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.

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.

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...

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

Try one way fairs to two different cities.

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?

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.

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.