NY to SF Help and advice needed

[Gregory]

Hi,

First time post – please be nice.

I hope that I have posted this in the correct place – apologies if wrong.

My wife and myself will be visiting New York 5th to 17th April next year.

This will be our first visit from the UK to the USA.

We would like some help/advice, please.

a ) We would love to travel by train across the USA, from New York to San Francisco via Chicago (California Zephyr). We have heard so many people on this site saying just how good it is. But the prices are so expensive, $1894 for two, one way. Are there any discounts? Following the adage that, ‘we may never come this way again…’ we like the idea of the, ‘bedroom’ sleeper. Hope that makes sense.

b ) Can we book from the UK?

c ) Getting back from San Francisco (returning to the UK via Newark) any ideas on the best, cost effective method?

d ) As our holiday will coincide with the Easter period, will it be busy? ie., are there areas/dates to avoid?

Apologies if the post is too long, but any help/advice will be greatly appreciated.

Take care,

Greg & Marie

 

[WhoozOn1st]

First time post – please be nice.

Be nice to a Limey? Not bloody likely!!

Others are more knowledgeable than I regarding discounts. A bedroom sleeper is a fine option. However, if you can tolerate the tighter quarters of a roomette (and perhaps spend much of the ride in the Sightseer Lounge), that brings the cost down immediately.

Once your plans are worked out you should book as soon as possible, as generally speaking the further out you book, the lower the price.

I have a question for you, Gregory: How long do you plan to be in San Francisco, and what would you like to see there?

Your post wasn't too long, this is the right place, and we welcome inquiries from our friends across the pond (any pond!).

Surely others will be of greater assistance on the Amtrak details.

 

[access bob]

Hi,First time post – please be nice.

I hope that I have posted this in the correct place – apologies if wrong.

My wife and myself will be visiting New York 5th to 17th April next year.

This will be our first visit from the UK to the USA.

We would like some help/advice, please.

a ) We would love to travel by train across the USA, from New York to San Francisco via Chicago (California Zephyr). We have heard so many people on this site saying just how good it is. But the prices are so expensive, $1894 for two, one way. Are there any discounts? Following the adage that, ‘we may never come this way again…’ we like the idea of the, ‘bedroom’ sleeper. Hope that makes sense.

b ) Can we book from the UK?

c ) Getting back from San Francisco (returning to the UK via Newark) any ideas on the best, cost effective method?

d ) As our holiday will coincide with the Easter period, will it be busy? ie., are there areas/dates to avoid?

Apologies if the post is too long, but any help/advice will be greatly appreciated.

Take care,

Greg & Marie

there is a special international rail pass, I don't know too much about it because you cannot buy it in this country. also there is the two country rail pass with travel in both USA and Canada.

there are two parts to an Amtrak ticket

the actual ticket which gets you a coach seat on the train this is where you can get lots of discounts and the USA railpass.

then there is the

"accomodation" charge and this is the fare for the sleeper or first class seats. this is paid in addition to the train ticket, on Amtrak the accomodation charge also includes meals. so consider that in your planning

if it were I,

I would travel South on the NorthEast corridor on an Acela high speed train to Washington DC,

then I would take the Capitol limited to Chicago

then to San Francisco.

for return I would take the Coast Starlight north to Seattle (or Vancouver Canada) and come East on the amtrak Empire Builder on the VIA Rail Canada "Canadian"

from Chicago I would take the Cardinal the long way round down thru West Virginia and Back directly to Newark.

or from Motreal the Amtrak Adirondack to New York and then a short hope on the PATH subway via the world trade center site back to Newark

Bob

 

[PetalumaLoco]

North American Railpass (2-country) is being discontinued as of September 30. Purchases made by that deadline are for trips to be taken by Sept 30, 2009.

Railpass link here.

