Amtrak train info w/pics!All Aboard-Choo-choo!UPDATED

[lisa-upnorth]

I think i'll call Amtrak and ask the extra seat question. Just to see what they say they'd do. Now i'm really curious. I fly southwest and there are no assigned seats with that airline but things always work out fine. I know on the Amtrak the service isn't as great as with an airline, but you'd think they'd assign you all together when getting on. I am going the first week of May, so no school vacations or anything. Hopefully i'd be safe! And I will be boarding further up than New Jersey, so I doubt we'll have a full train before we get on. I'm 5 hours north from NJ.


I'll post back when I call and speak to someone. Thanks.

Where are you girl?? I am up north near Lake George-on the Vermont border

 

[lisa-upnorth]

QUOTE=katybugsmom;37604905]Opinions and advice needed please!!!!![/QUOTE]

Glad to hear you want to ride the rails!! It is a blast! I would not worry about the delays to much. If you are heading to the park for the evening and your train is due in at 12:55 you should be fine.

 

[lisa-upnorth]

katy's mom-I agree that we always pack too much
Since it will be night time and the kids would be asleep til about 7ish, you don't have too much time to plan. Figure you wake slowly and then would eat breakfast.That should take you til 9am.Then they would look out the window a bit and have to check out everybody around the car.Kids LOVE to stare at everyone for fun
For my 5 year old we bought a new small stuffed animal toy with a few accessories at Penn station in a gift shop. If I were you I would get a SMALL new toy or book or doll that you know she would like to play with. You really will only need to entertain her for 3 hours so not that bad.Talk about what you are going to do and see at Disney.They older one should be able to entertain themselves with a book or handheld device(ipod or such).They might also like to talk about the parks and what they want to see.You could write up a list with them of everyone's top 3 things to do and see. believe me the time will pass quickly rest as much as possible!! Keep them asleep until the last minute that you have to leave for the train and then carry them into the car. We had our 5 year old dressed in her top and shorts the night before, AND PACKED HER SHOES AND SOCKS INTO MY HANDBAG!!Do not forget them if you are carrying her into the car!
You should arrive rested and ready to play!It will be fine!

 

[katybugsmom]

Hi Katybugsmom! (I love the username by the way, very cute) I have never taken Amtrak to Florida before, this will be our first time, but I have been really looking into it and reading a lot. We are planning our trip for a monday to monday. I am actually leaving home 1 day early and we tacked on an extra night to our Disney pkg, so we arrive on sunday, just in case the train is delayed. I don't want to miss a whole day sitting on a train, i'd be in tears. I'm going to make an ADR for that first night and plan something little like DTD or mini golf. To be completely honest from what i've read there are many people who arrive right on time or even a few minutes early, but there are also people that have been delayed. I don't know if I would take the chance with something that big going on that night.
I added the extra night for that just in case. If we get in on time, we'll have all day. Which I am so hoping for. But.. if we are delayed, we'll get in later on and still have our monday to monday that we originally planned.
Is there anyway you could leave a day early too. Even if you stayed at an offsite hotel for the first night.? Just to be able to already be in Florida and check in to Disney first thing in the morning?

I had thought about trying to tack on an extra night, just as a safety net, but that defeats the reason for taking the train for us in the first place-budget! You can go to the website I posted above and see up to 4 weeks of arrival and departure times for the stations you are using. In the past 4 weeks the one we would take out of Florence was delayed by 192 minutes one night!!! We are boarding in a small city-train station is located right behind a hospital and nothing else! I would hate to think we might have to wait that long with two children in the middle of the night-not the safest area either. That being said, there were very few delays beyond 30 minutes or so-I could handle those short delays, just not the long ones! It would be out luck that the train would be extremely late the morning we board!

I'm glad you like my username! My daughter's name is Kaitlyn and so I'm katybugsmom! My son is only 5-I guess I will have to change my name when he is old enough to understand the meaning behind my username!!!!

Thanks so much for your advice! Hope you guys have a wonderful trip!

 

[katybugsmom]

QUOTE=katybugsmom;37604905]Opinions and advice needed please!!!!!

