them and they were cheated and I was cheated out of seeing them enjoy the experience.
When we got back to the hotel all the adults stood there and stared at each other....."Did you just experience what I did?" We couldn't believe that was it. We felt ripped off, we were having a better time in town. One of the dads said that if he had known where we were he would have gotten off the train. It was that bad. I felt like we were on a subway car going through a tunnel for 2 hours. A New York Subway ride would have been better because you know you can get off every couple of minutes. On the Polar Express you are trapped for 2+ hours. It was awful. Really, awful.
There are SO many things that could have made it better. First, if the employees that cared about our experience. I understand that these kids are young. They don't have kids so they don't understand why it would matter to a small child. It doesn't matter if we have fun or not. They get their $8.40 an hour whether we have a good experience or a bad experience. What's their motivation to give us a good experience? None. They're much more motivate to have fun with and impress their peers, as they proved last night.
How about some lights outside the train to light up the scenery? The kids tried so hard to see outside but couldn't see anything. I know that would cost something but it couldn't be much when spread over the cost of tens of thousands of tickets.
Stop the train at the North Pole and sell some stuff. I know this would be tricky with Santa time but you could make a haul at a gift shop, hot chocolate / coffee shop, caroling time, maybe a little play or a real reading of the book. People could sit on hay bales, sip hot chocolate whatever. Yes it would take more time but it would be great and better then time spent on the train....staring out at darkness.
The hot chocolate in the story was big. Kids LOVE hot chocolate. Make it better quality. And what about a little song and dance with it? I know this takes training and money but I really believe it would be worth yours / their time.
Those are just a few of the suggestions.
We will not be riding the train next year. We will, however, go back to Hood River for the weekend. I guess if you want the big positive for it was that we had such a nice time in the town. I am still disappointed that we left our good time in town for a 2+ hour subway ride to nowhere.
Next year we'll return to Hood River for the holiday celebration on December 3rd. We've already made our reservations. We're going to take our $300 and spend it in the town. We're going to bring an LCD projector, show the movie in our hotel suite and give our kids a real experience. We're bringing a train whistle and doing it right. We'll sing, dance and give our kids hot chocolate made with real milk and whipped cream and marshmallows.
You may want to talk to the Mt. Hood Railroad and talk to them about their hiring practices. They may want to take a page from Disney and mirror their practices. They should be selling experiences not just a one time $25 time slot. They should want you to come back.
Mt. Hood Railroad just wanted my $300 and apparently doesn't care if I ever come back. Their lack of care made the biggest impression on me. It's what I will share with everyone and what I carry with me. I have a blog with many readers and will be posting this letter. I encourage you to respond to my letter and I will post your response on my blog as well. I am also copying this to the mayor of Hood River and the City Manager. I promise you that this is not just to complain but to give you feed back. The Mt. Hood Railroad is giving you and your organization a bad name. You either need to insist on improvement on their part or discontinue a relationship with them. It should be an embarrassment to your establishment and needs to be dealt with.
Heather C. Leek
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