 

[Gregory]

Hi,

'WhoozOn1st', many thanks for your reply. We have no real plans on what to do in San Francisco, but it would be nice to see the, 'Golden Gate Bridge'. Probably stay for about 2/3 nights. We don't have that much time in USA. I guess its more the train ride that we are looking forward to. Railways are in the blood. My father used to drive the, 'Royal Scot' - steam loco - you may not have heard of it... more a UK thing...

'access bob' - again many thanks for your reply. What you have suggested sounds really fascinating... not sure if we could afford it though. We had thought of going from New York to Chicago via, 'Lake Shore'. What you have suggested sounds much more interesting. I will certainly look into the rail passes.

Really appreciated all your help.

Greg and Marie

Its not that big of a pond...

 

[GG-1]

My father used to drive the, 'Royal Scot' - steam loco - you may not have heard of it... more a UK thing... Greg and Marie

Its not that big of a pond...

Aloha

What a beautiful train (pictures). Did your father take you with him?

Mahalo from across the other pond

Eric

 

[caravanman]

Hi Greg and Marie,

Greetings from sunny Nottingham, UK! (Well, it was sunny today, anyway!).

You can book your tickets from the uk through the amtrak websitewww.amtrak.com. ) You then pop your same credit/debit card into an Amtrak automatic ticket machine in the station in USA, and it prints out your tickets there and then.

I suggest you try and break your journey into two sections. If you book from new york to chicago via washington, the sleeper portion of your trip will be on the train "Capitol Limited" The sleepers will be less expensive on this train than on the "Lakeshore Limited". Continuing your journey onward the same day you arrive in Chicago, by changing trains to board the California Zephyr is straightforward. Unfortunatly, people in America are waking up to the value of train travel, so prices are on the increase.. If you have a look on amtrak.com, and play around with the dates, you will find the best prices within your travel period. You can try different dates and routes as much as you like.. you won't "accidently" buy a ticket!

You might find that it would pay you to have a night in Chicago also.. For example you might find a low price from New York to Chicago departing say, Monday

and arriving Chicago tuesday.. if wednesdays departing Zephyr is a lot cheaper than tuesdays, it might be worth the cost of a Chicago hotel for one night to obtain the cheaper wednesday train ticket.

I am not sure if you wish to return to New York by rail or not? The southern route from LA to New Orleans and up to New york is often less expensive, but takes a longer time..

The railpass probably won't save you much if you are going to fly back to NY?

You might like to read about my first Amtrak trip on the Zephyr? :My Amtrak trip (click here)

You will, as someone else mentioned save a lot of dosh by getting a roomette rather than a "bedroom".. well worth saving the money for that trip to Alcatraz when you get to SF. If I can be of any more help, as a frequent Amtrak English user, I am only too happy to assist.

Cheers,

Ed B)

ps the holiday inn at newark airport is quite reasonable for a stopover before or after a flight, and many people use it as a base for a few days for exploring New York itself, it is a LOT cheaper than being downtown..

 

[hello]

Or, depending on your time (and money), you could take the Capitol Limited from Washington to Chicago, the Empire Builder from Chicago to Seattle (or Portland) spend the night, and take the Coast Starlight to San Francisco. We've done the Empire Builder 2 times, and the Coast Starlight 6 times -- our favorite routes! We had a bedroom from LA to NOL a few years back, but since then we always get 2 roomettes -- across from each other -- that way we can see out both sides of the train, and NO ONE has to sleep on the top bunk -- it also is normally a little less expensive than a bedroom.

Have a great trip!!

 

[the_traveler]

you could take ... the Empire Builder from Chicago to Seattle (or Portland) spend the night, and take the Coast Starlight to San Francisco.

If you chose to go from Chicago to San Francisco via Portland, it is a same day connection! (Arrive ~ 10 AM, depart ~ 2 PM!) No overnight (unless you chose to do so) needed!

