# Awesome First Family Trip on Silver Meteor!



## Shortpants (Aug 4, 2014)

We returned last week from our maiden Amtrak voyage from Albany, NY to Winter Haven, FL and I really have nothing but good to report. I was pretty nervous about the trip, but it all went off without a hitch... well ALMOST without a hitch... The trip back had one very small hiccup, but it all worked out and we made it home in the end, so it was all good!

We boarded the Empire Service #280 in Albany, NY on 7/22 and had a lovely trip in coach to NYC Penn Station. It was great weather that day, so very nice to watch the scenery on the way. Once we got to Penn, we decided to find our own way to Club Acela, which was much easier than I envisioned, thankfully. We dumped our luggage and wandered around Penn, went up to take a family pic at Madison Square Garden, showed our daughters the hustle and bustle of NYC, and had a horrible appetizer plate (that was out of this world expensive!) at one of the eateries at Penn. We did get a Red Cap to help us to the Silver Meteor #97 when it came time to board, what a wonderful service! We were settled in to our bedroom (car 9710, bedroom B) in no time. Our car attendant, Amy, was so nice and very helpful. We weren't terribly demanding, but she popped in to show our daughters the good sights and answer their questions frequently. My husband thought the train was pretty stuffy and too warm for his liking, but the girls and I were comfortable. Shortly after leaving Penn, they came for our dining car reservation. We headed to dinner at 6 PM, I had the half chicken, the girls shared the kids mac and cheese, and hubby had the signature steak. We were not big fans of anything we had, to be honest. Hubby aid his steak was terrible, my chicken was cooked beyond recognition and very bland, the girls didn't complain about the mac and cheese, but you can't really mess up boxed mac and cheese. We went back to our room and settled in with a movie and eventually drifted off to sleep. Woke up the next morning and went for breakfast. It was better than dinner the night before, but still not very good. It looked like everything was old, like cooked hours earlier, and left to sit. We went back to the bedroom, took our showers to kill some time and watched the scenery roll by until lunch. Hubby decided to skip lunch, so the girls and I went down and had the hot dogs for lunch. Again, they looked old and wrinkly, like the gas station hot dogs on those little spinner/heater things. Too bad because they are really good hot dogs normally. We arrived at Winter Haven exactly on time, thanked Amy for a great first trip, and headed off to spend a wonderful week with family.

We returned to the Winter Haven station on the 28th for our Northbound trip on the Silver Meteor #98. This time we were in car 9811, bedroom B. It was running about 15-20 minutes late by the time it hit Winter Haven, but not too bad. This whole train was considerably cooler and more comfortable. It seemed to be newer than our train down, but more of the gadgets in our room were broken. We were greeted by our super nice attendant, Altwon (sorry, I might have spelled that wrong!) who went over the room features, and when he got to the attendant call button, he says "Here's your attendant call button, but it's broken in this room, so consider it decoration." LOL! We didn't see him too much as there seemed to be many other passengers that were requesting meals in their rooms, so he seemed pretty busy. But he always made sure to check in with us and bring us fresh waters and ice for our coolers. We headed right off to lunch shortly after we left the station. Hubby decided he didn't want any repeats of the food on the trip down and our youngest daughter just went down for a nap, so myself and our older daughter went and had two scrumptious burgers for lunch. Yay for better food! We went back to our room and let Daddy know that there seemed to be a better chance of having good food on this train. We napped and watched movies/scenery until dinner time then went to the dining car to see if the tasty food would continue. The one thing I noticed was that on the trip down, they did not allow our youngest to have her own meal since she is under two, but on the trip back they allowed her to order as a full fare passenger, so that was cool. Hubby and oldest had the burgers, I had the half chicken again and youngest DD had the mac and cheese. I also noticed the salads were much better on the Northbound train. On the trip down the salads were like 4-5 pieces of lettuce and two cherry tomatoes, hardly even covered the bottom of the bowl! On #98 it was a REAL full bowl of salad. We even had cheese cake and the girls had some yummy chocolate mousse for desert. We relaxed in the room until bedtime and Altwon came and dropped the beds for us. I woke up about 3 AM and sat watching the lights in the little towns we were going through pass by, so very, very nice and relaxing. We got up relatively early so headed down for breakfast and had another great meal of omelettes, french toast and scrambled eggs coupled with copious amounts of coffee for me. LOL! We got into Penn Station about an hour late, and we had requested a Red Cap to help us to Club Acela, but after waiting for a while and seeing other folks that needed the assistance more, we grabbed our luggage and headed to the lounge. This is where the glitch happened... my husband checked us in at the Club Acela and requested a Red Cap for our Empire Service Train #283. Whomever he spoke to ended up putting us on the WRONG train list, so it's a good thing we checked in about 10 minutes before our train was due to depart or we would have been sitting there waiting for the wrong train. The lounge attendant apologized profusely as we scrambled to gather all our luggage and race off to the correct platform. We made it just in the nick of time, hopped on #283 and settled in for the last leg of our journey. This train was FREEZING!!! It was like sitting in a refrigerator! About halfway through our trip they finally shut off the AC, so the temp increased enough to be tolerable for the remainder of our journey. We got into Albany, NY about an hour behind schedule, which was no big deal as we had another gorgeous day and the scenery was just as lovely as the trip down. We collected our car from long-term parking and headed back to VT.

All in all it was a truly wonderful trip and an awesome family adventure. I will definitely look at traveling Amtrak again on our next vacation!


----------



## Rail Freak (Aug 4, 2014)

It's always great to hear of an enjoyable Amtrak Trip!!!


----------



## SarahZ (Aug 4, 2014)

Passing through towns at night is one of my favorite things about riding the train.  It's even better when there's snow and a full moon.


----------



## Bob Dylan (Aug 4, 2014)

Glad y'all enjoyed the trip and as for the food, a lot depends on the chef that prepares it as all the food starts out the same before heating/ cooking!

The new Viewliner IIs, which consists of Sleepers, Diners, Bag Cars and Crew Bag Dorms, will be in service by next year so this will help with the comfort level as currently the equipment is run to death due to the shortage of equipment and the heavy passenger loads!

Its always nice to create family memories with trips like this!☺


----------



## Green Maned Lion (Aug 4, 2014)

There are always hitches. Otherwise you'd be riding in the locomotive.


----------



## mediaman (Aug 5, 2014)

Great report. Thanks for sharing your experiences with us!


----------



## ScottRu (Aug 16, 2014)

Thanks for the report. We'll be once again doing the Silver Meteor route from Boston (actually, a local to Penn Station) and back in Feb/March. Hope we get the "good" chef! LOL


----------



## dnsommer2013 (Aug 20, 2014)

Terrific write-up! I live in Ithaca, and I can get Train 280 out of Syracuse at 6:55am. Have not ridden the silvers but when I do it will probably be the Meteor too! Thanks for the report!


----------

