Amtrak Vacation?

I've taken Amtrak overnight from Florida to Virginia and back - it leaves in the evening and gets in the next morning. I booked a coach ticket and read all night and then napped at my destination for a couple of hours but most everyone else in coach was sleeping. I loved it and can't wait to do it again.

We used to do AMTRAK once a year. With a bunch of kids. We did coach then, and it was a 12-14 hour trip.

Coach is tolerable (I was younger then) and much more affordable for the amount of people we had. We noticed over the years how the service declined on the train. It has been a couple years since we last rode, and we did some sleeper trips towards the end, with just my DH and I.

Sleeper class is 100% the only way I would travel Amtrak on any trip that is overnight. Coach is OK, and a thousand times more comfortable than a plane, but if you want to sleep - Sleeper class is the only way. It is more expansive, but your meals are included.

Food quality has dropped, but it is still not terrible (at least not on the trains I have done). I have mostly done the California Zephyr through the Midwest and Colorado.

Things to go into your trip knowing:
Amtrak is almost NEVER on time - not on the cross country routes. They are at the mercy of freight train traffic. AMTRAK does not own the rail - the freight lines do. So when you are on UP track, UP gets the right away, and you wait. Sometimes you wait long enough that your crew "times out" ... so you wait longer for a new crew to show up.

Weather can mess you up. If track gets damaged, you can get rerouted, or sometimes what they call a "bustitution" - where they load you up on a bus to go around the track that is out. .... This doesn't happen a lot, but it can.

The employee's onboard can range from the most helpful and kind people to.... not so much... really not so much. Sometimes they are downright rude and surly. But generally they are friendly and helpful.

Covid changed a lot. For a long time, during/after Covid, if you were Coach class, you could no longer buy and eat meals in the Dining car. This has reverted back to being allowed to make a meal reservation and eat in the Dining car on most routes, but double check. If you are Sleeper Class - you automatically have all your meals in the dining car.

It's not the Orient Express. The trains are not new. They are clean, but sometimes a little worn looking. Sometimes people go into an AMTRAK trip thinking it is high class... it is not.

Bathrooms are MUCH cleaner in Sleeper Class cars. There are just less people using them. Coach Class bathrooms can get a bit scary sometimes. A lot of trash and not much attention.

I think the Coast Starlight would be a beautiful trip!

Get your tickets early - the longer you wait, the more they cost. Sleepers sell out. We have always liked the Roomettes, which is the lowest cost sleeper. It is a narrow room with two seats that face each other. At night, your car attendant will make your beds up. The bottom seats become the lower berth. They drop a bed down from the top, for the top berth.

There are Facebook groups for about every Amtrak Route. I am sure there is one for Coast Starlight. I am in the general Amtrak Train Travel group, that covers about all things AMTRAK. It can get savage sometimes! LOL Wow. But still a great deal of information, if you weed out the nutjobs who complain about everything. LOL Worth joining though, just to hear about peoples trips, etc. Lots of photos.
Also, check out YouTube. Often people do a trip video and you can see more of the train and maybe what type of ticket you want to get.


If you are looking at something that is more of a First Class experience, the Rocky Mountaineer has neat trips in Canada and one in the US. The US Route is Denver to Moab, I think. Stunning scenery. I have done Denver to Glenwood Springs and holy moly - it is beautiful! I think you disembark at night and stay in hotels on these trips though. They are not AMTRAK and they are $$$$ nice. Rocky Mountaineer in the US

I have thought that if I go to California to visit my boy, I would consider taking the train. There is a train station not too far from my old house and it would be easier on me to go by train than fly, I think. Driving that far by myself is out of the question anymore. My back/neck barely survived the trip with my son driving to Oregon when I moved here. On a train, especially if I had a sleeper car, I could lay flat and stretch my back out.

iowgirl, your post had great information.  Thank you.

This is something I'd love to do with DS one day. As he says, he loves "riding the rails". My issue would be with the limited food options, he's such a picky eater I'd have to pack a cooler with food he'd actually eat.

I like the idea of a train but agree unless I am going to sleep most of the time, it seems too slow. I couldn’t be cooped up for multiple days.

As a kid I did take the train from the Bay Area to Canada, and at the time I really enjoyed it.

The three trips I’ve taken were tolerable with a sleeper car with bath/shower access lol. More enjoyable than flying but much slower and at the mercy of greater delay chances.