Any ideas where to park a car near Tampa Amtrak station for 2 days?I would like to have a 2 day roundtrip to explore what the Florida rail system looks like
At the Tampa Amtrak station there is a small fenced in area that they lock at night. You can overnight park there. I left my car there for 3 days and no problem. There is a lot of parking around there as well, but the fenced area is at the South end of the station. The fenced area is kinda dumpy looking (unpaved, loose pipes and wood piles in corner), but they lock it at night so it's more secure than the paved parking areas around there.
The ride from Tampa to Ft. Lauderdale is 4.5 hours. Don't expect European-train punctuality. My train was 30 minutes late, and when I asked the guy behind the counter when it would arrive, he replied "it gets here when it gets here". So don't expect great service either (think Department of Motor Vehicle friendliness). But hey, for $32 (one-way), the price is right.
At the Ft. Lauderdale station, there are taxis outside, but the "public service" taxis look iffy. I picked the only Yellow cab there. You can also call (954) 888-8888 to order a taxi to meet you. Note that if you tell the dispatch to have a taxi there at 1:00pm, the driver will start the meter at 1:00pm when he gets there. If you're 5 minutes late, you'll have to pay the 5 minutes on the meter that he has to wait for you. This is kinda naive of me but I've always either taken a private car service or taxis direct from airport and I did not know that. So I had to pay $10 extra for being 7 minutes late. The taxi ride from there to the Ft. Lauderdale airport where you can pick up rental cars is around $20 and takes about 10 minutes.
I found the passenger car on the Amtrak train quite old, but they're clean. There are tons of leg room (a little more than international business class on airplanes) -- that's the nicest part about the ride. There is a foot rest and a leg rest. The foot rest flips out under the seat in front. The leg rest comes out under your seat. There are two 120-volt plugs by each window seat. The bathrooms are clean (I had expected worse). The diner car was old and rickety and in a lot worse condition than the passenger cars -- don't expect dining pleasure. And if you're a Starbuck regular or any kind of coffee aficionado, don't even THINK about ordering the coffee.
I noticed that the veteran train travelers bring pillows and blankets and sleep most of the way, or they bring laptops and watch movies.
My cell phone (I have AT&T) worked fine most of the way. There may be patches of no service but I never ran into them when I made my calls in transit.
The temperature in the cars seem to be under the domain of the Conductor. If s/he's hot, the car will be freezing. If you tend toward being cold, just bring a small blanket.