Questions about taking Amtrak down to Disney

[pepe of ohio]

I just used one recently. How do we know if the company is banned - they used to be a sponsor for this board.

If you type out a banned company and then preview your post, banned ones will be starred out, guess the same goes for PM's also.

 

[mykidslovesdisney]

We just purchased DVC 2 years ago. Mode of transportation from CT to WDW was our primary concern. The past 4 trip have been on the autotrain. DH works for Amtrak and we get to travel for free(great perk) on certain days. I priced it out on the website if we had to pay(DH is already vested for retirement). The autotrain is cheaper than flying and renting a car for our family of 6. Added plus we have our car - fully loaded. We use to fly pre 9/11 days but haven't since- not bc we are afraid we just took a break from WDW for several 3 yrs. When it was time to go back we were a party of 8 traveling. We tried the autotrain bc dh was now employeed by them. It was a great trip. We consider it part of our trip. Now adays with the state of the airlines - delays, cancellation, long term parking $$, extra baggage $$ the train is soo much better. It is a short trip from CT 2.5 hrs non stop but the cost is outrageous. IF you decide to buy DVC- book the train as soon as you figure out your trip. The farther out you book the trip the cheaper it gets. IF you have AAA - there is a discount w/ AAA. IF you have children during the summer months they run a promotion - kids travel for free w/ paying adult ( 2 kids I think). Not sure when this promo comes out - might be cheaper to wait. maybe not. Coach seats are definitely easy to sleep in - bring your pillow and a light fleece blanket. Snacks are fine to bring. Many people come w/ coolers. The train food is expensive. Well not so much compared to WDW. The clientele on the autotrain is so very different than the regular train. Many seniors and family travel. We have not had any problems w/ crime on the autotrain. I do keep my purse w/ me when we go to the dining car.

I have traveled from CT to Orlando on the reg train w/ 5 kids by myself. I will never go that way again. It wasn't for us. The train does make a billon stops during the night- we had a running joke that we were picking up ghost riders at each stop. Literally a small town w/ 1 blinking light we would be sitting there for 20 mins - every hour we would stop. The atmosphere is definitely different than the autotrain. Our car did not settle down till well after midnight. Our return trip was slightly better -we had girl scouts in our car. I have also done the autotrain southbound and returned north on the silver meteor. It was the 1st train north after Hurricane Charlie. It was 9 hr delayed by the time it got to the Winter Park station. By the time we got to jacksonville we had ran out of water - bathrooms were awful. The lady next to me had a can of lysol and kept spraying our area to get rid of the smell. By the time I hit NJ all I wanted was to get off the train. I almost didn't make the connection to CT in NY. Dh was trying to tell me how to change stations in NY to get metro north home in the event the train left. Luckily Amtrak held that CT bound train since soo many people needed to get on it. It was soo crowded.

Good luck w/ your decision to buy DVC- it was our best investment ever- wished we purchased earlier. The autotrain is the way we choose to go.

HTH

 

[humtom]

Thanks for all of your input. I was able to make reservations for a service at a very reasonable rate. Much less expensive than renting a car. I also have to make similar reservations here at home to take us to the Amtrak station and pick us up when we come home. But, the train is the way my family wanted to travel so that's what I planned. Should be a very interesting first family trip to Disneyworld! Our train fare was less expensive than flying. We recieved one adult round trip ticket free with points on a credit card and our youngest son is 15 and his ticket was 50% off. My husband is a "pooh" sized guy and we would probably have had to purchase two airline tickets for him. (6'2" and over 350bs). Unfortunately, the cost to upgrade to a sleeper was outrageous. So, we will be sleeping sitting up. We are looking at it as an adventure. Can't wait to get there.

 

[Tozzie]

Now, this is very important to us because we are considering buying a DVC resale and want to go to WDW every other year, regardless of whether or not we end up purchasing DVC.

That said, we like to drive down from NYC, but I also looked into taking Amtrak. I will start by saying that I have serious issues with flying, and it is very expensive to fly from NY to Orlando for 4 people. Amtrak costs just over $600 for 4 people out of NYC to Orlando, round-trip. That is for coach seats though. The auto train (would have to drive to VA) costs $1300 for the 4 of us round-trip, including a bedroom for 4 people and putting the car onboard, and also meals are included. It is just over $800 for coach seats on the auto train, including the car onboard and meals. These prices arefor July 2009 and I know they will go up at least slightly by our 2010 trip.

Okay, here are my questions about Amtrak:

1. Is it comfortable in a coach seat, or is the bedroom a MUST? The trip from NYC is 23 hours, and the trip from VA is 17 hours.
2. How expensive are the meals (they are included on the auto train but not the one from NYC)?
3. Does Disney pick people up from the Amtrak station (in case we did NOT do the auto train)? Or do we have to take a cab?
4. Is there crime on Amtrak trains? Would you trust being in a coach seat overnight? (You could take the girl out of Brooklyn, but... )
5. Where can you diaper a child on Amtrak, in case my little one is not potty-trained when we go in 2010 (he will be 3 years old then )?

Anyway, this is something we are considering for future trips since it is much cheaper than flying. We went last month, and drove down. We have a mini-van (Honda Odyssey) currently. Gas for our total 2-week trip cost $597. We stayed over in Lumberton, NC and also in Savannah, GA on the way down. The hotel in Lumberton cost $89, and $109 in Savannah. We then drove all the way to Boca Raton to visit some friends and family for a few days before Disney. We also drove into Miami to go to dinner one night, and drove to Tamarac to see my uncle twice. So we did a lot of driving. On the way back up from Disney, we stayed in Lumberton again for $89. Then in Maryland for 2 nights to visit some of my old college friends. The hotel was $109 per night. So, with the amount we would save from not needing extra hotels, we are considering Amtrak. We will also have a car more efficient on fuel next time though, as our lease is up in June 2010, and we are downsizing to a CR-V which is better on gas. If we took Amtrak out of NYC, we would rely on Disney transportation and not rent a car, since the kids will be 3 and 5 when we go and we would stay on property the whole time.

What would you do? Any advice?

I fly out of NYC to Orlando often and I don't really see you saving by taking Amtrak. In June my ticket was $189 and in Sept I paid $228 on for 2 trips. so I am averaging out a little more than $200 per trip. The only thing was I had to fly out of JFK and into Laguardia on one trip because it was $300 more to fly back to JFK but that was more because of the flight times I wanted and was no big deal since I am about equidistant from either airport. I use Disney transport including ME. So for 4 people the flights would be about $912 maybe a little more plus you are not spending 23 hours on a train with two small children who quite possibly will get Cabin Fever, heck I would get clustraphobic being trapped on a train for that long.

I fly only Delta and I booked my tickets maybe a month before my trips not any longer than that. If you have issues besides cost with flying then by all means Amtrak is for you, but spending $1300 on Amtrak, probably more by the time you go in 2 years and spending 17+ hours on a train, well, you could fly for about that same amount maybe less and be in Florida in 2 1/2 hours.


Again if your issues are just cost look into flying if you don't want to fly for other reasons then go with Amtrak but I would go with the bedroom option.