Before last month I hadn't been on Amtrak in almost ten years. However, my wife and I just got back from a vacation to Montreal in July, taking the Silver Meteor from Winter Park to New York, and then the Adirondack from New York to Montreal.
Having spent a total of 60+ hours on the train during this round-trip journey, I thought some people might enjoy a trip report, and hopefully those planning a future trip might find some of the info helpful.
**This part of the report is for the Silver Meteor only...I will post a separate thread for the Adirondack**
The Meteor ran pretty much on-time for the entire trip. The only delay we had was waiting to board the Meteor in Penn Station coming back to FL--we were late boarding by about 40 minutes, but the time was made up by the time we got back to Winter Park.
Even though I had seen it before this trip, I thought I'd mention that the Winter Park Amtrak station has received a very nice overhaul since the last time we used it for Amtrak back in 2005. The station was nice and clean--even the bathrooms were spotless! The staff there were also extremely polite and helpful; they were of great assistance with some inquiries about baggage claim questions I had for Penn Station and took the time to look things up on-line.
We had a roomette both ways on the Meteor. While there's still no substitute for the privacy and being able to sleep better in a roomette, there was a lot more visible wear in the rooms than from our previous trip 10 years prior. Obviously that's to be expected assuming these cars are 10 years older, but they are starting to look in need of replacement. There were quite a few dings, scuffs, scratches, chipped paint, wearing down of seats, and places where you could tell things had been repainted or refurbished about as many times as possible and now simply needs replaced. That said, if one has the means to do it, the value for the privacy and quiet still make a roomette totally worth it despite the superficial flaws.
The actual comfort/smoothness of the ride was about the same as I remember from 2005, so nothing really stood out as far as bad track condition or anything like that. Obviously I wouldn't know where we might have had to slow down due to track conditions, but nothing really caught my attention.
Northbound, we had dinner and then breakfast in the dining car (meals are included with sleeper car rooms/roomettes).
During dinner the night we boarded, the dining car was OPPRESSIVELY hot and the diners that were in there were sweating--it was not comfortable at all (I also felt bad for the dining car's crew). Despite few tables in use, we were seated with another couple but still enjoyed visiting with them.
Our sleeping car attendant came by the dining car saying she had been looking for us as she was offering to bring dinner to the rooms for the passengers in her car because of the lack of a/c in the dining car, but we were already half-way through our meal by that point.
At dinner I had the steak with vegetables and baked potato (served with a tub of au jus for the steak and sour cream for the potato). My wife had with salmon with vegetables. Both dinners were decent considering this was "train food", and we both felt like we had a substantial and good meal. The dessert--the tiramisu cup--was really good!
The experience we had at breakfast was much better...the a/c was working again and we had our own table. My wife really enjoyed her scrambled eggs and potatoes; I opted for the French toast and turkey maple sausage. The sausage was fantastic, but the French toast was a little charred/overdone in places. I didn't sent it back as I hate doing that, but it wasn't very good. The view as we crossed the bridge into D.C. was awesome!
Going southbound, we had dinner in the dining car again (the menus were the same and we both ordered the same meal as before). However, it was a slightly different dining car and I found the seats terribly cramped. I'm a bigger guy, and while I was perfectly comfortable in the dining car northbound, the one we had coming back was really uncomfortable for me--the seating was so snug that my wife had to sit across from me. I felt really bad about having the table to ourselves as dinner service was full and everyone else shared tables.
For that reason, we opted to have breakfast in our room the next morning, which is something I didn't even know you could ask for until having read about it on this forum, so thanks forum! Our car attendant was super nice about it and he took our order. When the SCA came with our breakfast we opened up the tray in the room and he basically set our table and presented our breakfast about as nicely as if we had been in a restaurant.
My wife had an omelet this time (which she also liked a lot), and my French toast was tasty and nicely cooked instead of burnt. Having breakfast in our room was a nice, new, pleasant experience (and I was sure to tip the SCA for this separately from his regular tip, just as I do the dining car staff).
As for the attendants, despite them having two very different personalities, both were great ambassadors for Amtrak and it was a pleasure having both of them on the trip.
Northbound we had a SCA named Vivienne (I think this is the spelling). She had an outgoing personality and was funny yet professional at the right times. My wife and I are pretty self-sufficient so we make our own beds in the roomette, but I got a kick out of how Vivienne came by and joked, "I was going to leave you a turndown treat, but I guess not since you already did your bed!" We ended up getting the little chocolate anyhow
She was a delight.
