Well, the trip went great. The CL was on time coming in to PGH, parking and boarding went very smoothly. On boarding, my and my daughters roomette was read to go, but my parents (which was next door) was still set up for the prior passenger. The SCA set them up one room down, and then promptly cleaned and set the room for them so we'd be side by side, and helped them in to the correct room, all before Mckeesport! Very impressive and above and beyond.
Rhiannon got to play on her tablet until breakfast to avoid disturbing guests. Once we hit Connelsville, we had breakfast, which was as good as I remembered, although the plastic plates are a bit cheesy. We arrived in WAS a bit early.
On the way back, we left on time, although my parents misplaced their tickets after we got into club acela. The staff there were able to ultimately able to print up a copy. The redcaps were hard to get though, since my mom is disabled, they needed to use one, but due to delays we ended up being one of the last sleeper pax to board. Dinner left quite a bit to be desired, the food was cold, and my dad's entree was inedible (to him, but he's super picky). The dining car staff went above and beyond, offering him a different entree or something off the lunch menu if he'd perfer. He ate a few rolls and was fine with that. We got the apparently now typical cheesecake or chocolate tart in a cup, it tasted alright, but definitely not up to the standard set by the CS of 6 years ago. In all it seemed the staff was trying hard with the materials at their disposal. We did get into PGH 25 minutes early.
Overall it was a really good trip, and I'll post up some pics and a full trip report in the appropriate sub-forum when I get a day off.
. I'm really wishing I could fast forward things to October, doesn't help that we've been in the high 80s/low 90s with obnoxious humidity here, so cooler weather would be welcome (Let's see how I feel come January)!