amtrack discounts

[GRIMJIM]

It will be our 20th anniversary in April and I am taking my wife to vegas.

She has never been there and always wanted to go.

The thing is our finances are tight right now but I have a few sidejobs going through and can put some cash on the side and it is a pretty important milestone for us.

I was looking up the usual travel sites and came across one that mentioned amtrak.

It is a little more to get a sleeper car on a train than it is to fly there and I thought it would be cool and a more memorable way to travel. More romantic too.

Does anyone have any suggestions how I can save money on this trip? Websites for cheeper rail fare?

I already have a room set up, any suggestions are welcome.

[mirage1988]

I rode the amtrack from portland to minneapolis once, had a sleeper car. Neat trip, but got a bit long (2 days and two nights If I remember right). Takes a bit to get your land legs back though, if you know what I mean

[SM Bob]

I have traveled on Amtrack a few times. I never stayed in a sleeper car, so I can't comment on that.
I was pretty disapointed overall with the travel expierence. The car I was riding in smelled like vomit.
There were some obnoxious people near me that got on my nerves. Good thing I brought along my
MP3 player so I could tune them out. They had a so called "dining car". All it had was a couple of
vending machines and a small mini bar with a bartender mixing drinks. Hardly what I was expecting.
If it were me, I would just fly there.

                                             Robert
 

[pastorp]

Jim, I looked into taking the train from the west coast to florida once and it was much cheaper to fly Plus the time I would save gave me more time at my destination. It's the same with the Alaska state ferry system. I can fly RT ketchikan to seattle for about 400$ usually. It's about1800$RT with a car and stateroom. And it takes a full week RT.

For the 1400$ I save I can rent a car and have money to pay my hotel bill.

I like riding trains & ferries but from where I live flying is the only practicle way to travel down south.

Regards,

[magooch]

Hey Jim, you might want to check the cost of a flight to Laughlin, Nevada.  It's a much nicer place than Las Vegas and the hotels are much better deals.  Check them out on the Internet.

You can always rent a car and drive up to Vegas to have a look.  You'll love the traffic and the smog if the air is stagnant.  Anyway, you can usually get a hotel room in Laughlin for around $15, or $20 (Sun. thru Thurs.); it will be multiples of that in Vegas.  The cost to eat in Laughlin is about half of what it is in Vegas.

Sometimes the casinos put on a special where they cover the cost of the airline and all you have to do is show that you have a minimum wad of cash on you.  I think the name of the Airline that flies direct to Laughlin is Sun Country.  I don't know if they fly out of Chicago.

Anyway, it's just a thought.

[Foxxtrot]

Used to take the Amtrak to and from College. Honestly if I had a car I would have drove. It was Ok, but nothing exceptional. Three hour train ride on a old train that was somewhat dirty and the food car only had plastic wrapped sandwiches and mini bottles. Students with ID got the $55 round trip deal from Warrensburg to St. Louis.

I think riding on a train is fun if you are in the mountains with great views, but running through Missouri with trees fifty feet from the track with the occasional open field gets boring quick.

[Redtail1949]

i have have a "LIFETIME" free pass for Amtrak and never use it. I would advise you to fly because train travel today is not what it was way back when. Crowded, lots of unruly passegers in coach, and little or no service "To Remember".  Only thru the Rockies or other scenic runs in the northwest are worth considering taking. sleepers are the only way to go if you are on a train. you can go out take in the scenery and dissapear to a little privacy afterwards.

if you fly you can get a romantic suite and some fine dining for approximately the same cost.

[Questor]

My recommendation is to change your plans. I planned an Amtrak trip a number of years ago and they almost went out of business the week we were to travel. We ended up flying instead. The cost in money for the train trip would have been around the same as for flying, but we would have lost a few days because of the time costs of the train trip. I was ultimately glad it worked out that way, and it taught me never to bother taking the train again. Flying is just better.

I did take a train trip during the 1970s and thought it was kind of cool, but on recollection, I didn't see anything that I couldn't have seen by car. Train tracks seem to go through every junk yard in the country.

There are only a couple of routes in the US where you can take a passenger train today. That should be an indicator of people's preferences in travel.

