The
Disneyland Express is a bus made to take you from one of two airports to your hotel. No one has checked in at that point, so YES it will take you if you havent' checked in.
Not going to work if you're not at an airport though...
I just popped SAC to ANA into amtrak, and got three options.
Only Coast Starlight is all train all the time. The other two involve train and bus. And not just ONE train, either.
The first option is SAC to San Jose on the Capitols train. A bus to San Luis Obispo. One Pacific Surfliner to Los Angeles, then ANOTHER Surfliner to Anaheim.
The third option is SAC to Bakersfield by the San Joaquin train. Then a bus to LA. Then a Surfliner to Anaheim.
The Coast Starlight option is the longest, which is likely b/c Amtrak shares the rails and is NOT the priority if there are multiple trains around. However, it's simply the CS to LA, wait around for a little over an hour, then get on the Surfliner.
Now...if I were taking the train (which would be from WA unless we were visiting family or friends anywhere from Sacramento to Santa Cruz), I would probably get off in LA, stay the night around there, then catch an early train the next morning, rather than deal with getting all the way down to Anaheim and their lonely station. Maybe.
That third option is scheduled to be the fastest. But IMO whenever you're depending on a train to be on time...you're really pushing your luck. And that bus is probably going to leave even if the train isn't there, so then you'd have to wait for another train, blah blah blah. So the train bus train thing wouldn't be my first choice!
Although I'll also share what I overheard on the Coast Starlight going from Seattle to San Jose once...there were two flight attendants on their honeymoon, and they knew many people involved in transportation. When we were stuck in the rail yards just south of the Seattle station for an *hour*, they called someone they knew who worked in the yards to find out what was going on...found out, then after we got moving, the guy came out to wave at them as we passed him...they knew people, is what I"m saying.
And they'd done the CS to San Diego a million times (that's where they were going), and NEVER, not once, had the train made it on time to catch that last Surfliner from LA. So Amtrak always had a bus waiting for them. I just popped San Diego into the trip planner where Anaheim had bene, and yep, it's the same Surfliner that would be scheduled to take you to Anaheim. Soooo. Would you end up on just trains if you took the Coast S? Not according to the people I heard talking in the lounge back in '04.
