Greetings!
It's time for me to examine another website listed in my favorite bathroom book.
Today I shall be looking at the Perth Tram company.
Their home page says they've been in business for over 20 years. They provide tours of Perth inside an elegant, old-fashion looking tram. And now they also offer chartered experiences.
You can use the trams for weddings, school events, corporate affairs, and other things.
The sizes of the trams range from 21 seats to 48. What if you have more people than that? Well, then you can charter their double decker bus. Or if you want to stick to the tram experience, I guess you could use up multiple trams.
The website says the trams are replicas of the Perth trams from the late 1800's.
Now I'm going to look at other pages on the site.
When they mentioned weddings, I stupidly thought they meant you could get married on the tram. But they were really talking about using the trams for transportation for the big day. You know how sometimes people have the ceremony at one place, and then the reception at another? Often people charter buses, but if you're in Perth, you can use the fancy trams instead.
The website says you can also hire trams for out of town wedding guests. Give them a tour of Perth. That's pretty cool. The guests can learn about Perth, and it would also be a fun opportunity for people to get to know each other before the big party.
All of this is making me think of my niece's recent bat mitzvah. We rode in a bus from the hotel to a nearby restaurant for Shabbat dinner. That was fun. I sat near a cousin I hadn't spoken to in years. The last time I had seen her she was a moody teen, and now here she was confident, friendly, and very outgoing.
I like bus rides full of old friends and family all mixed together.
The school ball page says you can use the trams instead of hiring a bunch of limos. I guess this is good for people who have a huge group of friends. At first I was thinking it would be more inclusive than limos, but then I changed my mind. If you're not invited into the limo group, that's hurtful. But how many people fit in a limo?
Well, this limo website says they have vehicles that fit up to 22, but the smaller model fits around 10.
I'm going to say most normal limos fit around 10 people. So if you're rejected from a group of 10, that's hurtful. But wouldn't it be worse to be excluded from the 24-48 person tram adventure?
Then again, there're always going to be people who are excluded. And being excluded doesn't really matter unless you WANTED and expected to be included.
It must say something about me psychologically that I look at photos of teenagers having fun, and the main thing on my mind is being excluded.
I'm going to move on from the charter stuff, and now look at their organized tours.
They have a four hour sunset dinner tour. It starts at 5:00 or 5:30 (depending on the month) and goes until 9:30. It's $60 for adults and $40 for children ages 5-15. It's nice that they go up to a higher age there. Disney World is a bit nuts in that regard. To them, children are 9 and under. Once children are 10, they have to pay full price for park tickets. And technically they are no longer supposed to use the children's menu. In most restaurants, they're not very strict about this. But with buffets and other all you can eat meals, kids over 10 have to pay full price. And it's a HIGH price. Well, it probably wouldn't be high to any Australians reading this. Disney food and Australian food are about even in price. But when I compare the food prices to typical American restaurant prices, there's usually quite a difference.
Anyway....
The sunset tour is also a kind of chartered thing. You can't just sign up and pay to hop along with other random tourists. You have to get your own group together. There's a minimum requirement of 15 adults.
They also have something called a Caversham and Hillarys tour, but the page isn't working. Maybe it's a technical problem. Or maybe the tour has been canceled.
Now I'm going to look at their testimonial page.
R. Herczykowski says, The driver was interesting, funny, friendly and helpful. It really is the people that make an adventure something special.
That makes me think of our ride to the airport from Disney World. Disney has free bus transportation, which is really generous. In the past you had to rent a car to get back and forth or hire some sort of car service.
On the bus, they play these entertaining videos. They used to just have promotional videos to encourage you to take more Disney Vacations. That was entertaining, but now they have even better stuff (along with the promotional stuff) The videos feature little vignettes about various people who work at Disney World. For example, they interview a man who does glass-blowing work on Main Street. And there's an interview with a man who is in charge of putting together the fireworks shows. It's all quite fascinating, especially when you're a fan of Disney.
