Auto Train trip to Florida

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Joined
Apr 5, 2011
Messages
6,091
Location
Baltimore. MD
Even though our winter here in Baltimore had been mild this year, we decided we wanted to get a head start on summer by going down to Florida for a few days. We had a good time visiting Miami Beach eight year ago, and thought we'd try it again. Last time we went down on the Silver Meteor, but the transfers to the rental car facilities at the Miami Airport were a bit cumbersome. So this time we decided to try the Auto Train. OK, so Google Maps says it's a 4 hour drive from Sanford to Miami Beach, it can't be that bad, can it? And we wouldn't have to pay for a rental car. Oh yes, it was that bad. The traffic in southern Florida needs to be seen to believed. Much worse than it was 8 years ago, and it was pretty bad then. And even in central Florida, where the traffic was more manageable, some of the local driving habits, mostly involving driving more aggressively than anything I've ever experienced in New York City, took a little getting used to. But it was nice to be able to go swimming in March, and we always enjoy the international vibe of Miami Beach, which is almost like taking an overseas vacation without leaving the country.

If we did it again, though, I think we'd just take the SIlver meteor or Star to Miami, dispense with the rental car, and take a cab or rideshare directly to our hotel. The we'd spend our time on the beach or using ride share or a bus to get to places in Miami Beach. Any trips to any outlying areas would be done with either a short-term car rental or a bus tour, like the trip we took to Key West the last time. Hopefully we would be able to leave the Miami area early enough and return late enough to avoid the traffic.

We left Baltimore on a nice sunny day at about 11:00. We figured it would take us about an hour and a half to get to Lorton, and then we wanted to eat lunch before checking in. It turns out there is a newsstand at the station that sells some light refreshments, but I'm glad we had a regular lunch at a Panera's around the corner from the entrance to the station. We checked in at about 1:15 so we had about 2 hours to wait in the station until they boarded the train at 3:30 PM. When you check in they give you a number (with a little corresponding magnetized plate for the car). The you check in at the ticket counter where you pick your dinner seating (5, 7, and 9 PM) and you get a paper boarding pass and tickets for dinner. You need these to get on the train and get fed. Keep them safe.

Given that lots of people spend time waiting a couple of hours both before departure and after arrival (you have to wait until they unload your car), I'm surprised that Amtrak didn't put more attention to having comfortable seating in the waiting room, maybe something more on the order of a Metropolitan lounge; even if there's no need for free food, a nice comfy seat would definitely be appreciated. In any even, I got up walked outside (fortunately it was in the 50s) checked out the trains and was entertained by watching the locomotives back into the front.

It was finally time to board. Our adult daughter was coming down with us (though flying back early on her won), so I reserved a bedroom and a roomette. When we made the reservation the roomette was in a different car than the bedroom, but, without our knowledge until we checked in, they moved the roomette to be in the same car. We were in room B, which was fine. My daughter was happy with the roomette, and despite the tight clearances, she had the upper berth set up so she could sleep above and sit during the evening, which is what I do on a Viewliner, but wouldn't bother in a Superliner because of the lack of windows and tight spaces. My daughter said she liked it and called the arrangement "cozy." I was glad I picked the more spacious bedroom.

At dinner we enjoyed the only traditional dining west of the Mississippi (if you don't count the couple of miles that the Sunset Limited runs on the east side of the river while going into New Orleans). The train was much more crowded than any Amtrak long-distance train I've ever ridden, something like 500 passengers on board, split about half and half between sleepers and coaches. There train was carrying about 250 cars, and the train length was somewhere about 30 cars long. When it rounded a curve, you could see the seemingly endless line of autoracks trailing behind us making us look more like a PSR freight train than a passenger train. The dinner wasn't bad, but pretty basic. Only 4 menu choices, plus a small salad and a dessert. The desserts were great. I had the Meyer Lemon cake on the way down and the chocolate toffee mousse on the way back. Apparently, there's a white chocolate blueberry cheesecake that's popular among regulars, but that was out of stock, news that was greeted with general disappointment. To compensate, on the southbound trip, the crew offered unlimited refills on wine, which seems to have eased the pain a little.

Breakfast was a more simplified affair. They put out on each table a banana, a coffee crumb cake (good), cereal (Raisin Bran, Special K, or Cheerios), and Orange juice. They brought you a breakfast sandwich (egg and cheese or egg, sausage and cheese) and coffee. They also had a grab and go of the same items available in the sleeper lounge. I didn't really use the sleeper lounge, as I had a private stock of spirits which I enjoyed in my room. Most of the sleepers had ice available from a pull-out drawer.

