In another thread I shared how I ended up paying 362 euros for an Excelsior Class ticket from Sicily to Rome. Having done so, my wife and I were expecting relatively high comfort. We had travelled in a “deluxe” compartment on the way down but this was supposed to be one notch better, and we’d even be served prosecco when boarding!
Instead this turned out to be the worst night train experience I have ever had. The compartment was terribly hot, there was no a/c (none that was functioning anyhow) and there was no way to regulate the temperature inside the compartment. We had the same experience on the way down and the attendant that time managed to turn the temp down a little bit (presumably for the whole car). The attendant this time fidgeted a little bit with the volume knob (!) inside the cabin and then retorted to say that there was nothing he could do. The whole night hot air was flowing out of the heater and it felt like sleeping inside a sauna. But that wasn’t all. The heat was accompanied by an equally unbearable clangor! This wasn’t just the usual pulsating night train sounds, but an intermittent extremely loud rustling and rattling from the roof and the walls.
These issues turned our night into a nightmare without sleep. But added to this, there were several minor notable deficiencies: There was a constant blinking light just next to the head end of one of the berths. On the other berth the reading lights didn’t work. The toilet hadn’t been cleaned (there were still shit marks inside the toilet seat). And several parts of the cabin were broken.
Also, we never got that prosecco, or any complimentary snacks as had been advertised. And in the morning when the attendant visited our compartment last of all and we asked for cappuccino this couldn’t be arranged because he had run out of milk (it might sound weird that we expected cappuccino on a night train but being Italy, it’s standard). When I asked how this could be he said he had served too many other cappuccinos. We also got only one cornetto to go with the coffee because he had run out of those too. He gave us some dry cookies instead. After that he offered us a whole package of cold milk as some sort of compensation (though he had just said that there was none).
This was a wholly disappointing experience, and a very draining one at that, as we didn’t get any sleep. Had it only been the prosecco, or the broken lamps or a few minor issues I might not be so upset but I would really like to forward my complaints to Trenitalia. Does anyone know where to turn, and if it would be worthwile?