 

[julieandrews]

I'm doing the same as you but in reverse! I live in the UK too and will be travelling from SF to NY next month. As somebody said in a previous post, I booked online with the option to pick up tickets from a train station once I get there. It's just me on my own so I'm in a cheaper roomette so I can't comment on the price of a bedroom. Plus I was lucky that I booked a few months ago when the exchange rate was better, so i got a good deal. I think the earlier you can book the better

 

[ruudkeulers]

As we're planning roughly the same trip in the Fall of 2009 - NYC -> SF and LA by Amtrak - we're very thankful for all the advice & suggestions you're giving Greg & Marie here!

Ruud Keulers

Nijmegen-Holland

 

[Gregory]

Hi,

Many thanks to you all for such sound advice which is really appreciated.

The alternatives sound really good and I will investigate those more deeply.

I like the idea of two roomettes in order to keep the cost down and be able to see both sides.

I have noticed that on the 7th April the bedrooms are sold out and for 9/10/11th April the cost is significantly more than on the 8th April.

One of our ideas would be to fly back, so far, and then hire a car for a couple of days that would take us to Newark. Great advice on the Holiday Inn at Newark, as the cost of the hotels in New York seemed a little on the high side. But then again... you only need to check out London's prices! Never considered a trip to Alcatraz... but will do now. Still like to see the Golden Gate Bridge.

Regarding the Royal Scot: I was only 5years old when my father was on the footplate, so I can't remember much. I do know that he wasn't on for long, relocated and carried on with the steam locos until the diesels came along, then he retired on health grounds, eventually dying shortly after finnishing with the railways. We live very close to the yard that houses 'The Harry Potter' train - Carnforth. Its supposed to be a secret...

Many thanks to you all. Can't wait till next year and I am already jealous of julieandrews...

Take care,

Greg & Marie

 

[caravanman]

Good luck with whatever you choose to do..

It sounds as though you may already have your flights booked from the Uk? If you are able to think again, it might be cheaper to book your flight to New York, travel to San Francisco by train, and fly home again direct from San Francisco. This is quite easy to do, but it depends on what else you are doing in the USA. You might think about the opposite route, if you need to be in New York at the end of your trip.. Most people spend a good deal of the time in the sightseer lounge, so seeing the scenery on bothsides is easy from there. You don't have to stay in your bedroom/roomette if you fancy a change.

The golden gate bridge in s.f. is certainly a "must", you can hire bikes to cycle across. (Just like home, Ruud!). Dont miss out on both the cable cars and the F line trams.. many are old european trolly busses. I love san francisco, don't forget to "wear some flowers in your hair", especialy around Haight Ashbury..

Ed. B)

 

[ruudkeulers]

Good idea, caravanman, we'll rent those bikes to cross the bridge. And cycle all the way back east to fly home again! just joking of course, though I know people who have actually done that very thing!

We too considered taking the opposite route, but decided we wanted to end our trip through the States somewhere on a beach in Florida and fly home from there. So we use the 15-days-Amtrak-pass to get from NYC to LA via Niagara Falls-Chicago-Denver-San Francisco and rent a car for the southern journey from LA via New Orleans to Miami.

And Ed: we will wear those flowers, although I always thought the '67 hippies-place was called Ashbury Height.....

 

[caravanman]

Cool Trip!

and the travel sounds good too!

Visit Haight Ashbury here!

Ed B)

 

[Konrad]

We'll be traveling from New York on 8 April (Cardinal) and from Chicago on 11 April (California Zephyr) next year. We like the Cardinal for its route and the Viewliner sleeper and although it does take an awful long time to make the journey a large proportion of the trip is in daylight. We always take bedrooms for overnight journeys as there is heaps of room for you and your baggage

We always try to break the trip in Chicago as 3 straight days of Amtrak 'cuisine' can be pretty daunting - despite some claims to the contrary on this site. And Chicago is a great destination in itself.

Two roomettes will be more expensive than a bedroom but at least you'll get two lower berths. The upper berths on the Superliner cars are very close to the ceiling, you can't even sit up without banging your head. The Viewliners have far more headroom in the upper berth which is why we favour the Cardinal and the Lake Shore Limited over the Capital Limited for our trips between Chicago and New York.