We finished breakfast as we rolled past Jacksonville, and arrived in Sanford about 15 minutes ahead of schedule. When the train arrives, you have to stay in your car for a bot, as they need to disconnect the autoracks, and separate the coaches form the sleepers. The coaches are then pulled to another track, as the platform isn't long enough for all the passenger cars. They finally let you off, and then it's time for sitting around waiting for them to call the number of your car. When they do, you've got to go out promptly, load your stuff in, and drive away pretty quickly so the space is cleared for the next car. We ended up waiitng about 45 minutes for our car, and then we were called. Out we went, enjoying the nice sunny 75 degree weather, and then we were driving off waiting for our Florida adventure.
 
Google Maps claims you can drive from the Auto Train Station in Lorton to our condo building in Miami Beach in 4 hours, 2 min. Ha Ha Ha! It took us over 6 hours. Yes, we did stop for a quick lunch at a service area on the Florida Turnpike, but the main problem was traffic south of West Palm Beach. There was some construction that slowed things down on the Turnpike, but things looked just as bad on the paralleling I-95. The real kicker was at North Miami Beach where the Turnpike splits to the west, with the main traffic being dumped on I-95, which was pretty much gridlocked all the way into Miami.

We got off at 167th St., which may or may not have been a good idea; no gridlock, but lots of traffic lights. This was the area where my grandfather had his travel agency in the early 1960s right off the end of the Turnpike. The tourists were dumped off the highway (no I-95 back then) where they found my grandfather, who could book them into any hotel they wanted. We worked our wat through the traffic in North Miami Beach until we got to Colling Ave and the actual beach. This area is called Sunny Isles Beach, and right after my grandfather died, we came down here for a vacation (for the kids, anyway) while my father helped my grandmother sell the business. Back then it was a semi-developed shoreline of low-slung 1960s style motels on the beach. Now it's all glimmering high-rises, looking like some dystopian city of the future on a pleasure planet in Star Trek world. We turned right and worked our way through the traffic lights to out condo building on the 5100 block of Collins Ave. in Mid-Beach.

The place was a refurbished apartment house that is a hotel-condo combination typical or the sea. Some of the units are owned by individuals renting them out via Airbnb or Vrbo. Others, like the one we rented, were owned and managed by the developer (I guess they haven't been sold yet). It was a great apartment, roomy and with a great bayside view, but it was only minimally furnished. Not enough kitchen equipment to actually cook stuff, but we made breakfast in the unit and ate out otherwise.

We only had 2 full days there. The first day, we all went down to South Beach and Lincoln Road. We ducked into a CVS and I discovered that just like stores in Pheonix have an incredibly large selection of bottled water, stores in Miami Beach have an incredibly large selection of sunscreen. :) One of the nice things about Miami Beach is that there's a public path the follows the beach between the dunes and hotels. So there's public access to the whole beach, and it's a nice promenade rather than an honky-tonk boardwalk. I did a half hour walk in the morning both days before we did anything else.

The next day, we planned to drive out to the cemetery, out by Doral, to visit my grandfather's grave. Then we were going to check out Little Havana, and after lunch, go back to the condo and hot the beach. We got to the cemetery all right, but as we approached Little Havana, it looked like the streets were closed for some sort of event. As we drove up a side street, we say people offering parking spaces for $25. Then we went another block closer, and the were offering spaces for $30, then $35 a block closer. We then decided, maybe we'll wait for another trip to see little Havana, and decided to go to Vizcaya. Rather than get back on the freeway, which was bumper to bumper, we drove on SW 1st St. right into downtown Miami. Then I missed the turn that would take me to US 1 south, and spend a good bit of time in traffic in downtown Miami. The signage was a little confusing, and one had to be sure one was in the correct lane, so we got a bit turned around. I finally got on I-95 south, and all was fine, until we saw the exit to Vizcaya and Ket Biscayne was totally bumper to bumper. So I stayed on I95, driving right off the southern end of I-95 on to US 1 towards Coconut Grove. Having driven through the northern end of I-95 at the Maine-New Brunswick border, I can now say that I've seen both ends of the highway.

We finally found some lunch at a nice middle eastern place right off US 1, and then I drove through Coconut Grove, and finally found Vizcaya, a circa 1915 rich guy's mansion with all sorts of antiques and old art (not all to my taste) and stunning gardens. After we toured that, we considered how to get back to Miami Beach, as every causeway showed red on Google Maps. It looked like the Venetian Causeway was running, though, so we did that, which was a mistake. By the time we figured out how to access it, there were lane closures and we enjoyed stop and go traffic the whole way across. And this was a Sunday! We got back to the apartment at about 4, so we had a little time to hit the beach and lie out by the pool watching the palm trees blowing in the wind. After that, we changed and went out to dinner.