Southbound we had Sonny, a gentleman who served with old-school class. He checked on us multiple times and came across as sincere that he wanted to make us as comfortable and as happy as possible. He's also the one who assisted us with having breakfast in our room and didn't hesitate or blink an eye at our request. He was very warm, welcoming and professional and really served with distinction and seemed to take pride in his work.
Miscellaneous thoughts:
In the dining car we still had white linen tablecloths, blue linen napkins and real silverware. The only difference from my 2005 experience were the disposable plates, but even those were at least nice-looking. From some of the things I've read on-line I expected only paper placemats, paper napkins, plastic forks/spoons and plain, flimsy paper plates like what we use at home, which was not the case at all.
My wife and I found the ice situation confusing. We noticed there was ice sitting out in the sleeper car going up and coming home, but wasn't sure if was for self-serve or not. Vivienne said to let her know if we needed anything, but we were not going to bother her for ice. Eventually we walked to where the ice was sitting out, but didn't see a scoop or anything, so we took a clean cup to kind of scoop it out with, trying to be as sanitary about it as possible.
On the way back Sonny mentioned to help ourselves" to the coffee and ice as we like, but again, without the ice scoop it seemed a tad unsanitary...especially if people are going in there with their hands. It seems like a scoop would resolve this dilemma if the ice is to be self-serve. We certainly didn't want to ask the SCA for ice when it was already right there in the open--the problem was how to best get it.
Using a cup to scoop it up was also not easy as the cubes had slightly melted together and were not longer separated, and the plastic cup obviously wasn't any good at breaking the ice up. So the ice situation is a head-scratcher.
We had to overnight in NYC in each way as there is no same-day connection between the Adirondack and Silver Service. But what was nice was that going north we were able to leave our checked luggage with baggage claim and pick it up the next morning before boarding the Adirondack. And thankfully the Adirondack arrived into Penn Station (southbound) close enough to on-time that we could check our baggage the day before coming home. This meant we were able to walk from Penn Station to our NYC hotel without having to carry the two heaviest pieces of luggage.
Overall it really was a nice and pleasant trip. My wife and I both enjoy the train, and the peaceful, restful time in the roomette really adds a whole level of enjoyment to the travels.
I would love to hear any comments and if anyone has any questions do not hesitate to ask!
Should I think of anything else interesting I'll add to my thread.
Thanks for reading!
Having spent a total of 60+ hours on the train during this round-trip journey, I thought some people might enjoy a trip report, and hopefully those planning a future trip might find some of the info helpful.
**This part of the report is for the Silver Meteor only...I will post a separate thread for the Adirondack**
The Meteor ran pretty much on-time for the entire trip. The only delay we had was waiting to board the Meteor in Penn Station coming back to FL--we were late boarding by about 40 minutes, but the time was made up by the time we got back to Winter Park.
Even though I had seen it before this trip, I thought I'd mention that the Winter Park Amtrak station has received a very nice overhaul since the last time we used it for Amtrak back in 2005. The station was nice and clean--even the bathrooms were spotless! The staff there were also extremely polite and helpful; they were of great assistance with some inquiries about baggage claim questions I had for Penn Station and took the time to look things up on-line.
We had a roomette both ways on the Meteor. While there's still no substitute for the privacy and being able to sleep better in a roomette, there was a lot more visible wear in the rooms than from our previous trip 10 years prior. Obviously that's to be expected assuming these cars are 10 years older, but they are starting to look in need of replacement. There were quite a few dings, scuffs, scratches, chipped paint, wearing down of seats, and places where you could tell things had been repainted or refurbished about as many times as possible and now simply needs replaced. That said, if one has the means to do it, the value for the privacy and quiet still make a roomette totally worth it despite the superficial flaws.
The actual comfort/smoothness of the ride was about the same as I remember from 2005, so nothing really stood out as far as bad track condition or anything like that. Obviously I wouldn't know where we might have had to slow down due to track conditions, but nothing really caught my attention.
Northbound, we had dinner and then breakfast in the dining car (meals are included with sleeper car rooms/roomettes).
During dinner the night we boarded, the dining car was OPPRESSIVELY hot and the diners that were in there were sweating--it was not comfortable at all (I also felt bad for the dining car's crew). Despite few tables in use, we were seated with another couple but still enjoyed visiting with them.
Our sleeping car attendant came by the dining car saying she had been looking for us as she was offering to bring dinner to the rooms for the passengers in her car because of the lack of a/c in the dining car, but we were already half-way through our meal by that point.
