The Amtrak Auto Train With Small Children: A Review

For our big train ride back on Monday afternoon, I tried to do as much research as possible (namely, reading every review I could find) and yet I found only one measly review from someone who rode the auto train with small kids, and it left me with more questions than answers.  I vowed then and there I would write my own review.  My party consisted of my in-laws, my 10-month old son, my 2- and 4- year old daughters, and me.

The Amtrak Auto Train goes from Lorton, Virginia to Sanford, Florida once a day at 4:00 pm. You must have a car.  It makes no stops other than in Florence, South Carolina for refueling and to change personnel. The trip is 17 1/2 hours with an arrival time of 9:30 am.  To drive this distance, with children, it would take probably about 13 - 14 hours.  Obviously we weren't taking it to save time or money since the cost is $49/child, $99/adult, and $220/minivan.  At least, these were the prices for this particular day.  We took the train because we thought it would be fun!

Since we were in the Richmond, VA area, we actually had to drive north to get to the train station which is, of course, counter intuitive but it gave Brady and Aubree an opportunity to take a nap.  Although the train leaves at 4:00, they tell you that over sized vehicles must check in by 2:00.  I'm sure it takes them awhile to load all the vehicles.  We arrived with enough time to visit a nearby Burger King first for lunch.  It looked like it hadn't been upgraded since the 70's and it was like pulling teeth to simply order a bun with melted cheese (they had no kids' macaroni and cheese for some reason) but we finally left satisfied.

We got to the station, which is immediately off I-95, at 1:40.  There was no backup of traffic and no one in front of us. You first stop at a booth that checks your car in and gives you a number.  In our case, number 37.  You then pull up and exit your vehicle with any items you want to take.  With kids, this turns out to be quite a few things.  Fortunately there were carts right there, free, unlike the airport, so it was easy to pile on our things.  This included Brady's car seat which I was completely unclear how it would even work since I had discovered there were no seat belts.  Would there even be room on the floor to put it?  While we gathered our things, someone came by and video taped the van in case there was any questionable damage when we picked it up on the other end.

A few steps away is the station.  We entered and then went to the check-in desk.  There are several different travel options such as a sleeper car, roommette, or coach which I jokingly referred to as the "seats where the poor people sit."  But seriously, those other options were like quadruple the price which I thought was crazy to pay so it was a no-brainer.  Coach baby!  We showed our ID's to the gentleman behind the desk (it's all electronic so that's all we had to show) and he gave us our seat numbers and our meal tickets.  At this point, you get to choose which dinner seating you would like.  The options were 5:00 and 7:00 and we chose 7:00.  From doing my research I asked him if our seats were on the family car which he said they were.  That could be either good or bad.  I also asked him where in the car they were located because I had heard you want to avoid sitting near the doors due to noise.  They were in the middle of car.  As I looked around the station, I noted probably about five other kids in total.

Beyond the windows is where you drop off your car.

Loading time was 2:30 with last call at 3:00 (although that was a little strange because 3:00 was also the time that people with regular sized cars had to be there by).   Either way, this left us with some time to kill so I decided to check out the very small children's play area outside.   The first thing I noticed is that I could smell smoke.  Sure enough, the children's area was bordered by the smoking area.  Then, to add insult to injury, a mother decided to light up right next to the entrance to the play area.  These are the times when you secretly hope the kids will shout out "smoking is so disgusting" and then you'll pretend to be appalled that they had the bad manners to say it out loud.  I hustled the kids back inside and decided to wander through the cafe/gift shop instead.  They had some neat little toys including some magnet paper dolls that Grandma got for the girls.  They had an assortment of chips, drinks, etc for sale and I did notice a pot of soup in the corner.

The irony is that she didn't want to be too far away from her kid while she took a drag but yet she probably smokes in her house, slowly killing him.