We had some decent food. Dinner the first night at a place called Little Brazil. The whole part of the Beach north of, say 63rd St. is where South Americans come for Vacation, so there are a lot of Argentinian steakhouses and this Brazilian place. This wasn't Chrrasco, where they come around with the meat skewers, but I had picanha, which was basically a sirloin steak done Brazilian style. The next night we went to Fifis on the Beach for seafood. I had the hogfish, locally sourced, which was very good and very well presented.

After retrieving the car (parking was a pain, too, again, Sundays are just as busy as Saturdays), we headed back to bed and prepare for out departure the next day.
 
Having driven through the northern end of I-95 at the Maine-New Brunswick border, I can now say that I've seen both ends of the highway
Cool. I have also been to the North end of Route 1 in Fort Kent where it connects to the international bridge to New Brunswick so sometime I have to go to Key West so I can do the other end. 🙂
 
It has been a long time since I have been to the Miami area (Hurricane Andrew 1992 - WOW 31 years) and I have no real desire to go back for a "vacation" I would consider a trip on Brightline just to see what it is like but, since I live in Florida, riding the Auto Trian would not be part of such a trip.

I would like to ride the AT north sometime, but I don't really see that happening due to time, cost and just where to go when I get to Lorton if I did ride it.

Hope the rest of your trip goes well and will see what you post about your return trip on the AT
 
South Florida has some really beautiful spots in your photos but as you describe traffic is a mess. Looking forward to a Brightline trip there this fall.

Florida DOT just can’t keep up with the traffic growth. Our recent trip to the Tampa/Sarasota area made us wish Brightline was running now. I-4 was horrible. We have neighbors who moved here from south Florida because of the traffic. Unfortunately we know it’s a matter of time before our small town is overrun by Orlando growth, but we’re enjoying it in the meantime.
 
Miami Beach:

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Beachfront promenade
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View from our apartment

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Rich guy's house

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Art Deco in South Beach
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Exercise group on the beach.

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Lincoln Road

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Vizcaya Mansion and gardens.
Nice trip and Pics, thanks for sharing!

Does this trip make yall want to move to Florida like so many Northeasterners do when they Retire?😉
 
Does this trip make yall want to move to Florida like so many Northeasterners do when they Retire?😉
Are you kidding? With that traffic? When we got back to Lorton, I found that driving the Shirley Highway (I-95) and the Captial Beltway in Virginia and Maryland was a nice relaxing experience. :) And I had read that Washington supposedly had the second-worst traffic in America, after LA, but I must of have read that many years ago.

Also, we don't have this in our lakes and rivers:

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and I like canoeing and such. I don't understand how the locals down there have the nerve to mess around in small boats on those lakes.
 
Are you kidding? With that traffic? When we got back to Lorton, I found that driving the Shirley Highway (I-95) and the Captial Beltway in Virginia and Maryland was a nice relaxing experience. :) And I had read that Washington supposedly had the second-worst traffic in America, after LA, but I must of have read that many years ago.

Also, we don't have this in our lakes and rivers:

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and I like canoeing and such. I don't understand how the locals down there have the nerve to mess around in small boats on those lakes.
I know Florida and the Beltway have Horrible Traffic, but it's really not worse than Houston or Austin now a days!🤪
 
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Having lived in LA and DC, I found driving in LA a lot less annoying. It's not hard to avoid "the" 405 or "the" 10, but I-66 in Fairfax County, VA drives me nuts every time I have to be on it, whether inside or outside the Beltway.

It might be that I got used to 20 miles taking anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours in LA and expect things to be faster in DC, but it's more that Cal Trans tends to be on top of things vs. any accidents on the Beltway tying up the entire region for far too long. The Potomac has a lot to do with it. It's not as easy to detour on surface streets with a large body of water with limiting crossing points.
 
Hey, I guess I really should finish up this trip report. When we last saw our heroes, it was Sunday afternoon, after a long day fighting Metro Miami traffic. We went out for dinner on out last night on the beach at a seafood restaurant a short drive from our condo.

A nice dinner, but the parking in the area was impossible, I had to park almost as far from the restaurant as it was form the condo. (not really, it just seemed that way.) I had a nice serving of local hogfish.