We had this bus driver, though, who kept muting the videos to talk to us. He was very friendly and outgoing, and I do appreciate that. But I wanted to hear the videos! At first, it was annoying, but after awhile it became somewhat amusing. I felt like I was in the middle of some kind of sketch comedy segment.
The funny thing is he kept interrupting the videos which most casual fans of Disney would probably find interesting so he could talk about really obscure hotel trivia. I think you'd have to be a diehard fan of Disney World and/or real estate to find it very interesting. He wasn't even talking about Disney hotels. He was talking about the hotels not owned by Disney that are on Disney property.
I do wonder if the driver was breaking any rules or guidelines. Are the drivers told to stay quiet so guests can hear the videos. Or are the drivers encouraged to talk, and the videos are provided in case the driver is shy and/or wants to concentrate on the road?
The problem, though, is some of us guests expect the videos, and when things don't go as we expected, we get annoyed. If there were no screens on the bus, and I wasn't accustomed to watching a video to and from the airport, I'd probably be grateful for the talkative driver.
I wonder what the tour guides are like on the Perth trams. Are some more interesting and friendly than others? I'm guessing on the tour rides, the driver is going to talk. How about the rides that are geared more to getting people from one place to the other. I imagine there'd be more variety there. Some drivers might stay silent and let the guests talk among themselves. Others might provide informative entertainment.
As for Disney, I think they need to choose one thing or another; then stick to it. I think it might be great if they removed the video screens, and/or only have them play the airport instructional stuff at the end. Hire drivers who are outgoing and entertaining. They can provide Disney Trivia, some good jokes, and encourage audience participation. It can all be part of the Disney experience. Or they should keep the video entertainment and instruct the drivers to stay silent through the ride. Either way is fine. It's just not fun to start watching a video story, only to have it be muted and interrupted. It's quite frustrating.
Enough about Disney.
I'm looking more into the Perth stuff. I Googled and found this discussion on Trip Advisor. Apparently, the tram company used to provide those hop on and off tours, but they weren't getting enough takers. That's why they now do chartered stuff only. Well, at least they've found a way to keep on going. It's often to keep a business afloat.
Anyway, I think I'm going to quit here.
See ya later.
It's time for me to examine another website listed in my favorite bathroom book.
Their home page says they've been in business for over 20 years. They provide tours of Perth inside an elegant, old-fashion looking tram. And now they also offer chartered experiences.
You can use the trams for weddings, school events, corporate affairs, and other things.
The sizes of the trams range from 21 seats to 48. What if you have more people than that? Well, then you can charter their double decker bus. Or if you want to stick to the tram experience, I guess you could use up multiple trams.
The website says the trams are replicas of the Perth trams from the late 1800's.
Now I'm going to look at other pages on the site.
When they mentioned weddings, I stupidly thought they meant you could get married on the tram. But they were really talking about using the trams for transportation for the big day. You know how sometimes people have the ceremony at one place, and then the reception at another? Often people charter buses, but if you're in Perth, you can use the fancy trams instead.
The website says you can also hire trams for out of town wedding guests. Give them a tour of Perth. That's pretty cool. The guests can learn about Perth, and it would also be a fun opportunity for people to get to know each other before the big party.
All of this is making me think of my niece's recent bat mitzvah. We rode in a bus from the hotel to a nearby restaurant for Shabbat dinner. That was fun. I sat near a cousin I hadn't spoken to in years. The last time I had seen her she was a moody teen, and now here she was confident, friendly, and very outgoing.
I like bus rides full of old friends and family all mixed together.
The school ball page says you can use the trams instead of hiring a bunch of limos. I guess this is good for people who have a huge group of friends. At first I was thinking it would be more inclusive than limos, but then I changed my mind. If you're not invited into the limo group, that's hurtful. But how many people fit in a limo?
Well, this limo website says they have vehicles that fit up to 22, but the smaller model fits around 10.
I'm going to say most normal limos fit around 10 people. So if you're rejected from a group of 10, that's hurtful. But wouldn't it be worse to be excluded from the 24-48 person tram adventure?
Then again, there're always going to be people who are excluded. And being excluded doesn't really matter unless you WANTED and expected to be included.
