Ryan
Court Jester
The wife and I had a wedding to attend in Boston this weekend, so we decided to treat ourselves to Acela First class for the trip. We paid for our tickets one way and redeemed points for the other direction, so the cost was actually rather reasonable.
Of course, we had to get the trip started out with a little bit of running around, rather than do things the easy way - we planned on taking the Regional trail 111 from BWI-WAS in order to ride the Acela for the entire length of the corridor, to enjoy the Club Acela in Washington and to increase our changes of getting good seats for the trip. To add onto that, we had a parent teacher conference at 7:30 Friday morning (train 111 is scheduled to leave BWI at 8:11). Our backup plan was to catch a MARC train from BWI to WAS if we couldn't get done with the conference on time. We finished the conference and set out for the train station at 7:55 - Amy checked the train status and 111 was running about 5 minutes late. Perfect! We quickly ate into that margin by hitting every. single. red. light. on the way to the station. We still managed to pull into the parking garage at 8:10, so I set off for the station to print our tickets while Amy gathered her bags and headed straight for the platform. Somehow, I managed to beat her to the platform and was standing there by myself as the train pulled into the station. I placed myself right at a door, ready to jump on if Amy made it down the stairs in time. Without a moment to spare (the doors were literally closing) when Amy appeared at the bottom of the stairs. I stuck my arm in the door and waved at the Conductor (he was about 3 cars back) and we both jumped onto the train.
After an uneventful trip to DC, we settled into the Club Acela for the short wait for our train - at the appropriate time they called for boarding, and I was surprised to find out that we could walk straight out from the CA onto the platforms without having our tickets checked. We got settled into a pair of seats on the right hand side and met Crystal, our attendant for the trip - she offered us some bagels and drinks, and came through offering hot towels shortly after getting moving. The train was 80% full and there were several people getting on at BWI that had to sit separately (until one of the passengers already onboard offered to change seats so the group could sit together), so I was glad that we had gone to WAS to board at the endpoint.
After Philly, I decided to have some lunch and ordered the crabcakes, which came on top of a salad - the meal was excellent! Crystal continued to be an excellent an very attentive attendant.
We were on time all the way to New York, so during the stop at NYP, Amy and I stepped off the train onto the platform and chatted with Crystal for a little bit. After New York I decided to have a glass of wine (which was also delicious), although between the rough track in CT and the person in front of me being completely unable to sit still, I really had to hang onto the glass to ensure that the wine didn't slosh all over the place. Crystal continued to provide excellent service, and my glass was never empty.
Finally near PVD, the inevitable "glitch" showed up. Apparently there was a power outage earlier in the day that had left a train disabled on the tracks. Very shortly after stopping, Crystal came through the car stopping at about every other row talking to the passengers and letting us know of the cause for the delay and that we would get moving in about 10 minutes. As promised, we were shortly on our way and quickly passed Providence and Route 128 and then left the train at Back Bay and walked the 6 or 7 blocks to our hotel (it would have been shorter had I not walked out the wrong side of the station).
My initial impressions were overwhelmingly positive - Amy and I had a great time, the service was excellent and the food was definitely top of the line. The wifi seemed to work decently well for the parts of the trip that I used it on (not much, I spent most of my time staring out the window).
For the return trip, we're on train 2255 leaving BOS here in about 15 minutes. We took a cab over to South Station and relaxed briefly in the Club Acela. There was hardly anyone in the Club Acela, which is surprising since FC is nearly full. Not sure if everyone got to the station just in time to catch the train or what, but only 3 other people were in the Club Acela and came out to the train. I think that the layout in BOS is much nicer, but there weren't any boarding announcements - Amy went to throw some trash away at about 12:45 and the attendant asked her if we were on the Acela. When she said yes, the attendant told her that they were boarding first class passengers. When we got down to the train, there weren't really any instructions or anything, so we walked past the crowd of people and were allowed out onto the platform to board. I'm not sure if the attendant inside the CA was ever going to come get us. I'm glad that we came out here when we did, as we got the last two forward facing seats together. I'm stuck with the half window, but I'll survive.
Anyhow, that's it for now - I'll writeup the second half of the trip when we get home, and add some pictures once I get them off the camera and processed.