At dinner I had the steak with vegetables and baked potato (served with a tub of au jus for the steak and sour cream for the potato). My wife had with salmon with vegetables. Both dinners were decent considering this was "train food", and we both felt like we had a substantial and good meal. The dessert--the tiramisu cup--was really good!
The experience we had at breakfast was much better...the a/c was working again and we had our own table. My wife really enjoyed her scrambled eggs and potatoes; I opted for the French toast and turkey maple sausage. The sausage was fantastic, but the French toast was a little charred/overdone in places. I didn't sent it back as I hate doing that, but it wasn't very good. The view as we crossed the bridge into D.C. was awesome!
Going southbound, we had dinner in the dining car again (the menus were the same and we both ordered the same meal as before). However, it was a slightly different dining car and I found the seats terribly cramped. I'm a bigger guy, and while I was perfectly comfortable in the dining car northbound, the one we had coming back was really uncomfortable for me--the seating was so snug that my wife had to sit across from me. I felt really bad about having the table to ourselves as dinner service was full and everyone else shared tables.
For that reason, we opted to have breakfast in our room the next morning, which is something I didn't even know you could ask for until having read about it on this forum, so thanks forum! Our car attendant was super nice about it and he took our order. When the SCA came with our breakfast we opened up the tray in the room and he basically set our table and presented our breakfast about as nicely as if we had been in a restaurant.
My wife had an omelet this time (which she also liked a lot), and my French toast was tasty and nicely cooked instead of burnt. Having breakfast in our room was a nice, new, pleasant experience (and I was sure to tip the SCA for this separately from his regular tip, just as I do the dining car staff).
As for the attendants, despite them having two very different personalities, both were great ambassadors for Amtrak and it was a pleasure having both of them on the trip.
Northbound we had a SCA named Vivienne (I think this is the spelling). She had an outgoing personality and was funny yet professional at the right times. My wife and I are pretty self-sufficient so we make our own beds in the roomette, but I got a kick out of how Vivienne came by and joked, "I was going to leave you a turndown treat, but I guess not since you already did your bed!" We ended up getting the little chocolate anyhow
She was a delight.Southbound we had Sonny, a gentleman who served with old-school class. He checked on us multiple times and came across as sincere that he wanted to make us as comfortable and as happy as possible. He's also the one who assisted us with having breakfast in our room and didn't hesitate or blink an eye at our request. He was very warm, welcoming and professional and really served with distinction and seemed to take pride in his work.
Miscellaneous thoughts:
In the dining car we still had white linen tablecloths, blue linen napkins and real silverware. The only difference from my 2005 experience were the disposable plates, but even those were at least nice-looking. From some of the things I've read on-line I expected only paper placemats, paper napkins, plastic forks/spoons and plain, flimsy paper plates like what we use at home, which was not the case at all.
My wife and I found the ice situation confusing. We noticed there was ice sitting out in the sleeper car going up and coming home, but wasn't sure if was for self-serve or not. Vivienne said to let her know if we needed anything, but we were not going to bother her for ice. Eventually we walked to where the ice was sitting out, but didn't see a scoop or anything, so we took a clean cup to kind of scoop it out with, trying to be as sanitary about it as possible.
On the way back Sonny mentioned to help ourselves" to the coffee and ice as we like, but again, without the ice scoop it seemed a tad unsanitary...especially if people are going in there with their hands. It seems like a scoop would resolve this dilemma if the ice is to be self-serve. We certainly didn't want to ask the SCA for ice when it was already right there in the open--the problem was how to best get it.
Using a cup to scoop it up was also not easy as the cubes had slightly melted together and were not longer separated, and the plastic cup obviously wasn't any good at breaking the ice up. So the ice situation is a head-scratcher.
We had to overnight in NYC in each way as there is no same-day connection between the Adirondack and Silver Service. But what was nice was that going north we were able to leave our checked luggage with baggage claim and pick it up the next morning before boarding the Adirondack. And thankfully the Adirondack arrived into Penn Station (southbound) close enough to on-time that we could check our baggage the day before coming home. This meant we were able to walk from Penn Station to our NYC hotel without having to carry the two heaviest pieces of luggage.
Overall it really was a nice and pleasant trip. My wife and I both enjoy the train, and the peaceful, restful time in the roomette really adds a whole level of enjoyment to the travels.
I would love to hear any comments and if anyone has any questions do not hesitate to ask!
Should I think of anything else interesting I'll add to my thread.
Thanks for reading!
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