Amtrak
6 Reviews for Amtrak
Interesting experience - that should sum it up for those who dare to ride the Amtrak.
My hubby and I booked some tickets online from San Jose to Los Angeles this past weekend. The tickets were pretty inexpensive, costing less than a hundred dollars each, which was not that bad considering the cost of plane tickets these days. We left Friday early morning to catch the 11 Coast Starlight, a supposed 10 hour 53 minute ride. We arrived early in San Jose, only to find out that the train will not be there for another 3-4 hours because of delays, for no apparent reason. Tired and offered a good deal for a sleeper car, we accepted for a few hundred dollars, not sure how much, but it was a good deal. My hubby wanted to treat us, and we both thought it would be cool.
So .. we waited, we waited for the train and it finally did arrive ... several hours late, as we were told it would be. When we arrived on board to get into our sleeper, we were told that the sleeper type we paid for was not available. So .. we were given a temporary room with a shower and toilet and told to wait as she prepared a room for us. This room was a lot larger than the one we paid for, but it smelled of fecal matter and urine everywhere and we did not think was worth the extra money they wanted for this "upgrade".
As we waited for our room, we decided to take advantage of one of the perks of getting a sleeper car --- free food. It was last call for lunch, and we were lucky to get a table quickly enough. As we slid into the benches, we were seated with an older man and women. Without going into detail, let's just say, the conversation was interesting and made us want to hide in our room the whole train ride.
The waitress came, and we were given a menu, simple menu .. 4 options for lunch, burger (beef, veggie, turkey), salad (with option to add chicken), chef's special and a chicken sandwich. I ordered the salad with chicken, my hubby ordered the chef's special, meatballs on a bed of rice. The chef's special ... beef meatballs on yellow chicken flavored rice. It did not taste very good, was too salty and my husband said the texture was not right .. fatty .. hard items .. not right. I was told that they ran out of chicken, so I asked for one of the turkey patties instead. Big mistake, this "turkey" patty was the most horrible food item I had put in my mouth in the past 2 years. I'm serious ... don't do it. We ate it nonetheless ... paid a tip way too large I think for what we got and went back to our car.
The temporary room was as we left it and still no sign of the person who told us she was getting a sleeper ready for us. We went around the car and found her preparing a room for us, it was a "family room". The in between room. No toilet and no shower though, which was good because we saw what that was like and did not want it. This sleeper was big, we had both sides of windows, 4 beds .. plenty of room. It felt like we were all alone on the train when we were in there. The sheets were clean but the mattress a big aged and the blanket I had had some gross crust on it .. who knows from where. But all in all ... we liked the room and it was worth the money we got it for. It made the experience a lot better.
Time came for dinner, and we decided to order in .. we didn't want to go back to the diner car .. no way! The choices were steak, hen, lasagna, and a seafood platter. We eliminated the seafood platter as a choice right away, no way we were going to try that! So we ordered one hen ($13) and one steak ($21) meal and a vanilla ice cream ($2 or $3). Luckily they were included in the cost of the room. Anyhow, the food arrived and boy .. it was just as bad if not worse than the lunch, the veggies had nothing on them, just frozen veggies plain .. the steak had nothing on it or with it and the mashed potatoes tasted like they came out of a box. The hen came with the same sides, but it was actually pretty good for reheated hen. Ice cream .. was a mini cup of Hagen Das .. can't go wrong there! We didn't finish our food, not even close and pretty much rested until our trip was over.
It was a long ride and to top it all off ... just as the views started getting nice along the coast the sun went down. What a bummer, this was a huge reason why we decided on taking this train!
Finally, we arrived in LA at 1:15ish am, tired, exhausted and feeling sick. 3+ hours after we were supposed to arrive.
All in all, the experience could have been A LOT better if Amtrak had cleaner cars, better food, and a train that arrives on time. The experience was cool, but I don't think we will be doing that again for some time. Two stars because we arrived and I didn't get puked on.
