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I just took a 2 night overnight Amtrak trip, as well as a couple trips between Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver BC. I notice there's no Amtrak thread, would there be any interested in an Amtrak megathread?
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Jan 6, 2013 01:37
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| # ¿ May 1, 2024 20:52 |
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Me and my friends are thinking of renting a van or something like that for a road trip, any recommendations or tips for this? Looking around I see the biggest I can get is a 7 person mini-van or 7 person SUV. Does it matter who I rent from, or are they all the same?
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May 27, 2013 22:34
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I don't think there's any business class on long distance trains. Just coach and sleeper, which itself counts as first class. I think most trains are going to just have two classes, either coach and first class (sleepers), coach and business (regional trains), or business and first class (Acela). I've looked at both the single and dual level cars, and I don't think there's any shared arrangements like you might find in Europe or Asia. I rode a dual level (Superliner) and there were no shared rooms. There are roomettes with two chairs facing each other, and they fold out into a single bed, and another bed folds down from the ceiling. There's the bedroom which has a "couch" and an armchair. The "couch" folds down to a single bed, and another bed folds down from above that. But the bottom bed is big enough for two if you don't mind snuggling  . It also has its own toilet and shower, whereas the roomette has to use shared facilities on the car.The sleeper service isn't cheap, we paid a couple grand for our ~48 hour trip. But that included all of our meals as well, and we got a free wine tasting. It's a lot cheaper if you're going to get a roomette. You're still first class with a roomette, so you still get the free meals etc. Dining is an experience, unless your party is in multiples of four. The booths in the dining car seat four, and by god they're going to seat 4 to a booth when it's busy. So you're going to set across from some strangers, and you'll probably have to talk to them. From Minneapolis to Portland my wife and I only had 1 meal at a busy time, and we sat across from two guys living in North Dakota, who themselves didn't know each other. They weren't oilmen, but they both worked in support of those industries. The meals are what people talk about the most as the defining experience on a long distance train, and I think that forced closeness is part of it. You're going to have to interact with strangers, and you might even make some friends. As for food, we were allowed to bring whatever we wanted onto the long distance train. I think there might be rules about consuming alcohol in coach that you brought yourself, but I'm not sure about that. However on the Cascades between Portland and Vancouver you could bring your own food or beverage on board, but the only alcohol you could consume was that which you bought on the train. I'd say that everybody should take a sleeper car journey at least once in their lives, it should be on everybody's bucket list. Get yourself to Chicago, book a Superliner to anywhere, and enjoy the experience. Just don't be in a hurry to get anywhere. E: Here's the food policy: http://www.amtrak.com/personal-food-beverages-medication You can eat and drink non alcoholic beverages that you bring in your coach seat or in the upper level of the observation car. You can only eat or drink purchased food in the dining or lounge car in those areas. If you've got your own sleeper you can do whatever you want, including bring your own booze. In fact, at every station stop the car attendant (oh yeah, I forgot to mention that each sleeper car has its own attendant) will stock up on ice and various juices and other sodas, so it's pretty much you bring the spirit they bring the mixer. FISHMANPET fucked around with this message at 20:34 on Aug 19, 2013 |
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Aug 19, 2013 20:29
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So my wife and I got a birthday gift of a large check from my mother, and she told us to spend it on something fun. We'd been talking about a vacation anyway so that works out. Problem is I have no idea what to do. Only looking to spend a few thousand dollars so international travel is probably out. I think (but I'm not sure, have to double check my wife's schedule) that we only really have until the first two weeks of January to travel. We've been toying with the idea of a vacation where we don't really do anything, just attempt to get away and not have to think about things. Problem with that is we're not really warm weather people so lounging on a beach somewhere doesn't interest us much. Last year we spent a few days in Chicago which was nice. We got a nice room with a nice big tub and we just kinda wandered around downtown shopping and whatnot. Are there any resources for people like me that just have no idea, or does anyone have any suggestions?
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Dec 3, 2016 07:50
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Spending my entire approximate budget to fly to Eastern Europe then be in a series of countries where neither of us speak the languages does not sound "easy" to me. That's certainly something we want to do, just not now.
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Dec 4, 2016 01:07
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Yeah I'm not seeing prices anywhere near that. We're in Minneapolis which always strikes me as a little more expensive to fly anywhere than it should be, maybe on account of everything being so overwhelmingly Delta with little competition. Ended up booking a trip to DC because we've got a friend there we haven't seen in a while, and putzing around the Smithsonians is pretty easy as far as "decisions" go.
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Dec 5, 2016 17:51
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| # ¿ May 1, 2024 20:52 |
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One of my specific requirements was also a very narrow band of time to travel in (basically a few weeks between Dec 16th and the first week of January). She's a teacher and so doesn't have a ton of flexibility with travel times. I saw $300 to Paris which would have been amazing but the timing wouldn't have worked. Also as far as being "easy" goes I'd been contemplating an all-inclusive type of thing because it would completely remove the burden of making any decisions. As much as I enjoy traveling and seeing and doing new things, we've come to the conclusion that we kind of need a vacation that doesn't challenge us mentally. I keep calling it decision fatigue but I think that's not quite the right term but basically we're both tired of making decisions and that's what we'd like a vacation from. DC is easy in that the universe of options is pretty narrow (for example, which of this handful of interesting Smithsonian should we visit today) versus travel in a foreign country where the number of choices of things to do and places to eat just becomes overwhelming because the choices are essentially limitless.
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Dec 5, 2016 18:51
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