[Redtail1949]

now obama has the plan to invest 8 billion in high speed rail..what a joke and a total waste of taxpayer dollars. i was heavily involved in research about high speed rail. the cost of a viable sytem would be 100s of billions of dollars. eviornmentalist and studies to save some frogs as well. no way to force sales of lands for right of way and then totaly destroy buildings and even some towns in making certain that the right of way is as straight as possible and the cost of that alone is unbelievable.

just ain't going to happen and never will. the only thing he really is going to do with your money is reward someone with contracts that last decades and in the end you will still have nothing. maybe a short 100 mile high speed link nothing more.

[torpedoman]

took the amtrack route last year. If i ever think of doing it again i have a plan. When it comes to mine I will go out to the shop and place my thumb on a bench and hit it with a large hammer, Repeat this every time it crosses my mind, I was wondering how to kill time on a 3 hour layover in Chicago but the problem solved itself when the train was 6 hours late getting there and my connection was long gone.

[GRIMJIM]

I'm sorry to hear all the negative comments. I thought it would be kind of neat to travel by train. It was about 180 dollars more than flying with a private sleeper cabin.

I did travel this way back in the early 70's and remember it being pretty cool.

I guess I'll keep trying to find cheap airfare, but not so lucky with that so far. If I can find planefair a lot cheeper, maybe I'll go that route.

[Sourdough]

Was scheduled to take AMTRAK today to Ft Lauderdale.  Bought ticket on line, and needed to check in to get paper ticket before trip.  Leaving Tampa at 12:45, arriving in Ft Lauderdale at 5:30PM this afternoon.  Got to the train terminal at 10:00AM to check baggage and get paper ticket, then planned to go to lunch before leaving.  Was told by ticket agent, "Train is 8 hours late, due to weather, need to come back at 8:45 this evening".  That would put train in Ft Lauderdale at 3:30AM.  No way, I reschedled for Tuesday.

It seems half the time I take the train, it is three to five hours late, arriving at it's destination.  Usually leaves on time, then pulls onto a siding and sits for hours.

[Cabin4]

I rode the amtrack from portland to minneapolis once, had a sleeper car. Neat trip, but got a bit long (2 days and two nights If I remember right). Takes a bit to get your land legs back though, if you know what I mean

Get over your fear of flying and ride on a jet for the first time in your life.

[Siskiyou]

Union Pacific owns the tracks in much of the West.  Union Pacific’s bread and butter are freight trains.  Freight trains have priority over Amtrak.  Took the grandson on an Amtrak trip two years ago.  Tracks are not as smooth today as they were back in the 1950’s when passenger service was important.  Amtrak had to pull on to a siding twice going and once returning for freight trains.   On the return trip a freight train broke down in front of us and they had to back our train up a few miles, and put us on another track.  Then we prayed.  In a lot of areas they have East and West bound tracks.

It was an interesting trip.  Car going was newer and cleaner.  Air conditioning was not work on the return trip in July and it was very warm.  Heard from regular riders that was a daily problem. 

Lots of direct flights to LV.  When we flew back to Michigan I got on the net made flight reservations, along with rental car, and hotel room.  The prices were good because I was able to take advantage of deals.  Because of storms the Detroit airport had an extra 2000 people in it.  But because of the early planning and reservations we had a car when other s could not get one, and while people were lining up for hotel rooms we had one.    Early planning made for a happy wife.

[Brett]

I looked into taking Ramtrack from NC to MA several years back and it turned out it would cost more than flying and take a day and a half to get there.  Unless their rates have come down or the cost of flying has gone up faster than the cost of train tickets it probably still is cheaper to fly.  I have traveled by train from NJ to MA when my daughter was a todler. The only advantage I saw was that you had more freedom to get up and walk around during the trip...a big plus when traveling with an antsy 3 year old.

 

[Questor]

GrimJim:

The following may be something you can use.

In my earlier post I mentioned the bad experience scheduling a trip via Amtrak. The result was that instead of going from Minneapolis to Glacier National Park via Amtrak we did something better by flying. I asked the travel agent to schedule us for the flight and she said OK, but there would be a layover in Seattle. This gave me an idea. We decided to stay in Seattle for a couple of days, then fly on to Glacier.

It cost more than just the flight to Glacier because the flight was technically from Minneapolis to Seattle, then another flight to Glacier , and we had motel and car rental in Seattle, but it was worth the extra money. The extra cost was incrementally more than the price of the whole vacation but we got a lot more out of it.

We have since done other trips like that, where we add a bonus leg to a vacation trip to get more out of the whole vacation.

