C
Cara
Guest
My husband and I recently decided to visit Lake Tahoe, and luckily I had enough AGR points to get us a roomette on the California Zephyr between Chicago and Reno. I take the Lincoln service between Chicago and St. Louis relatively frequently, and I’ve taken the Acela once, but that’s about it. My husband had previously taken the Empire Builder between Seattle and Chicago, in coach. So this was my first long-distance train, and for both of us it was our first time in a sleeper.
Sleeper car
My first impression of the roomette was my, this is adorable! Definitely small, but in a cozy way, we never felt cramped. We had stowed our larger bags downstairs and just brought our smaller carry-ons into the roomette with us. I was impressed with the use of space in the room, such as the trash can tucked into the shelves which also served as stairs to the upper bunk.
Our sleeper car attendant introduced himself after we boarded. He was friendly but not super open, and we felt a little timid about bothering him with requests. We ended up setting up our beds ourselves and taking them back down in the morning. We heard other passengers using their call buttons to ask the SCA to set up/take down their beds. Really the only time we ever interacted with him after the initial introduction was to request lunch in our room on the second day. Even then, we first asked the dining car attendant if we could place an order to go, but he said we had to arrange this through the SCA.
We loved having a room to retreat to. It made such a huge difference just for the quiet and privacy it afforded, not to mention flat beds! I took the upper bunk, which was fine, but I do wish I’d gotten to look out the window at night. I woke up frequently as it was and it would have been neat to be able to glance out the window to see what I could see. My husband said that he enjoyed seeing Omaha and Salt Lake City at night.
I took one shower on board. I could have waited, to be honest, but I was curious about the facilities. There was no competition for the shower even with a full sleeper car, and there was plenty of hot water. The only thing I found difficult was getting dressed in the changing area while still wearing my flip-flops!
Dining
I know many love meeting people on the trains, but I have to confess that as two introverts we were not fans of the community seating in the diner. Our first meal (dinner the first night) we listened to a blowhard at the adjacent table mansplain current events to his two female dinner companions. Our own tablemates were very nice, and we were glad not to have been seated with the mansplainer, but it still felt a little awkward. At breakfast the next morning, we were seated with two solo travelers. One was a complete downer who complained constantly, about the train and everything else. He was also sick, and was coughing across the table. It was not the most cheerful experience for two people fairly new to train travel. The other was much more of an optimist. The three of us tried to counteract the bellyaching, but there was only so much we could do.
We went to the lounge car after breakfast in the morning, before the train stopped in Denver. We spent the morning in the lounge car, but it was so noisy that we retreated to the quiet of our room for lunch. (We still got a gorgeous view from our room, and we felt we appreciated it more without the distractions of the lounge car. As a bonus we figured we were freeing up space for a few coach passengers to enjoy the lounge.) We rang our sleeper car attendant, who was cordial enough about bringing lunch to us, but it seemed like a big production. We decided that it would be easier from then on to eat in the diner, even though we were not happy with community seating. I know people say it’s a great way to meet people, but we didn’t find that to be the case, as conversations were superficial and mainly revolved around train travel and people’s previous Amtrak experiences. Not a place to make lifelong friends I don’t think, although we did have one or two lively conversations.
The food was fine, but I wished they could change up the menu somehow. I was surprised that even the vegetable medley was the same every day. In our case it was roasted corn, which was delicious as a side dish for dinner, but would have been really strange folded into an omelet at breakfast! Desserts were wonderful; I had the chocolate mousse parfait twice and the cheesecake once.
There was some sort of snafu at each meal, it seemed. At our first dinner, the attendant brought the wrong meal for one of our companions and seemed to want to force it on him; the passenger had to firmly insist that he bring the correct meal out. (He had brought the healthy choice meal instead of the more robust meal that the passenger had ordered, a big difference!) At our second dinner, I ordered the pasta and was brought the mahi mahi. The attendant looked at the card where he had clearly marked that I ordered the pasta. I ended up just taking the fish instead of waiting for the pasta, but the attendant said he was going to have to do some “paperwork” to fix the order, so I felt like it was an inconvenience no matter what I did.
All in all, while we were grateful for hot meals being included with the roomette, we would rather have taken our meals in private. In the future, I think I would pack a lot of my own food and/or make use of the cafe car, and maybe take just one meal per day in the diner. I really wish that the dining car would be more accommodating of allowing meals to go.
