Seattle to Vancouver train

[JSMT]

We are doing Alaska in July 2017 with a group of extended family. We fly into Seattle and have reservations for the train on Saturday morning. When we did this previously in 2013, I remember reading several posts here about what time to arrive at Amtrak to get particular reserved seats... can't find any of these posts again now. What the the current recommendations for traveling by train from Seattle to Vancouver???
Thanks all!

 

[sharksfinatic17]

We did this two years ago. I want to say we got there an hour early. We were in business class, so not as many people in line. There were 10 of us.

 

[mrp4352]

We did this in May - we arrived about 6:30 and were among the first in line. They didn't open the line for seat assignments until almost 7, but we were able to check our bags as soon as we arrived. Remember to ask for seats on the left side of the train's forward motion and have a great time!

 

[Pooh2]

We also got there an hour early for business class. We requested seats on the ocean side.

 

[JSMT]

Thanks! This is what I was looking for!

 

[cmph]

We did this two years ago. I want to say we got there an hour early. We were in business class, so not as many people in line. There were 10 of us.

This is sort of in response to my question that you answered in the other Alaska thread about doing the train with a group of 11 (including 5 kids), but seems better suited here. I think the 4 (non-toddler) kids would think it was awesome, and being able to move around more than on a plane or car would be novel. My only Amtrak experience is east coast (NYC-Baltimore-DC), never business class. Did your whole group all get seats together? Did you take up the bulk of the business class section (as you said, not as many people in line, so obv not a huge chunk of the train)? Was it all in one particular car, or spread out so that there were sections of business class here and there? TIA!

 

[Pooh2]

This is sort of in response to my question that you answered in the other Alaska thread about doing the train with a group of 11 (including 5 kids), but seems better suited here. I think the 4 (non-toddler) kids would think it was awesome, and being able to move around more than on a plane or car would be novel. My only Amtrak experience is east coast (NYC-Baltimore-DC), never business class. Did your whole group all get seats together? Did you take up the bulk of the business class section (as you said, not as many people in line, so obv not a huge chunk of the train)? Was it all in one particular car, or spread out so that there were sections of business class here and there? TIA!

If you are towards the front of the line when the assignment desk opens, you should all be together in the same car.
When we went, the ocean side was single seats, the other side had 2 seats together. We were a party of two and got the front two single seats on hte ocean side which face each other.
With a large group, maybe you could request some seats on each side and swap sides with others in the party to change things up throughout the trip.

 

[cmph]

If you are towards the front of the line when the assignment desk opens, you should all be together in the same car.
When we went, the ocean side was single seats, the other side had 2 seats together. We were a party of two and got the front two single seats on hte ocean side which face each other.
With a large group, maybe you could request some seats on each side and swap sides with others in the party to change things up throughout the trip.

Yes, that's exactly what I was thinking - we could all take turns on the ocean side vs the more "interactive side" with 2 seats. We'd need 4 entire rows for our group, basically, so my concern was only that this wasn't possible (like - business class is the first 3 rows of a few separate cars, so we'd never get 11 seats together). We'd definitely get there early enough to make it happen, if it's possible. And if that's not how business class is set up, then I guess we just do standard seats simply b/c there are more of them.

 

[sharksfinatic17]

This is sort of in response to my question that you answered in the other Alaska thread about doing the train with a group of 11 (including 5 kids), but seems better suited here. I think the 4 (non-toddler) kids would think it was awesome, and being able to move around more than on a plane or car would be novel. My only Amtrak experience is east coast (NYC-Baltimore-DC), never business class. Did your whole group all get seats together? Did you take up the bulk of the business class section (as you said, not as many people in line, so obv not a huge chunk of the train)? Was it all in one particular car, or spread out so that there were sections of business class here and there? TIA!

Yes, our whole group got seats together. I believe I was within the first three in line. I got to pick where we sat. Unlike the other poster, our train had two seats on the ocean side and one on the land side. We did move around. It was very cool. Business class was one car, and we probably took up a third of it. We were the last car on the train. We had to walk several cars to get to the dining car.

 

[bumbershoot]

Business class is its own car. It's not like on a plane.

I like seeing the coast side from the other side of the train car personally. And I also like to sit facing the rest of the train.

Just get to king street station really early and you'll likely be fine.

But please check the Amtrak website for the three days before. Because if there's any little bit of a landslide on the tracks, and that does happen, they close the tracks to Amtrak for three days. And so you'll get to take a bus. If you were planning to eat train food, you'll need to get food elsewhere. Better to know this ahead of time rather than walk into the train station hungry only to find out you'll stay hungry for the ride.

 

[Dug720]

Business class is its own car. It's not like on a plane.

I like seeing the coast side from the other side of the train car personally. And I also like to sit facing the rest of the train.

Just get to king street station really early and you'll likely be fine.

But please check the Amtrak website for the three days before. Because if there's any little bit of a landslide on the tracks, and that does happen, they close the tracks to Amtrak for three days. And so you'll get to take a bus. If you were planning to eat train food, you'll need to get food elsewhere. Better to know this ahead of time rather than walk into the train station hungry only to find out you'll stay hungry for the ride.

Smart! That way you also don't have people leaning over you to take pictures. (I was on the opposite side going south a couple of summers ago, and some people from my cruise group were in my car and had the "good" side and let me come over for a little while, and honestly I was kind of underwhelmed by the view. Possibly because it was AFTER Alaska?)