I never regretted not going by train when I saw what we could do by flying like this.

This June is our 20th anniversary also, and we will be taking a similar kind of trip with a bonus stop like that.

For this sort of thing it does help to go through a travel agent. They are great at arranging the flights, and I have also had them arrange a flight into one city, book a rental car for me, and then arrange the return flight from another city, allowing us to leave the rental car in the second city. This gives us a lot of flexibility and it's well worth the $50 or so that we pay the agent to set it up for us.

One more thing:

Since you're going to Vegas, I recommend flying there because the city is set up for easy air transportation. Then rent a convertible and take a couple of side trips:
1) Go to Hoover dam, about a half hour or 40 minutes from the strip by car.

2) Take your swim trunks to the dam because there's a beach on the way at a park near the marina. It's beautiful water. I don't know how cold it will be in April, but it's worth walking the beach anyway. Take some shoes or flip flops because the beach is gravel mostly.

3) Drive to the NORTH rim of the Grand Canyon. This is a day trip. Try to stay for sunset. It's very beatiful. It is much more beatiful than the more popular south rim. Hang out near the interpretive center at the national park area there. This will take you through the desert near Vegas, past Joshua trees, onto the high desert, through the Kaibab national forest with all its deer (which are a road hazard there), and elk. Take your camera. Plan on heading back to Vegas after dark so you can put the top down on the convertible and let the Mrs. look up at the ultra clear starry night sky. (Bring jackets because it will be cool). On the way to the Canyon stop at the little town where you turn south toward the canyon. There's a little pottery shop there where you can buy a nice gift for the Mrs. The owner is a real right winger so if you get into talking politics you will be there chatting for a while. He's really talented. And he will ship the pitcher or bowl to your house so you don't have to worry about breaking it. The time and money you save by not taking the train can be used for this trip.

4) While at Vegas you must go to Cesars Palace. It's just beatiful in there. Dinner at the Mesa Grill in Cesar's palace is very good. The appetizers are the best things there, but they have an excellent menu otherwise. (Bar drinks in Vegas are very expensive. Try to be a teetotaler there.)

[Questor]

By the way, there's a nice restaurant at the Grand Canyon right by the canyon. You'll need reservations, so call early the day you head for the canyon.

[Questor]

Grimjim:

Another option is that the pacific coast highway is about a six hour drive away. Beautiful once you get north of Los Angeles.

[SM Bob]

1) Go to Hoover dam, about a half hour or 40 minutes from the strip by car.

2) Take your swim trunks to the dam because there's a beach on the way at a park near the marina. It's beautiful water. I don't know how cold it will be in April, but it's worth walking the beach anyway. Take some shoes or flip flops because the beach is gravel mostly.

I have been going to Lake Mead every year for the last 5 years. Usually in May or June. The water is way too
cold in May to get in. I wouldn't bother in April. Take a walk along the dock in the marina. Huge carp and some
nice size stripers will follow you.

3) Drive to the NORTH rim of the Grand Canyon. This is a day trip. Try to stay for sunset. It's very beatiful. It is much more beatiful than the more popular south rim. Hang out near the interpretive center at the national park area there. This will take you through the desert near Vegas, past Joshua trees, onto the high desert, through the Kaibab national forest with all its deer (which are a road hazard there), and elk. Take your camera. Plan on heading back to Vegas after dark so you can put the top down on the convertible and let the Mrs. look up at the ultra clear starry night sky. (Bring jackets because it will be cool). On the way to the Canyon stop at the little town where you turn south toward the canyon. There's a little pottery shop there where you can buy a nice gift for the Mrs. The owner is a real right winger so if you get into talking politics you will be there chatting for a while. He's really talented. And he will ship the pitcher or bowl to your house so you don't have to worry about breaking it. The time and money you save by not taking the train can be used for this trip.

Check with the National Park Service. Many times the North Rim is closed from Labor Day to Memorial Day due to
snow. However if the conditions are good they will probably have it open. The South Rim is open Year round though.
It is more crowded than the North Rim, but it still has some beautiful scenery. Take in the IMAX theater there.
Also if possible go to the Desert View Tower East of the canyon around sunset for a view like no other of
the canyon and the Painted Desert. Spectacular!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

4) While at Vegas you must go to Cesars Palace. It's just beatiful in there. Dinner at the Mesa Grill in Cesar's palace is very good. The appetizers are the best things there, but they have an excellent menu otherwise. (Bar drinks in Vegas are very expensive. Try to be a teetotaler there.)