Drive, take the bus, plane or stay home. Why does it take 10+hours for get to LA anyways on a train anyways? Where is the speed-train I keep hearing about?
In case you have ever wondered why so many Americans are addicted to their cars, take a ride on Amtrak from Sacramento to San Jose. I've done this route way more times than is considered healthy by the Surgeon General and let me tell you if I sit next to another strange person I WILL FLIP. AND IT WILL NOT BE PRETTY. Okay, calming down. Really, it's not horrible but when there are actually many people on the train it's terrible. The attendants are always nice and the trains are clean but DAYUM the people. I can't even count the number of times I have considered xenophobia as a lifestyle choice.
Also, my big complaint about the ride is that it takes three goddamn hours to get from Sacramento to San Jose. The train makes every damn stop in every little small town and it is ridiculous. Also Amtrak giving alcohol to people on trains is just going to create more alcoholics so please reconsider this as the last thing I want is someone who has had just a liiiitle too much to drink swaying in the aisles. Such public displays are better left to the Oakland nightlife scene. Okay that sounded preachy but SERIOUSLY you find the weirdest people on the train. Not interesting weird either like OH FUCK DO NOT SIT NEAR ME FOR THE LOVE OF GOD weird.
But they should really consider an "Express" service that will hopefully take less time as many more people would use it if it was not such a time consuming mode of travel. It takes an hour just to get to Oakland and I know there's traffic but doesn't the journey taking an equal amount of time defeat the purpose? Each train car is like a little slice of the 3 billion people you will never meet in heaven (no I didn't read that book and I plan to keep it that way). It's all people who probably have mental issues, college students, or old ladies trying to get somewhere. No offense to the old ladies and college students but it's your fault so few of you are nearby. So I will lump you all into one group and you'll just have to live with that.
Okay rambling really take Amtrak if you must bye!
Also the train hardly ever arrives to it's final destination on time so it's not really reliable. That and the people working at this station are RUDE. Not as obnoxious as the train passengers however.
I took the Capitol Corridor train to Sacramento over Thanksgiving to avoid the holiday traffic. I took VTA to the train station, but decided it was faster to walk from the Santa Teresa line instead of switching to the Winchester line to go the last few blocks. I really wish that VTA had its two main lines both go to the train station.
But anyway, once I got to the train station, I felt so civilized. I pitied the folks stuck in the airports or in traffic. I strolled a few blocks from the light rail, into the lovely old train station, picked up my ticket, and strolled onto the train. Once on the train, I found a nice quiet seat with no one else around, put up the foot rest, reclined, and read my book. Ah, now this is the way to travel, and for only $28.
The trip did not go as planned, however. My three-hour trip was extended 50% by a freight train derailment ahead of us, and we were stuck in Emeryville. But coming back from Sacramento, there were no problems at all, aside from the slightly loud other passengers. Thank god for iPods to help you sleep. Oh, and the Sacramento train station is quite nice as well--so much better than the crazy airports. There is something about the train that is calmer and, well, again, civilized.
I just wish that there was an express train between the bay area and Sacramento. If they had a train that went between the two with little or no stops in less than two hours, it would be the most popular train around. No one wants to deal with 80.
People thought this was:
Useful (2)
Cool (2)
One star for providing a far more efficient form of transit than individual auto use.
Another star for a fairly good location.
Minus three stars for the staff and unreliability of the service. I've used this Amtrak station at least ten times, and only *once* did I get a person at the counter who was in the least bit pleasant or helpful. The rest of the time, the people at the counter have been rude, unpleasant, and they sometimes even pretend you're not there until you pointedly ask for help.
Then, once you get past the people who clearly hate their jobs, you have to deal with police-state ID check policies and trains that *never* *ever* run on time. If we're going to emulate Mussolini's police state, can we at least make sure the trains run on time?
People thought this was:
Useful (1)
Where? San Jose to Fullerton (essentially NorCal to SoCal).
How much? ~$100 round trip.