It must say something about me psychologically that I look at photos of teenagers having fun, and the main thing on my mind is being excluded.
I'm going to move on from the charter stuff, and now look at their organized tours.
They have a four hour sunset dinner tour. It starts at 5:00 or 5:30 (depending on the month) and goes until 9:30. It's $60 for adults and $40 for children ages 5-15. It's nice that they go up to a higher age there. Disney World is a bit nuts in that regard. To them, children are 9 and under. Once children are 10, they have to pay full price for park tickets. And technically they are no longer supposed to use the children's menu. In most restaurants, they're not very strict about this. But with buffets and other all you can eat meals, kids over 10 have to pay full price. And it's a HIGH price. Well, it probably wouldn't be high to any Australians reading this. Disney food and Australian food are about even in price. But when I compare the food prices to typical American restaurant prices, there's usually quite a difference.
Anyway....
The sunset tour is also a kind of chartered thing. You can't just sign up and pay to hop along with other random tourists. You have to get your own group together. There's a minimum requirement of 15 adults.
They also have something called a Caversham and Hillarys tour, but the page isn't working. Maybe it's a technical problem. Or maybe the tour has been canceled.
Now I'm going to look at their testimonial page.
R. Herczykowski says, The driver was interesting, funny, friendly and helpful. It really is the people that make an adventure something special.
That makes me think of our ride to the airport from Disney World. Disney has free bus transportation, which is really generous. In the past you had to rent a car to get back and forth or hire some sort of car service.
On the bus, they play these entertaining videos. They used to just have promotional videos to encourage you to take more Disney Vacations. That was entertaining, but now they have even better stuff (along with the promotional stuff) The videos feature little vignettes about various people who work at Disney World. For example, they interview a man who does glass-blowing work on Main Street. And there's an interview with a man who is in charge of putting together the fireworks shows. It's all quite fascinating, especially when you're a fan of Disney.
We had this bus driver, though, who kept muting the videos to talk to us. He was very friendly and outgoing, and I do appreciate that. But I wanted to hear the videos! At first, it was annoying, but after awhile it became somewhat amusing. I felt like I was in the middle of some kind of sketch comedy segment.
The funny thing is he kept interrupting the videos which most casual fans of Disney would probably find interesting so he could talk about really obscure hotel trivia. I think you'd have to be a diehard fan of Disney World and/or real estate to find it very interesting. He wasn't even talking about Disney hotels. He was talking about the hotels not owned by Disney that are on Disney property.
I do wonder if the driver was breaking any rules or guidelines. Are the drivers told to stay quiet so guests can hear the videos. Or are the drivers encouraged to talk, and the videos are provided in case the driver is shy and/or wants to concentrate on the road?
The problem, though, is some of us guests expect the videos, and when things don't go as we expected, we get annoyed. If there were no screens on the bus, and I wasn't accustomed to watching a video to and from the airport, I'd probably be grateful for the talkative driver.
I wonder what the tour guides are like on the Perth trams. Are some more interesting and friendly than others? I'm guessing on the tour rides, the driver is going to talk. How about the rides that are geared more to getting people from one place to the other. I imagine there'd be more variety there. Some drivers might stay silent and let the guests talk among themselves. Others might provide informative entertainment.
As for Disney, I think they need to choose one thing or another; then stick to it. I think it might be great if they removed the video screens, and/or only have them play the airport instructional stuff at the end. Hire drivers who are outgoing and entertaining. They can provide Disney Trivia, some good jokes, and encourage audience participation. It can all be part of the Disney experience. Or they should keep the video entertainment and instruct the drivers to stay silent through the ride. Either way is fine. It's just not fun to start watching a video story, only to have it be muted and interrupted. It's quite frustrating.
Enough about Disney.
I'm looking more into the Perth stuff. I Googled and found this discussion on Trip Advisor. Apparently, the tram company used to provide those hop on and off tours, but they weren't getting enough takers. That's why they now do chartered stuff only. Well, at least they've found a way to keep on going. It's often to keep a business afloat.
Anyway, I think I'm going to quit here.
See ya later.
No comments:
Post a Comment