Before too long, it was time to board.  Our car was the first one to the right and we were on the top deck.  I loaded the kids on and Ron and Elaine brought up all the stuff.  The first thing I noticed is that it looked similar to first class or business class on an airplane.  The second thing I noticed is that there was a ton of leg room so Brady's car seat fit more than easily at my feet.  The seats were two across and all were facing forward.  I tried the recline position and while it went back more than an airplane seat, it wasn't all that much more.  It did have a nice leg rest though and a tray table.  Also, very importantly, all the rows of seats each had two electrical outlets.  This boded well for future movie watching.

Outlets

The girls were excited to get on the train and to explore.  Elaine took them for a walk down to the lounge car which was serving some snack mix.  There were also free beverages like tea, coffee, and hot chocolate. I got us settled and soon noted that there wasn't really anyone else loading into our car other than a nice grandma, mother, and little boy who were a few rows ahead of us.  We quickly made friends with them and found out that the grandmother had been riding the auto train for 47 years.  She was afraid to fly.  She told us this was a very non-busy time of year to be headed to Florida.  Indeed, all the snow birds are heading back home from Florida so the reverse trip is packed.  We did note that the average age of the passengers was definitely skewed to the 60's & 70's with some exceeding that range.

Working on their magnetic dolls

Look at all that room!

At 3:40 we started slowly moving and that's when we realized for sure that there was a grand total of nine of us on the whole rail car which had like 30 rows of seats on each side.  Yay!  The prospects of a nice trip just increased ten fold.  We didn't start going fully until just about 4:00.  During this time, lady named  Lisa, who seemed to be the equivalent of a flight attendant, stopped by to talk to us and answer any questions we had. She was super nice as were all the other employees we encountered.

Lisa

After we took off, a lady named Ginger came on the loud speaker to give us some information about the train.  This is what she said:

• There were 199 passengers on board
• There were 123 vehicles (this didn't seem to make sense to me but we thought maybe you could send your car without having to take the train yourself)
• There were 46 train cars with 29 cars for autos and 17 for passengers.

During the first few hours leading up to dinner, the girls played with the little boy, Ryan, who was five, which included running up and down the train car.  We had to keep telling them "no running."  Aubree seemed particularly taken with him.  At one point, I called her over because I told her I wanted to fix her hair.  "Why?" she says.  "So I can show Ryan?  He's really nice.  I love him."  They also were very friendly with the grandmother and spent a lot of time standing next to her seat just chatting about whatever (and yup, including the part where they tell her that Dewey and Marlee died.  Mercy, when will that end?)

Aubree and Ryan

Talking to the grandmother.  She was a lovely lady.

Brady took a little catnap.

So did Calleigh which I wasn't too pleased about.

When dinner time arrived (which is included in the price of the fare), we made our way to the dining car which was four cars away.  The journey there took us through the lounge car and this is where my one beef with this whole trip came in.  The lower level of the lounge car is the smoking area.  Top level might as well have been the smoking area too because it absolutely reeked.  It was absolutely terrible.  I almost had to hold my breath walking through.  Why anyone who doesn't smoke would want to hang out there at the tables and watch a movie (they had a movie showing at two different times that evening) is beyond me.  Something really should be done about that situation.  Anyway, the dining car was fine and the set up was booths that held two on each side.  Again, I was wondering how the whole highchair thing would work out with Brady.  They had no highchairs but they did have a booster seat which worked fine.  I think if you had a 6-month old baby instead of a 10-month old, this would have been a challenge. The kids and I sat at one table and Ron and Elaine sat just across from us.  Just like they do on a cruise ship, they sat a random couple at Ron and Elaine's table.  They were very nice people who were taking the train down because they were moving to Florida and didn't want to drive two cars down.