Of course, we had to get the trip started out with a little bit of running around, rather than do things the easy way - we planned on taking the Regional trail 111 from BWI-WAS in order to ride the Acela for the entire length of the corridor, to enjoy the Club Acela in Washington and to increase our changes of getting good seats for the trip. To add onto that, we had a parent teacher conference at 7:30 Friday morning (train 111 is scheduled to leave BWI at 8:11). Our backup plan was to catch a MARC train from BWI to WAS if we couldn't get done with the conference on time. We finished the conference and set out for the train station at 7:55 - Amy checked the train status and 111 was running about 5 minutes late. Perfect! We quickly ate into that margin by hitting every. single. red. light. on the way to the station. We still managed to pull into the parking garage at 8:10, so I set off for the station to print our tickets while Amy gathered her bags and headed straight for the platform. Somehow, I managed to beat her to the platform and was standing there by myself as the train pulled into the station. I placed myself right at a door, ready to jump on if Amy made it down the stairs in time. Without a moment to spare (the doors were literally closing) when Amy appeared at the bottom of the stairs. I stuck my arm in the door and waved at the Conductor (he was about 3 cars back) and we both jumped onto the train.
After an uneventful trip to DC, we settled into the Club Acela for the short wait for our train - at the appropriate time they called for boarding, and I was surprised to find out that we could walk straight out from the CA onto the platforms without having our tickets checked. We got settled into a pair of seats on the right hand side and met Crystal, our attendant for the trip - she offered us some bagels and drinks, and came through offering hot towels shortly after getting moving. The train was 80% full and there were several people getting on at BWI that had to sit separately (until one of the passengers already onboard offered to change seats so the group could sit together), so I was glad that we had gone to WAS to board at the endpoint.
After Philly, I decided to have some lunch and ordered the crabcakes, which came on top of a salad - the meal was excellent! Crystal continued to be an excellent an very attentive attendant.
We were on time all the way to New York, so during the stop at NYP, Amy and I stepped off the train onto the platform and chatted with Crystal for a little bit. After New York I decided to have a glass of wine (which was also delicious), although between the rough track in CT and the person in front of me being completely unable to sit still, I really had to hang onto the glass to ensure that the wine didn't slosh all over the place. Crystal continued to provide excellent service, and my glass was never empty.
Finally near PVD, the inevitable "glitch" showed up. Apparently there was a power outage earlier in the day that had left a train disabled on the tracks. Very shortly after stopping, Crystal came through the car stopping at about every other row talking to the passengers and letting us know of the cause for the delay and that we would get moving in about 10 minutes. As promised, we were shortly on our way and quickly passed Providence and Route 128 and then left the train at Back Bay and walked the 6 or 7 blocks to our hotel (it would have been shorter had I not walked out the wrong side of the station).
My initial impressions were overwhelmingly positive - Amy and I had a great time, the service was excellent and the food was definitely top of the line. The wifi seemed to work decently well for the parts of the trip that I used it on (not much, I spent most of my time staring out the window).
For the return trip, we're on train 2255 leaving BOS here in about 15 minutes. We took a cab over to South Station and relaxed briefly in the Club Acela. There was hardly anyone in the Club Acela, which is surprising since FC is nearly full. Not sure if everyone got to the station just in time to catch the train or what, but only 3 other people were in the Club Acela and came out to the train. I think that the layout in BOS is much nicer, but there weren't any boarding announcements - Amy went to throw some trash away at about 12:45 and the attendant asked her if we were on the Acela. When she said yes, the attendant told her that they were boarding first class passengers. When we got down to the train, there weren't really any instructions or anything, so we walked past the crowd of people and were allowed out onto the platform to board. I'm not sure if the attendant inside the CA was ever going to come get us. I'm glad that we came out here when we did, as we got the last two forward facing seats together. I'm stuck with the half window, but I'll survive.
Anyhow, that's it for now - I'll writeup the second half of the trip when we get home, and add some pictures once I get them off the camera and processed.
) Ive always loved ACELA FC, otherwise as most think Regionals are just as good as Biz Class on Acela! Like your new avatar also, wish I knew how to do that! 