[gypsyman]

grimjim, when my wife and I got married, we took Amtrak. That was 1996. Absolutley one of the best times I ever had. We took a train out of Toledo, and got a sleeper in Chicago. That took us to L.A. I liked the idea of taking our time, seeing the sights. The food was good, and the service was too. Then we took the coastal express up the soast to Seattle. Wine tasting and good food. Sleeper car. Porters were always nice and helpful. One of the few complaints I had, was, I smoked cigars, and they wouldn't let me smoke in the smoking car, only cigarettes. The only time I could light up a stoogie was when we stopped at a destanation for a 1/2 hour or so, and they let us get off the train.
I would do it again in a second if the opportunity ever came up. gypsyman

[magooch]

Gypsyman, the "coastal express" you speak of is the Coast Starlite and it is by no means an express.  My wife and I have taken this train many times and I would call it an adventure.  It's for people who have no particular schedule and couldn't care less whether the train gets there today, or the day after, or maybe the day after that.  And by the way, you get to see precious little of the coast--just a little from about Ventura up to San Luis Obispo.

Grimjim, have you considered driving from Illinois to Vegas?  I guess it depends somewhat on how much time you have.  It is the best way to really see the country and it can be quite enjoyable if you learn the ropes on how to pick the right motels, etc.

[Cabin4]

being stuck on a train does not sound good to me. I rather get in my car and drive the distance if adventure is what your looking for. Being tied down to a specific schedule and route that you can't change sounds binding to me.

[Questor]

So, in summary, we're discussing taking a trip in a vehicle that runs on an indeterminate schedule, smells like vomit, travels through the less scenic parts of the country, and costs more to use than a vehicle that will get you there in a few hours.

I think we need to talk to the marketing guys. This one's going to be a tough sell.

[Cabin4]

So, in summary, we're discussing taking a trip in a vehicle that runs on an indeterminate schedule, smells like vomit, travels through the less scenic parts of the country, and costs more to use than a vehicle that will get you there in a few hours.

I think we need to talk to the marketing guys. This one's going to be a tough sell.

Funny!

My wife always likes the idea of a train ride. In her mind it appears to be a throw back to the old days when train travel was luxury. The old movies do it well.

We recently looked into a train ride from San Jose CA to Portland. Now, this is about a 12 hour car ride. Or a 1.5 hour flight at about $300 round trip. Amtrack wanted around $700 per person and it takes nearly 2 days to get thier becasue of all the stops and how slow the train goes. NUTS!

[gypsyman]

Maybe because we were on our honeymoon, things were pretty good. Didn't notice the unpleasant stuff, if there was any. If your in a hurry, air is the way to go I guess. I know driving long distance's makes me, for a lack of a better term-jittery, and it usually takes me a day to unwind after driving 8 or more hours in a stretch. Use to not bother me so much, but now after 3-4 hours it takes me an hour or two to straighten out the body, and feel somewhat reasonable. gypsyman

[Questor]

Maybe the route has something to do with it. My sister in law and husband took the train to New Orleans and they enjoyed the experience. This was about three years ago.

[Foxxtrot]

It seems half the time I take the train, it is three to five hours late, arriving at it's destination.  Usually leaves on time, then pulls onto a siding and sits for hours.

It is run by .GOV and the only thing they can run correctly is straight into the ground. All the while our High Preist Mastermind wants high speed rail. Rail is dead unless you are moving freight.

[gypsyman]

One thing I found out when we on the train, tracks are owned by the freight company's. Amtrack rents for the use, as they don't have any means to fix any rails. So, if there is a freight train on the same tracks, it has the right of way. When the Amtrack train pulls over to a siding, it's letting the freight thru, and sometimes the siding they have to use is miles down the line, but, they can't afford to have a close call. So they might have to wait quite awhile for the freight to get by. gypsyman

[Questor]

Is there any truth to the rumor that the House and Senate versions of the health care bill specify that the nation's socialized medicine system must be administered by Amtrak?

[Cabin4]

Is there any truth to the rumor that the House and Senate versions of the health care bill specify that the nation's socialized medicine system must be administered by Amtrak?

It would not surprise me one bit. They might even be considering outsourcing it to some Shared Services company in Yeman for all we know.....