My main suggestion is to book as early as possible - Amtrak gives 100% refunds if you change your mind at any stage - and keep an eye out for any fare changes by making dummy bookings regularly. Cancellations can mean that the fare can fall from one moment to the next and you can cancel and re-book without any penalty (except for currency conversion charges from your bank).

 

[p&sr]

We always try to break the trip in Chicago as 3 straight days of Amtrak 'cuisine' can be pretty daunting - despite some claims to the contrary on this site. And Chicago is a great destination in itself.

Very true! And this also helps avoid worrying about missing an important connection. Better to relax and enjoy the ride!

 

[the_traveler]

Amtrak gives 100% refunds if you change your mind at any stage

Almost correct.

You can get a 100% refund on the rail fare portion at any time. But if you are in a sleeper, you can get a 100% refund of the accommodation charge at anytime up to 7 days in advance of the date of travel! After that (and up to departure time), you can only get a voucher for future Amtrak travel. (Once the train departs, you can not get a refund of the accommodation charge if you did not cancel.)

 

[ruudkeulers]

Amtrak gives 100% refunds if you change your mind at any stage

Almost correct.

You can get a 100% refund on the rail fare portion at any time.

OK, but what happens when you travel on an Amtrak-pass? Of course you can't get a refund but does this mean you can make endless dummy bookings, without even bother to cancel them? I mean: what could be the penalty?

 

[julieandrews]

Good luck with whatever you choose to do..It sounds as though you may already have your flights booked from the Uk? If you are able to think again, it might be cheaper to book your flight to New York, travel to San Francisco by train, and fly home again direct from San Francisco. This is quite easy to do, but it depends on what else you are doing in the USA. You might think about the opposite route, if you need to be in New York at the end of your trip.. Most people spend a good deal of the time in the sightseer lounge, so seeing the scenery on bothsides is easy from there. You don't have to stay in your bedroom/roomette if you fancy a change.

The golden gate bridge in s.f. is certainly a "must", you can hire bikes to cycle across. (Just like home, Ruud!). Dont miss out on both the cable cars and the F line trams.. many are old european trolly busses. I love san francisco, don't forget to "wear some flowers in your hair", especialy around Haight Ashbury..

Ed. B)

Check out the flight as indepth as you can before booking. I wanted to fly direct from London to SF, take train from SF to NY and then fly back from NY but it was something like £500 direct to SF and then £300 one way from NY. So instead I booked a return to NY for about £350 and then an internal flight to SF for only about £100 with Virgin America. I saved so much money doing it that way! So check it all out carefully before you book

 

[caravanman]

Hi again,

The amtrak pass works like this.. It allows you to reserve travel in coach class. It is only valid if there are still the lowest price coach seats available on the train, at the time you make your reservation for your particular journey. (this is a new condition, introduced in the last 18 months or so). If the lowest price coach seat is sold out, you can still make a reservation with your pass, but you are charged the difference between the lowest/railpass fare, and the lowest available fare at the time you reserve. You must make a reservation for each train, you cannot just get on board and present your pass.

You can buy your amtrak pass on amtrak.com, and recieve a ref. number. You can then phone a dedicated railpass number / or email to make your advance reservations for each train. You normaly pay for any extras (sleeper upgrades, etc,) when you collect your pass for first use in America. You can leave your reservations as late as you want, and do them at any Amtrak station, but you will find yourself paying more suplements the later you leave it.

You can't reserve your railpass travel via the website, so if you notice that the price of say, a sleeper, has gone down, you need to phone up or email amtrak asap. I have noticed cheap roomettes in the past, but by the time the agent delt with my email, the price had risen! (They are only open for railpass users at office hours on New York time.)

Dummy bookings simply means putting in your journey dates on the Amtrak website to check currently available fares for your travel date. You can "play" with different dates and sleeper options and simply not go through to the final "buy a ticket" stage.