TL;DR
Amtrak was a great way to travel out west. The scenery was gorgeous and I truly felt that the voyage was as important as the destination. I think two days was just enough time to feel like we’d really experienced rail travel, without getting so stir crazy that we couldn’t wait to get off. Having a room made all the difference. Hot meals were appreciated but the community seating was awkward and we would have preferred taking meals in our room.
Sleeper car
My first impression of the roomette was my, this is adorable! Definitely small, but in a cozy way, we never felt cramped. We had stowed our larger bags downstairs and just brought our smaller carry-ons into the roomette with us. I was impressed with the use of space in the room, such as the trash can tucked into the shelves which also served as stairs to the upper bunk.
Our sleeper car attendant introduced himself after we boarded. He was friendly but not super open, and we felt a little timid about bothering him with requests. We ended up setting up our beds ourselves and taking them back down in the morning. We heard other passengers using their call buttons to ask the SCA to set up/take down their beds. Really the only time we ever interacted with him after the initial introduction was to request lunch in our room on the second day. Even then, we first asked the dining car attendant if we could place an order to go, but he said we had to arrange this through the SCA.
We loved having a room to retreat to. It made such a huge difference just for the quiet and privacy it afforded, not to mention flat beds! I took the upper bunk, which was fine, but I do wish I’d gotten to look out the window at night. I woke up frequently as it was and it would have been neat to be able to glance out the window to see what I could see. My husband said that he enjoyed seeing Omaha and Salt Lake City at night.
I took one shower on board. I could have waited, to be honest, but I was curious about the facilities. There was no competition for the shower even with a full sleeper car, and there was plenty of hot water. The only thing I found difficult was getting dressed in the changing area while still wearing my flip-flops!
Dining
I know many love meeting people on the trains, but I have to confess that as two introverts we were not fans of the community seating in the diner. Our first meal (dinner the first night) we listened to a blowhard at the adjacent table mansplain current events to his two female dinner companions. Our own tablemates were very nice, and we were glad not to have been seated with the mansplainer, but it still felt a little awkward. At breakfast the next morning, we were seated with two solo travelers. One was a complete downer who complained constantly, about the train and everything else. He was also sick, and was coughing across the table. It was not the most cheerful experience for two people fairly new to train travel. The other was much more of an optimist. The three of us tried to counteract the bellyaching, but there was only so much we could do.
We went to the lounge car after breakfast in the morning, before the train stopped in Denver. We spent the morning in the lounge car, but it was so noisy that we retreated to the quiet of our room for lunch. (We still got a gorgeous view from our room, and we felt we appreciated it more without the distractions of the lounge car. As a bonus we figured we were freeing up space for a few coach passengers to enjoy the lounge.) We rang our sleeper car attendant, who was cordial enough about bringing lunch to us, but it seemed like a big production. We decided that it would be easier from then on to eat in the diner, even though we were not happy with community seating. I know people say it’s a great way to meet people, but we didn’t find that to be the case, as conversations were superficial and mainly revolved around train travel and people’s previous Amtrak experiences. Not a place to make lifelong friends I don’t think, although we did have one or two lively conversations.
The food was fine, but I wished they could change up the menu somehow. I was surprised that even the vegetable medley was the same every day. In our case it was roasted corn, which was delicious as a side dish for dinner, but would have been really strange folded into an omelet at breakfast! Desserts were wonderful; I had the chocolate mousse parfait twice and the cheesecake once.
There was some sort of snafu at each meal, it seemed. At our first dinner, the attendant brought the wrong meal for one of our companions and seemed to want to force it on him; the passenger had to firmly insist that he bring the correct meal out. (He had brought the healthy choice meal instead of the more robust meal that the passenger had ordered, a big difference!) At our second dinner, I ordered the pasta and was brought the mahi mahi. The attendant looked at the card where he had clearly marked that I ordered the pasta. I ended up just taking the fish instead of waiting for the pasta, but the attendant said he was going to have to do some “paperwork” to fix the order, so I felt like it was an inconvenience no matter what I did.
All in all, while we were grateful for hot meals being included with the roomette, we would rather have taken our meals in private. In the future, I think I would pack a lot of my own food and/or make use of the cafe car, and maybe take just one meal per day in the diner. I really wish that the dining car would be more accommodating of allowing meals to go.
TL;DR
Amtrak was a great way to travel out west. The scenery was gorgeous and I truly felt that the voyage was as important as the destination. I think two days was just enough time to feel like we’d really experienced rail travel, without getting so stir crazy that we couldn’t wait to get off. Having a room made all the difference. Hot meals were appreciated but the community seating was awkward and we would have preferred taking meals in our room.
