Hi Pepe,
thank you so much for all your tips! We booked a trip for the end of October from Pittsburgh-DC-Orlando. We have a roomette (Pit-DC/DC-Pit) and a bedroom from DC to Orlando (and back). From what I've read we'll have access to the ClubAcela in DC. Have you had any experience with that? Also, I read in one of your posts that you had to pick your luggage up in DC (maybe I read it incorreclty), did you check it and have to pick it up? We were planning on checking our big suitcase through to Orlando and just take a small carryon with us since we'll be traveling overnight. This is going to be our first trip on a train and I'm hoping for no big surprises (I already know about the train not being on time frequently...we're prepared for that)! Thanks for your help!
Our trip from Ohio-DC-Kis is on 2 different trains, in Ohio the Alliance station is unmanned so no luggage car/service there. We have to haul it on board there and off when we arrive in DC. We do regular coach seats for this leg coming and going. When we board in DC, we put our luggage in the baggage car, we usually do a roomette for this leg but never reserve beforehand, too expensive. We'll ask the engineer after we pull out of DC if any roomettes are available and if there are we get one half price so we are escorted to the sleeper car with only our carryons. There is absolutely no room in a roomette for any baggage, very, very small. We do the same when leaving Florida, at the Kissimmee station we put our luggage in the baggage car, checked luggage, and board as coach passengers and ask as the train pulls out if any roomettes are available and repeat the same scenario. When we arrive in DC, we wait for our west bound train and haul our luggage on board with us, again, when we arrive in Alliance Ohio, our get off stop, there's no luggage service so it's you haul it on board and haul it off.
We play the odds on the sleeper issue, we're comfortable with the whole trip in coach, actually the area in your coach seats is more room than you'll get in a roomette. We've been denied a few times in over 12 trips but no big deal but on the ones where they were available, the money savings were worth it. The roomette is roughly 6 feet long and maybe 5 feet wide, 2 seats opposing each other with the toilet and sink by one seat and the other seat has the trash bin, for sleeping, someone has to crawl, slitter up to the upper bunk, no way would I fit in the space allotted so wife makes the climb and the lower 2 seats make up the sleeping area for me. To get up to the upper berth, you step on the toilet seat, scale the sink and you're there. We enjoy the meals included with the sleeper, food is very good but if you were paying out of pocket, quite pricey. We pack a cooler when we leave home, sandwiches, fruit, chips and drinks and when we leave WDW, we again make sandwiches and load our cooler for the trip home. We've seen in some of the bigger sleepers, no much room there either and the cost is ridiculous. Hope you have a great trip and enjoy the train.
As for the Acela Club, we never had the occasion to use it, since we never pre-book the sleeper car. As I stated in other posts, we use the Red Caps, and get escorted to the car before the others and are seated and relaxed aleast 20 minutes before normal boarding begins.