As far as I recall, if you purchase a sleeper of any type, you are automaticaly charged the lowest coach fare on top of the sleeper price, but I am not 100% sure about that. I think the pass has recently become available for u.s. citizens to purchase too, so maybe the way things worked has changed.. it was like above earlier this year, 2008..

Cheers,

Ed B)

 

[ruudkeulers]

Thanks Ed for your elaborate answer. All very clear, except for one thing: do I understand correctly that - once I've purchased the Amtrak-pass - I can't use the Amtrak online reservation system, but have to use some kind of special email-address or tel.nr. to order tickets? If so, how do I know what the lowest seat price and the extra's (roomette, etc) is going to be? The same as I see in the online reservation system? If this is the way the pass-system works, there's no sense in making dummy reservations, because I couldn't make those reservations anyway (hope this doesn't get too confusing....)

 

[the_traveler]

do I understand correctly that - once I've purchased the Amtrak-pass - I can't use the Amtrak online reservation system, but have to use some kind of special email-address or tel.nr. to order tickets? If so, how do I know what the lowest seat price and the extra's (roomette, etc) is going to be? The same as I see in the online reservation system? If this is the way the pass-system works, there's no sense in making dummy reservations, because I couldn't make those reservations anyway (hope this doesn't get too confusing....)

As far as I know, you cal Amtrak to reserve. It may be the regular reservation number, or they may have a separate number for pass holders. (I'm not sure.) As mentioned, you can check the lowest bucket by checking a reservation a LONG way out (like 9-10 months out) - that is usually in the low bucket. The advantage in doing this is if you are told the fare is $100 and you're told that you have to pay $25 additional (above the low bucket amount) - but you had checked and found the low bucket amount was $100, you would know that request (to pay more) was wrong!

 

[caravanman]

Hi Rudd,

You are correct in that you buy the 15 day pass via the internet. You then get sent an email with a reference number for your pass. You do need to phone up or email a seperate dedicated Amtrak railpass number to make your pass reservations, you can't do that on the regular website.

The regular website can be used to check alternate dates /options, and you will see what price the sleepers are. I suggest that you buy your pass and reserve your coach/sleepers as soon as you can, the chances of getting a sudden price drop are slim, it will only happen if someone else cancels. As more sell, the remaining seats get more expensive.

The price you will pay is what you see on the internet for your roomette, provided it is still that price by the time you get through to Amtrak..

The idea of dummy bookings is simply to see if you can save money by going on a train a different day, say monday, roomettes might be $500, on the next day maybe $350. Sometimes there is a saving to go a different route also, e.g. Lakeshore Limited V Capitol Limited new york to chicago, etc.

If you are going by coach seat only, someone on here will advise you of lowest prices for your route, just let us know which dates and routes you are taking? The prices of coach class seats tend to be quite reasonable anyway, so even if you are asked to pay a little extra, it won't be a big expense. Sleeper/Roomette prices rise by eye watering increments, so book as soon as you can!*

You could post your own questions in a new thread if you like.

* I just looked and saw your trip will be next fall, so no great rush yet, but if you know your dates and can plan ahead, you can be sure of the cheapest fares. You can get a refund of your pass (If plans change again) if it is cancelled before you pick it up from the station for 1st use.

Ed B)

 

[ruudkeulers]

Thanks a lot Travelman & Ed: the picture's getting clearer all the time. Somehow I hoped to be more flexible in planning our itinerary, but I gather that if you - as in our case - want to use as many sleepers as possible, you're kind of sentenced to very early bookings. Which would be at the most 180 days before the start of our trip, as this is one of the terms of the pass.

What do you think, Ed: would it be a good idea to post our itinerary in a new thread for everybody to have a shot at it by the time we've got things sorted out or wouldn't that be appreciated here? (I'm new and careful!).

Last question: has anybody got a list with the meaning of - I guess - typical Amtrak-abbreviations like OBS and terms like Parlour? (Somewhere here I read: "AU's own jackal wrote a TR on OTOL on the CS and included the menu for the PPC. See his TR HERE." Chinese is easier for me!)