Amtrak cancels Sleeper reservation on the Cardinal

[Amtrak709]

It's a matter of aesthetics. The VL II Accessible Bedroom has a full-sized toilet and a sink in the room, as opposed to the miniaturized toilet hidden under a cover in the VL I Roomette. Some people might find that somewhat off-putting, feeling like they're riding in a bathroom. Doesn't bother me personally.

OTOH, the dedicated shower works well as a luggage closet.

joelkfla: I think I should just drive over to SAV the next urge I have to ride and get on 91 (or maybe even 92) on a day when a non-ADA passenger can upgrade to an available H in a Viewliner II. I have been critical of this issue for a while without my ever having seen or set foot on a Viewliner II. Enough!! Should just give it a try. Only reluctance is still the high cost of bedrooms on 91/92. Prices on bedrooms have softened a little on 19/20 in the last year which is the train I ride most of the time--business, pleasure, or "just to ride".
The Silvers have been my favorite trains for the last 50 years--especially when I lived in Florida.

 

[saxpower]

joelkfla: I think I should just drive over to SAV the next urge I have to ride and get on 91 (or maybe even 92) on a day when a non-ADA passenger can upgrade to an available H in a Viewliner II. I have been critical of this issue for a while without my ever having seen or set foot on a Viewliner II. Enough!! Should just give it a try. Only reluctance is still the high cost of bedrooms on 91/92. Prices on bedrooms have softened a little on 19/20 in the last year which is the train I ride most of the time--business, pleasure, or "just to ride".
The Silvers have been my favorite trains for the last 50 years--especially when I lived in Florida.

I plan on reporting after my trip in mid-July.

 

[drfonta]

So I just booked 2 roomettes for late October this year NYP to CHI and got the last two rooms 11 and 12. Should I be concerned? Are all the runs using the Viewliner IIs?

 

[Jay Aitchsee]

So I just booked 2 roomettes for late October this year NYP to CHI and got the last two rooms 11 and 12. Should I be concerned? Are all the runs using the Viewliner IIs?

Having lost roomette 12 without warning (see my earlier post), if it were me, I would first call to see if by chance there were other rooms available. If not, I would continually check room availability online and if anything opened, I would call for a switch.

 

[drfonta]

Having lost roomette 12 without warning (see my earlier post), if it were me, I would first call to see if by chance there were other rooms available. If not, I would continually check room availability online and if anything opened, I would call for a switch.

Thanks for that. I decided to change ours to a bedroom since they had both rooms available. Not that many more points but not likely to have to worry about this problem since it seems the sleeper IIs are running on the Cardinal now. Don't want a last minute cancellation like you had!

 

[bratkinson]

Amtrak's computer still believes the one sleeper on the Cardinal is a VI with 12 roomettes. Somehow, 'they' 'it' never figured out it was replaced with an 11 roomette V2 AND a 10 roomette V2 bag-dorm-sleeper! I did luck out and finished my ride in the bag-dorm-sleeper today in CHI.

So, the unwary are still being booked into roomette 12 and get unwillingly downgraded to coach. I rode with a woman that had been booked out of Florida on the Meteor 6-8 months ago and then was informed it was switched to the Star schedule which would not connect in WAS to #51 like the Meteor did. She managed to figure it out but Amtrak didn't! So, she got it changed and was put in Roomette #12 on the Cardinal with an Amtrak-paid night in a hotel. She didn't realize there was no #12 until she boarded. Luckily for her, there were a couple of vacancies in the bag-dorm-sleeper...all they had to do was to move a couple of bags of clean linen from #1 to #8 with the future dirty linen. #10 was stuffed with bottled water and the attendant was in #9. Interestingly, the 'far' toilet was locked the entire trip. As it turned out, I had to use the toilet and on my way down the hall saw an uniformed Amtrak person with a key unlock the toilet and go in. So now, in addition to the conductors and cafe attendant each taking separate tables in the cafe (on all LD trains and NEC regionals, it seems), now they even get their own private toilet! Why am I not surprised?

 

[joelkfla]

Amtrak's computer still believes the one sleeper on the Cardinal is a VI with 12 roomettes. Somehow, 'they' 'it' never figured out it was replaced with an 11 roomette V2 AND a 10 roomette V2 bag-dorm-sleeper! I did luck out and finished my ride in the bag-dorm-sleeper today in CHI.

So, the unwary are still being booked into roomette 12 and get unwillingly downgraded to coach. I rode with a woman that had been booked out of Florida on the Meteor 6-8 months ago and then was informed it was switched to the Star schedule which would not connect in WAS to #51 like the Meteor did. She managed to figure it out but Amtrak didn't! So, she got it changed and was put in Roomette #12 on the Cardinal with an Amtrak-paid night in a hotel. She didn't realize there was no #12 until she boarded. Luckily for her, there were a couple of vacancies in the bag-dorm-sleeper...all they had to do was to move a couple of bags of clean linen from #1 to #8 with the future dirty linen. #10 was stuffed with bottled water and the attendant was in #9. Interestingly, the 'far' toilet was locked the entire trip. As it turned out, I had to use the toilet and on my way down the hall saw an uniformed Amtrak person with a key unlock the toilet and go in. So now, in addition to the conductors and cafe attendant each taking separate tables in the cafe (on all LD trains and NEC regionals, it seems), now they even get their own private toilet! Why am I not surprised?

It's a good thing they have the bag-dorm, so they only have one phantom Roomette instead of 2.

 

[jis]

V2 Sleepers are effectively 10 Roomette because one of the Roomettes is blocked for linen and supplies store.

 

[joelkfla]

V2 Sleepers are effectively 10 Roomette because one of the Roomettes is blocked for linen and supplies store.

Yeah, but somebody pointed out that they don't need to use the Roomette for storage when there's a bag-dorm, because they store things in the bag-dorm (which apparently was the thinking behind eliminating the storage closet.)