Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Let me start by saying that I had a super automatic Saeco Sirius Incanto machine for 10 years that worked flawlessly and I have a pretty good idea of what to expect from an espresso machine. I got fooled by the overall 4 star reviews for this machine and made the huge mistake of buying it, just to confirm that everything said in the previous 1-star reviews is true and there are even more issues that I discovered that are not mentioned. Before going to the main issue with the drip tray, let me summarize the smaller issues: 1) Coffee dispensing unit: It has a very cheap and flimsy plastic coffee spout that often got misaligned when you slide it up and down and coffee ended up leaking all around the "black box" with some coffee amount actually coming thru the 2 holes at the bottom of that box. 2) I kept on seeing an excessive amount of coffee grounds all over the brew unit - note that the machine was brand new, and has the same (or very, very similar) brew group as my good old Saeco and never for 10 years I saw so much coffee grounds all over the unit in my old machine. All with same Lavazza Beans I have been using for over 10 years. 3) As mentioned in other negative reviews - the water tank and bean hopper are way too small for such a big heavy machine and need constant refilling. 4) As mentioned in other negative reviews - drinks are lukewarm even on max temperature settings. 5) As I now own a Delonghi machine with LatteCrema system - its milk carafe was an eye opener for me regarding how bad the Gaggia milk carafe was - every time you try to rotate the milk spout, you had the feeling you are going to break it; it is much more cumbersome to assemble and clean compared to the Delonghi Lattecrema, and oh, yes - once the milk level starts to get low it starts spitting milk all around presenting you with a nice mess to clean - something my new carafe never does! And now, if you can live with the above 5, keeping in mind the price of this machine, here is the main issue: THE DRIP TRAY: Compared to other machines that have only that one drip tray under the coffee spout, this machine has an additional internal very small (10oz) drip tray that sits in the same drawer with coffee grounds container. So, this drip tray gets full after 2 double espresso shots! Or - if you turn off the rinsing of the machine (which of course is not recommended) you can make up to 3-4 drinks without the "Empty the drip tray and coffee grounds container" message is displayed. One good thing I can say about this machine - it has a beautiful, large color display, but you begin hating it when you start waking up every morning to "Empty the drip tray and coffee grounds container" message displayed in red on its big screen, this after making only 2 double espressos since you last saw this message!!! Followed up by "Fill Water Tank" message every other day - and the memories that it was not like that with your old Saeco are still fresh! So, with all the issues above I truly believed that my machine is defective and spent enormous amount of time on the phone with Importika Gaggia USA support and exchanging long emails with them (as their support hours are only Mon-Fri 9am-5pm, which is very inconvenient for many working people). Initially, they were sort of helpful. I spent a lot of time following their recommendations to find the "leak" in the machine, one of them being going to buy red food color and have the tank fill with colored water over white paper towel overnight...So, after none of their suggested fixes worked, I sent them an email regarding the machine being in warranty and asking for a replacement. Again, I truly and naively believed the machine had defects. With no response after a few days, I finally called them during my lunch hour repeating the request to exchange the machine. They acted like they had troubles finding me in the system and promised to call me back promptly. In the end of the day, I received a pretty rude (per my perception borderline arrogant) email from them stating that my machine should be considered working as normal. EXCUSE ME, IF THIS IS A NORMAL MODE OF OPERATION, THEN THERE IS A HUGE FLAW IN THE DESIGN OF THIS MACHINE, IT IS A VERY BAD, VERY POOR DESIGN THAT CALLS FOR OVERALL REDESIGN!!! So, I called Amazon right away and thanks to their wonderful customer service I was able to return this terrible Gaggia Accademia the very next day. In the next couple of days I bought the stainless steel (compact, half weight of the Gaggia Accademia) DeLonghi America ECAM28465M Prima Donna Fully Automatic Espresso Machine with Lattecrema System from the Amazon Seller Flowmar for pretty much the same price I had paid for the Gaggia Accademia. So far, I am fully enjoying my new DeLonghi and it has not displayed any of the above mentioned Gaggia Accademia issues. It has been better in each and every aspect so far! I TOOK THE TIME TO WRITE THIS EXTENSIVE AND DETAILED REVIEW TO GIVE A WARNING TO ANY POTENTIAL CUSTOMER WHO CONSIDERS BUYING THIS POOR AND EXPENSIVE PRODUCT.