Glad to hear you want to ride the rails!! It is a blast! I would not worry about the delays to much. If you are heading to the park for the evening and your train is due in at 12:55 you should be fine.[/QUOTE]

katy's mom-I agree that we always pack too much
Since it will be night time and the kids would be asleep til about 7ish, you don't have too much time to plan. Figure you wake slowly and then would eat breakfast.That should take you til 9am.Then they would look out the window a bit and have to check out everybody around the car.Kids LOVE to stare at everyone for fun
For my 5 year old we bought a new small stuffed animal toy with a few accessories at Penn station in a gift shop. If I were you I would get a SMALL new toy or book or doll that you know she would like to play with. You really will only need to entertain her for 3 hours so not that bad.Talk about what you are going to do and see at Disney.They older one should be able to entertain themselves with a book or handheld device(ipod or such).They might also like to talk about the parks and what they want to see.You could write up a list with them of everyone's top 3 things to do and see. believe me the time will pass quickly rest as much as possible!! Keep them asleep until the last minute that you have to leave for the train and then carry them into the car. We had our 5 year old dressed in her top and shorts the night before, AND PACKED HER SHOES AND SOCKS INTO MY HANDBAG!!Do not forget them if you are carrying her into the car!
You should arrive rested and ready to play!It will be fine!

Thanks for the advice! My gut tells me to go for it, but we will have to wait and see! If we are planning on going in December how much longer do I have before fares start going up in price?
Thanks again!

 

[NJRRK]

I had thought about trying to tack on an extra night, just as a safety net, but that defeats the reason for taking the train for us in the first place-budget! You can go to the website I posted above and see up to 4 weeks of arrival and departure times for the stations you are using. In the past 4 weeks the one we would take out of Florence was delayed by 192 minutes one night!!! We are boarding in a small city-train station is located right behind a hospital and nothing else! I would hate to think we might have to wait that long with two children in the middle of the night-not the safest area either. That being said, there were very few delays beyond 30 minutes or so-I could handle those short delays, just not the long ones! It would be out luck that the train would be extremely late the morning we board!

just check the Amtrak website to see if your train is delayed about the time you need to leave home. If it's delayed by 192 minutes, keep checking and don't leave the house for 2+ hours.

 

[pbrim]

*Envy* I used to plan taking the train to Orlando and going to the World when I had the money. I've loved the train ever since we used to take the train to California every summer to visit relatives, back in the 60's. Now that I finally have the money, the Sunset Limited has been "temporarily out" past New Orleans since Katrina (5 years!)

I could still go from Dallas up to Chicago and back down, but that's 3 days, 3 trains, and nearly $1000 each way for 1 person. I have actually considered trying to find a cheap flight to Chicago and taking the train from there, because that would cut time and money in half. But, that's a lot more time away from Disney. On the other hand -- Dude, TRAIN!

 

[NJRRK]

Dallas to BWI, then train. From Chicago you stil gotta go through DC or NY.

 

[3princesses+aprince]

Katybugsmom, glad you're going to go for it. I am going for the train for budget too. Well it started out that way, then when I decided to tack on the extra night, of course the price went up and we could possibly get airfare and not have that extra night for less. But..... at least we're spending extra money in Disney and not on the transportation.

The more I look into the train and read up on it, I am getting really excited! I think at this point even if we found cheaper airfare we will go with the train. Unless it is a dramatic difference.

I know i've read that the longer you wait to book the prices go up. I priced out the 5 of us for may and it came to 812 round trip. For the heck of it I did october, which is just a few months away to see if the price was a lot higher.....same exact price. Here's hoping for good prices for all of us traveling Amtrak

And lisaupnorth, i'm not that far north. We're in massachussets! Definitely up far enough though! We'll have a good 28 hour train ride, total.

 

[katybugsmom]

Hi Katybugsmom! (I love the username by the way, very cute) I have never taken Amtrak to Florida before, this will be our first time, but I have been really looking into it and reading a lot. We are planning our trip for a monday to monday. I am actually leaving home 1 day early and we tacked on an extra night to our Disney pkg, so we arrive on sunday, just in case the train is delayed. I don't want to miss a whole day sitting on a train, i'd be in tears. I'm going to make an ADR for that first night and plan something little like DTD or mini golf. To be completely honest from what i've read there are many people who arrive right on time or even a few minutes early, but there are also people that have been delayed. I don't know if I would take the chance with something that big going on that night.
I added the extra night for that just in case. If we get in on time, we'll have all day. Which I am so hoping for. But.. if we are delayed, we'll get in later on and still have our monday to monday that we originally planned.
Is there anyway you could leave a day early too. Even if you stayed at an offsite hotel for the first night.? Just to be able to already be in Florida and check in to Disney first thing in the morning?

