Autotrain was cancelled yesterday and I'm in Fl

[chartle]

Just got back to Pittsburgh about an hour ago after driving for two days from WDW.

The story, yesterday morning after we packed up our car and was heading to Boma and maybe some time at AKL, I get a call on my cell phone from Amtrak. Due to Fay our train leaving that day was cancelled and we were given a number to call to reschedule or get a refund.

We started to weigh our options, re-book (kids start school on Monday and my wife and I need to get back to work), fly back (but then you do a dope slap on yourself and realize that a 3,000 lb car does not count as a carry on or even a checked bag ) or fire up the GPS and start heading North.

I'm wondering what other people did this weekend or if you have have been in this situation? We met a few families on the train going down last weekend on the same train. One (the ones we met by the playground if they are reading this) were coming from upstate NY.

 

[BETTYDISNEY]

Glad you made it safely back! How was the water situation in Orlando the last few days?

 

[UrsulasShadow]

This was a no-brainer...they have schools in Florida, don't they?

I really need so little excuse...

 

[fairydust72]

We just drove home to Lewisburg PA.Got home around 5pm today.Stopped overnight in South Carolina.I was upset that I was not notified until about noon.It wasnt a bad ride-actually went better than I thought-I just wish I couldve left at 6am instead of 2pm.My kids start school this Tuesday so we had to get home asap.I was upset they wouldnt just credit my card for the refund.I have to go to the nearest Amtrak(over an hour away from me)to get a credit or mail in my tickets and wait a month for the credit.

Oh well.We made it home.We will not be travelling during hurricane season anymore.LOL Looking towards Christmas from now on(have to worry about a blizzard instead LOL)

 

[chartle]

We just drove home to Lewisburg PA.Got home around 5pm today.Stopped overnight in South Carolina.I was upset that I was not notified until about noon.It wasnt a bad ride-actually went better than I thought-I just wish I couldve left at 6am instead of 2pm.My kids start school this Tuesday so we had to get home asap.I was upset they wouldnt just credit my card for the refund.I have to go to the nearest Amtrak(over an hour away from me)to get a credit or mail in my tickets and wait a month for the credit.

Oh well.We made it home.We will not be travelling during hurricane season anymore.LOL Looking towards Christmas from now on(have to worry about a blizzard instead LOL)

We got the call at around 9:30. After we had breakfast, we went to the station at Kissamie (sp?) and refunded the tickets there so it will take only 3 to 5 days.

We didn't really get started until noon on Saturday. We drove to around 9:00 PM and also stayed in SC and got back at 7:30 PM.

 

[chartle]

Glad you made it safely back! How was the water situation in Orlando the last few days?

We wore ponchos and cloth hats and mine still isn't dry yet and smells like the Yeti at EE.

 

[BETTYDISNEY]

We wore ponchos and cloth hats and mine still isn't dry yet and smells like the Yeti at EE.

Sorry for the bad weather!

 

[klmall]

We just drove home to Lewisburg PA........

Oh well.We made it home.We will not be travelling during hurricane season anymore.LOL Looking towards Christmas from now on(have to worry about a blizzard instead LOL)

Glad you made it home safely! I had to chuckle when I read your post! We too worried about hurricanes for our October trip in '06 but the worst hassle was December '07 when storms kept hitting all around us. Our area was okay but our plane was coming from Buffalo so we sweated it out until we drove to the airport. We even packed the car with extras in case they cancelled the flight once we got there and had to drive the 18 hours to Florida! I absolutely hated the suspense even though it worked out in the end. I'll take our November and spring trips anytime!

 

[bab31]

This was a no-brainer...they have schools in Florida, don't they?

I really need so little excuse...

oh that is really good!

 

[stitch34]

Wow, sorry they cancelled it. I am thinking they cancelled it because there was no train to take - looking online at the train arriving in Sanford that day, supposed to arrive 9:29 - says it didn't arrive till 6:58 p.m.! Your post got me curious to look. My sister and her family left the 22nd to Florida and would be arriving in Sanford the morning of the 23rd - looks like that was their train that didn't arrive till almost 7 at night.
Glad you made it home okay.

 

[bdcp]

We will be taking the AT for the third time this Nov. We always book knowing we might have to drive due to things out of our control, but so far we haven't had to. This trip we're going on a cruise first, so we book to leave VA two days before the cruise so we have plenty of time to drive or deal with train delays. Return isn't as big a deal as our kids are grown and aren't traveling with us and work wouldn't be a problem. Even a delay if we're going straight to WDW isn't a real problem. We have travel insurance, but besides that, we could just work around it.

 

[mykidslovesdisney]

Just found this thread. Wanted to share our adventure with a cancelled auto train.

Our train was also cancelled due to TS Fay. We were scheduled on thursday Aug 21st train. On Tuesday as the storm was approaching Orlando,they announced that Wednesday trains were cancelled. Needing a plan A and B, I called amtrak to see when the next avail train was going out. the earliest train would be monday the 25th. I made reservations for that day in the event our train was cancelled. I also was on the phone w/ CRO for a room for till Monday. I didn't want to wait last minute to do that as it was it took them almost 40 mins to find us a room that would accomadate 5 plus an infant. AT first they offered us SSR grand villa for over $1,000 a night-- thanks but no thanks CRO was able to find us a room at CR in the garden wing at a AAA rate (we are DVC mbrs). I explained the reason for a possible longer stay and CRO was able to note in the ressie if we had to cancel due to getting out on Thursday they would not charge us a cancellation fee. Wednesday the 20th at 11am , I call Amtrak and asked if they had cancelled the 21st train yet. The rep stated that they just annouced the cancellation. She told us to head to the nearest station to exchange our tickets for the monday train. As we were getting in the car we received a call from amtrak letting us know our thursday train was cancelled. We found our way to kissimee station and exchanged tickets. Packed up our villa and moved over to CR on the 25th.

DH took the kids to epcot and rode the monorail over to TTC to get the monorail to CR-- the kids got ride in the front w/ the driver. (I think that is something they will cherish since it is sadly no longer allowed). I drove over w/ the baby in the van ( he was the only one that would fit in w/all of our stuff!) . I had Hilliary Clinton motorcade pass me as we were entering the CR gates. We parked the van and didn't move it till Monday to head to the train.

Thank goodness we had purchased AP for this trip bc we just kept going to the parks. It was soo nice -- even though it rained the entire trip (from the 13 of aug) we had a blast. We had never stayed at CR before much less any monorail resort. We adjusted to the room size- we came from a 2bdrm villa! It was great. We were able to take it even more at a leisurely pace. WE finished up alot of things we wanted to and got to do some things we haven't done in years.

Our return train was full. We were pleasantly surprised after departure that we were upgraded to sleepers. Apparently they didn't realize they had an extra sleeping car attached We were grateful for the upgrade. Our sleeping attendant was telling DH that the friday train was delayed 17 hrs on the track!! Ssooo glad we were not on that one. I felt soo bad for all those passengers stuck on the train.

We made it home a wk before school started. It was funny looking back on it now -- when the option to drive home came up - dh and I looked at each other for a second and both said Nahh-- we're not driving!! We are very grateful that we were able to hang out at disney to ride out the storm and were able to have that option of doing so. We know now that we will stay if there is another cancellation.

Doing Disney in a tropical storm is the best way to do disney