What? Bus from San Jose to Santa Barbara, transferred to train in Santa Barbara to Fullerton. One 15 min food break (McD's, Taco Bell, Subway) in King City while on route with bus (both north and south bound).
How long? 9 long ass hours
I got to Greyhound too late to buy the tickets for their 8:15am departure and the next one was noon, so I took a cab to Amtrak. The Greyhound station has the Amtrak schedule to nearby destinations right on their door. $6 cabfare and a few minutes later I was at the Amtrak station. We purchased the tickets and as soon as we bought them we were off. The seats are comfortable (for a bus) and they slightly recline, but there were no pullout tray tables. If you plan to sleep on the bus (I recommend it for long trips) I would recommend a pillow as you cannot sleep comfortably unless you want to wake up with a stiff neck.
Since there were no direct one method of transit (bus/train) we had to transfer to a train, which was awesome. The seats are larger, they have trays for food, and they also have a 120 volt power outlet for any electronic devices. I had my laptop and planning ahead, I ripped (copied) a few of my DVD movies on my laptop. I watched one on the bus, but the battery was low and I knew I couldn't make it to the next movie. Problem solved on the train!
The bus and train make several stops, making the trip much longer (an agonizing 9 hours for me). But if you plan ahead, you can make it bareable. Also bring some snacks and entertainment. Both train and bus have restrooms.
My 10 year old and I took the San Jose train to Salinas, and then a shuttle to Monterey.
I've never ridden on Amtrak, so this was kinda an adventure. The round trip price was great (kids under 15 are 50% off the adult price).
Are train was suppose to be 15 minutes late, but it was actually on time. We boarded and found our seats in coach. I've been on a lot of mass transit in my day, including,buses, trolleys, cars, trucks, light rail, BART, boats, small personal aircraft, jumbo jets... you get the picture, so I know a thing or two about transportation modes. The only thing slightly more fun that the train, is a small personal plane. Anyways, the coach seats were great. There's about 3 feet of leg room for each person. The seats recline to about 45 degrees. A foot rest is attached to each seat in front of you, and another foot/leg rest is attached to your seat to give you the LazyBoy experience. I noticed on the train coming back there there was a 100 outlet at each seat.
The kidlet and I checked out as much of the train as we could. Downstairs was an arcade room, with 4 kinda outmoded video games; Ms. PacMan, Galaga, driving game and a fighting game. We didn't play.
We then checked out the Dining Car. 3/4s of the Dining Car is taken up with 4-seater booths, and the small kitchen/cashier is in the back. It's pretty well stocked for such a tiny space. We bought a cheeseburger and sodey to split. The cheeseburger was really quite large, and tasted pretty good, even had grill marks, though I didn't see a grill out back.
We went upstairs to the Lounge to eat our lunch. The Lounge can be loud. Half the Lounge is dedicated to seats parallel to the floor to ceiling windows, so you can just sit and watch the scenery go by without getting a crick in the neck. The other half is 6-seater booths, most of them taken up by kids and families playing cards and board games. A few screechy teenage girls did a number on my eardrums, but otherwise it was a very pleasant journey. You don't know how beautiful California is, until you see it from the window of a train chugging through farmland, sand dunes, green hills and sloughs. The ride back to San Jose is especially beautiful with the sun going down and the ag sprinklers shoot out arcs of white water.
The worst part of the trip was from Salinas to Monterey and back on the shuttle. The shuttle was a real shuttle bus, and the seats were stacked practically on one another. The leg room is almost non-existent, my 4'11" kidlet was miserable, so you can imagine how miserable a full grown adult would be. The backrests only go up to the shoulders, and the shock absorbers are BAD! I was jostled so badly, I woke up the day after with pain and soreness in my shoulders and neck.
The train was actually almost a half hour early coming back into San Jose. I didn't stick around to see if it waited that half hour in the station, but I imagine it did, otherwise, everyone after that stop who had to meet the train was going to be disappointed.
Very very fun for all ages and very relaxing.
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