how bad would the train to florida be?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just went onto Southwest.com and found a r/t ticket from BWI to Tampa (March 26-March 31) for $325. Both departures are super early in the morning, but that still beats an overnight train trip-- for me, at least.

op: i just tried to re-create this and was unable to, even with BWI flights with stopover and the early/late flight times. Best I got was $400 each. $800 for two of us to go to florida for 3-4 days to see relatives seems like a lot, especially given BWI and stopover flights at midnight ad 5 am.

[Anonymous]

Try other cities. Like Tallahassee or Pensacola. Then rent a car and drive.

Try one way fairs to two different cities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP: Flights to Florida are about $500 each at this point. The train, without getting a sleeper bunk, is about $200 each. That is why I am considering it. I did not plan ahead and get a flight early obviously and I an not willing to pay $450+ each way to get sleeper car seats, since that is no better than flying. So the option is to take the overnight train and sleep in the regular seats. I could see doing it one way, but both ways sounds tough for a 5-6 day trip. Thanks for the input.

Which days and what part of Florida?

Tampa area, flexible on days.

A two minute search on Kayak shows that you can get Round trip, non stop flights from DCA to Tampa for $215 on many different dates in April. One example is Tuesday April 10-17.

Yes, but spring break is the last week of March. We may just fly down for a weekend in April instead.

You said your dates were flexible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When we took the auto train it was in July and cost us $1k - $250 each for 3 of us and $250 for our car.

In our case since we were traveling for 10 days in FL +2 travel days with an infant we needed a lot of stuff, flying would have been impractical with extra baggage era and rental car for 10 days, but it’s not the cheapest option.

I would rather never vacation than drive to Florida & back with infants, toddlers or even just adults.

Insane. 2 plane tickets would have been $500. A rental car for $10 days $350. Get there in 2 hours and spend the $150 left over on baggage fees.

As far as I am concerned, there is one way to Florida - on a plane. Period.

How would you choose which family member to leave behind?

You said you had an infant. She rides on your lap. And even if she needs a seat, I’d still fly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Try other cities. Like Tallahassee or Pensacola. Then rent a car and drive.

Try one way fairs to two different cities.

This. Try jacksonville too.

[Anonymous]

When my son was an infant and toddler he could not fly due to a medical condition. We took the auto train to Florida many times and loved it. We got a sleeper cabin and kids and I LOVED it! The kids could move around and play. There was a free wine and cheese reception from boarding until the train left the station. After that we played a bit, had dinner and got ready for bed. Slept well over night and in the morning got up, had breakfast and we were there. Wonderful.

[Anonymous]

I like the train but it is more expensive because we get bedrooms which cost $500-$675 each for a crappy room plus tickets. We spend $2500-$3000 for four of us each time to go down and back to Florida. Kids love the train though and it is a cool experience and flying these days can be a real hassle with the delays etc...

[Anonymous]

I hear they have bed bugs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I like the train but it is more expensive because we get bedrooms which cost $500-$675 each for a crappy room plus tickets. We spend $2500-$3000 for four of us each time to go down and back to Florida. Kids love the train though and it is a cool experience and flying these days can be a real hassle with the delays etc...

DD was scheduled to take a car back to college with her on the auto train in January. She got a voicemail the day before departure that the train was cancelled. “Sorry for any inconvenience”.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Every time we've looked at it, we're priced out for a family of four. If you buy tickets early enough, I think kids go free in the summer but there's a deadline of early early June. We've always ended up driving. The drive or the train won't be bad, if your kid has electronics and movies to view video games to play, Etc

A train would be better than driving since you can walk around and sleep (assuming you have a sleeper cabin...which I'm guessing isn't cheap).

Try searching for air and hotel packages. They're pretty reasonable since a family of 4 can fit in one hotel room.

My son told me he saw cheap flights to Miami on American the other day---even over spring break.

Correct - sleeper rooms are expensive - $700 each. You would need two for a family of 4 so roundtrip to Florida on the train is about $3000 for 4 people. Not cheap even though people assume it is less expensive.

I just got autotrain tickets for this June - 2 adults and 2 kids, so 2 sleeper "roomettes" were $640 total. Add the price of our car and it's $840 one way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Every time we've looked at it, we're priced out for a family of four. If you buy tickets early enough, I think kids go free in the summer but there's a deadline of early early June. We've always ended up driving. The drive or the train won't be bad, if your kid has electronics and movies to view video games to play, Etc

A train would be better than driving since you can walk around and sleep (assuming you have a sleeper cabin...which I'm guessing isn't cheap).

Try searching for air and hotel packages. They're pretty reasonable since a family of 4 can fit in one hotel room.

My son told me he saw cheap flights to Miami on American the other day---even over spring break.

Correct - sleeper rooms are expensive - $700 each. You would need two for a family of 4 so roundtrip to Florida on the train is about $3000 for 4 people. Not cheap even though people assume it is less expensive.

I just got autotrain tickets for this June - 2 adults and 2 kids, so 2 sleeper "roomettes" were $640 total. Add the price of our car and it's $840 one way.

I just don’t get this. $840 one way?!? That’s $1680 Rt! For peak spring break week I spent on 4 plane tickets $1200 ($300 each) plus $285 all in on a full size rental car through Costco. So only $1485 total. And way faster.