We are waiting to hear back from our TA to see if she was able to get us an extra night at POP! Even better news-we will also get an extra day of FD and an extra day of park passes for only $4.00 per person!!!!!
We just wanted to add the night, not thinking of adding park passes too! We couldn't pass up an extra day for that price!!!
It will be nice to get on the train, since we leave so early in the morning, and not have an agenda when we get to WDW! Our train leaves at 3:38AM in the morning and there's a good chance our kids won't go back to sleep-they are early birds anyway and with this being their first train trip they will be too excited to go back to sleep!
Keep your fingers crossed we get the extra night!!!

 

[3princesses+aprince]

All right! That's great news! I got my fingers crossed for you. It will be a nice enjoyable ride that way instead of worrying the whole time. I think either way you have a good chance of everything being fine, but this will be very nice! And at a great price!

 

[DanBoris]

I think one of the best parts of the train is that it forces you relax for a bit after your vacation. We live near Philadelphia so it's a 22 hour trip back, so that's 22 hours where we have no choice but to sit an relax. I love Disney but this is a nice break after running around the parks for 4 or 5 days!

 

[katybugsmom]

All right! That's great news! I got my fingers crossed for you. It will be a nice enjoyable ride that way instead of worrying the whole time. I think either way you have a good chance of everything being fine, but this will be very nice! And at a great price!

We got the extra night/park passes!!!!
Now all I need to do is secure our train tickets!!!
I am so excited I don't have to drive this year! I only hope we can get seats together-I've heard some families have been split up and I don't want this to happen to us!

 

[katybugsmom]

Just got off the phone with an Amtrak representative concerning assigned seating. I told her the train numbers and asked if seats were reserved and assigned. She told me they were reserved, but not necessarily assigned. I told her my concerns about our party of 4 being split up and she said that wouldn't happen considering we have 2 adults and 2 children. I just hope we can sit across from each other and not in front or behind!

 

[katybugsmom]

Just bought our Amtrak tickets on line!!!!!

Tip: I called back to double-check the refund policy-just in case.
I was told if I picked up the tickets early and had to cancel there would be a 10% penalty charged. If I leave them at the station and don't pick them up until the day we leave and we had to cancel suddenly there would be no penalty charge!

We can't wait for December!!!!

 

[3princesses+aprince]

Wow katybugsmom thats fantastic. You are all set and ready to go! I hope I can still get good prices a few months out. We are going in May and definitely won't be buying the tix until after christmas. Either way i'm sure it will be cheaper than flying.

And that's awesome that they said you guys won't be split up. I figured they wouldn't do that to a family, very good to know, thanks for the info.


Here's hoping for good seats

You must be very excited about an extra night in Disney too

 

[katybugsmom]

Wow katybugsmom thats fantastic. You are all set and ready to go! I hope I can still get good prices a few months out. We are going in May and definitely won't be buying the tix until after christmas. Either way i'm sure it will be cheaper than flying.

And that's awesome that they said you guys won't be split up. I figured they wouldn't do that to a family, very good to know, thanks for the info.


Here's hoping for good seats

You must be very excited about an extra night in Disney too

Thanks!
I will try to write a trip report and post a link to this website when we return!
I hope you have as much luck as we did!

 

[3princesses+aprince]

Thanks for the luck! Oh if you start up a ptr and/or tr i'll find it. I'm on those boards a lot! Planning is half the fun

 

[lisa-upnorth]

Yes-we NEED another train trip report!!
And of course-take pictures!!!!!

Have fun ridin the rails!!!!!!!!!

 

[DMass]

I'm thinking about riding the rails next year. i'm in Mass. but I would leave from Providence because it's closer for me.

How's the switch over at Penn? Do they give you enough time to get to your train?