Lounge Car

The menu had, I believe, three meat options and then one vegetarian option which was manicotti.  The kid's option was chicken fingers with sides of macaroni and cheese and veggies.  We asked for it without the chicken and that was no problem.  I think Brady ate more of the mac &cheese than the girls did.  They didn't seem to eat much of their dinner for whatever reason.  I thought the manicotti was quite good and the mixed veggies were really good.  I stuck with water to drink but they offered iced tea and there was also white wine at the table which obviously didn't interest me although I did have to spend a few minutes explaining to the girls what it was and why I didn't drink it.  There were several selections for dessert and we chose a brownie with vanilla ice cream although the girls kept trying to steal Brady's Jello in the end.  I wasn't sure what the protocol was with tipping but the couple with Ron & Elaine who had ridden a few other times said they usually did leave a tip so I followed suit.

After dinner, we made our way back to our seats (incidentally, I had been concerned about what to do with our valuables while eating.  Since there was barely anyone around, we felt comfortable just leaving them in the bin area above our seats) and got the kids changed into their pajamas.  I nursed Brady, put him in his car seat, and he was asleep in five minutes.  Phew!  The girls, not so much.  They are night owls anyway and I'm sure the excitement of the trip added to it.  I set them each up with a movie at their seats and figured they'd go to sleep when they got tired.  For Aubree, that was 10:45 and Calleigh it was 11:00.  I was a little worried about Aubree falling off the seat once she laid down but the leg rests formed a little lip on the seats which helped with that.  Since there were so many extra rows, they both had their own row to spread across the seats.  I'm not sure how it would have worked out if they were just reclining their chairs but I'm glad I didn't have to find out.  Incidentally, they had dimmed the main lights at 9:06.  I thought the lights that remained were just enough for it not too be too dark but not bright enough that you couldn't sleep.

At a little before 11:00, we made the scheduled stop in Florence.  We were there for about thirty minutes.

A note about the bathrooms.  The bathroom is definitely the same as the bathroom on an airplane.  Very tiny!  There were none on the upper level so we had to go downstairs each time.  Right after we stopped in Florence, I went down to use it and that's when I noticed a sign that said "handicap bathroom."  I opened the door and it was HUGE!  We used that one the rest of the time.

That's more like it!

The kids slept wonderfully and didn't make a sound.  I, on the other hand, had my challenges.  I started off stretched across the two seats but my legs were scrunched up so that didn't last for long.  I finally went with the recline option and I'm sure I slept a little because I know I had a dream but I felt like I woke up many times.  I know the snoring from the row behind me didn't help :)  I couldn't move my seat because it was the only one where I could see both girls.  At about 5:30, the train stopped for whatever reason and Brady decided it was time to wake up.  Aw, shucks.  There was no choice but to get him up because I didn't want him to wake up our fellow passengers, few though they may be.  I took him to the back of the car and nursed him for awhile.  Then Elaine, who was awake herself, came back and took him and told me to get some more sleep.  Brady fell back asleep on Elaine for about the next 1.5 hours and I got some sleep myself.

This is how much the seat reclined.

The girls would have probably slept longer but at 7:00, they made an announcement for breakfast over the loud speaker which woke them up although actually, I don't think Aubree woke up until the next announcement.  We meandered down to the dining car at about 7:45 where we had some cereal and muffins. It was light but it was "free."  Back at our seats, we packed up our stuff and waited for arrival time which ended up being about 20 minutes early at 9:10.  Between the time we arrived and the time they let us off the train, it was about 15 minutes.  They said they had to let all the people in wheelchairs off first.

The Sanford station was about the same as the one in Lorton although it did have a much nicer playground.  We hung out there for a bit while we waited for them to call our car.  Eventually, we got tired out there and waited inside with Ron & Elaine.  They finally called our number and Ron moved it to a parking spot so we could load up.  All said, it was about an hour between the time the train got into the station and when we got the van.  

So, in summary, the trip went better than I expected. Despite my lack of sleep, I thought it was a great experience.  It's funny because Elaine and Ron were musing about how they've taken trains all over Europe but never once in the U.S.  So true! That being said, I would only do it again for the adventure of it, not because it saves time or money.  I know the girls had a great time because Calleigh has said several times today, "Remember the train?  That was fun!"

For anyone who stumbles upon this and has questions, I'll do my best to answer them.