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The next morning, our plan was to drop off our daughter at the airport at about 10:30, and then to drive up to Orlando where we would spend the night before driving to Sanford to board the train. I had been shuttling bags down to the car in the basement garage using the very slow elevator, and I was back in the apartment to take the last few things down when all of a sudden, the power went out. Oh, yes, and we were on the 11th floor. A quick check showed that the elevators weren't working, so after some thought, I volunteered to go downstairs and see what the hotel staff could do. That was down 11 flights of stairs on the fire escape. Fortunately, the bellmen were great, somebody climbed upstairs, took our few remaining bags and escorted my wife and daughter down. You can be sure they got a nice tip. We checked out, and I found they had opened the gates to the parking garage, so we were able to drive the car out, finish loading it up, and leave town in a timely manner. Not exactly the smoothest end to our Florida beach vacation.

We had no trouble getting to the airport, and after dropping off our daughter, we went over to the Turnpike and drove up to US 27, where we cut across the state through the Everglades and the sugar cane fields to Lake Okeechobee. While the road drove right beside the lakeshore, we only saw the lake once when we crossed a bridge over a canal -- the whole lakeshore was diked. We turned north at Okeechobee, where the landscape changed from sugar fields to cattle grazing ranges and got on the Turnpike at a place called (I kid you not) Yeehaw Junction. The 50-mile stretch of turnpike from there to Kissimmee has the distinction (according to Wikipedia) of being the longest stretch of freeway between interchanges in the United States. We tooled our way up the highway through a couple of heavy downpours that made a lie of Florida's claim to being the "Sunshine State." It did eventually clear up when we got to Orlando, and we got to our hotel (a Marriott Residence Inn) in downtown Orlando. Downtown Orlando was kind of interesting. Lots of nice, new apartment buildings, but no shops at the street level, and thus very little street life. It was almost like very high density suburbia where you still needed a car to get any errands done. Anyway, we were too tired from the driving to want to explore anywhere, so we just ordered from a nearby Italian restaurant, who delivered to the hotel lobby. It was pretty decent pasta and salad.

The next morning, we had the free breakfast buffet -- not bad, as it included some hot menu items, including make-your-own hotel waffles. Then we packed up and shoved off on our way to Sanford and the train. Because Sanford wasn't that far away, we had some time to check out some of the local features, but not so much time that we wanted to go anywhere with and admission fee. Scanning google maps, I found the Kraft Azalea Garden in Winter Park. Seemed like a nice place to sit for a while and enjoy the outdoors. I had a heck of time finding it, though, making any number of wrong turns, which actually provided a nice tour of Winter Park, which is a pretty lush and slick place. In any event, we finally found it and walked around a bit and say watchign the boats on the lake.

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The cypress trees! The Spanish moss!
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The alligators... (but we didn't see any.)

Back to the highway, where we gassed up the gar and drove the rest of the way into Sanford right about lunch time. We decided to go into Sanford to get some lunch, as it wasn't clear what would be available at the station, and also to see the town. They do run a shuttle bus from the station into the town that you can use after you're checked in so you don't have to endure sitting for several hours, but I wasn't sure how we would handle our carry-on luggage in that case. (As it turns out, Amtrak will store your luggage at the station if you take the shuttle into town.) We did a turn through the center of town and found a parking spot a block away. The Greek place we picked first turned out to be closed on Mondays, so we ended up a the Colonial Room, where I had a very nice fried fish filet (flounder) sandwich with okra.

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Fortified with lunch ,we made out way down the street to the Auto Train station, checked in, and spent a few hours waiting to board.

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When we boarded the train and found our room, I discovered why people trash-talk the "A" bedroom. The trash-talking is deserved, because the "A" bedroom is definitely smaller than the others, but still a lot bigger than a roomette.

We pulled out on time and had a nice dinner in the dining car. They were still out of the blueberry cheesecake, but this crew didn't offer us unlimited wine with dinner as a consolation. I enjoyed the chocolate mousse cake, so I wasn't too broken up about it.

At bedtime I decided to give the upper berth a try. I managed to get in this time, but it wasn't easy, given the minimal headroom and my lack of flexibility. I slept pretty well most of the night, but needed to get up and answer nature's call in the wee hours of the morning. Well, I had a lot of trouble trying to squirm over to the ladder and get my feet into it, and finally, I disconnected the strap to give me more room to maneuver, and after that I just rolled out of the bunk and fell down on to the lower berth, banging my arm against something hard along the way. I was lucky; the smaller size of the "A" room meant that I didn't roll off the lower berth, too and go all the way down to the floor. This commotion, of course, woke my wife, and after I had used the lavatory, she insisted that I occupy the lower berth for the rest of the night, which wasn't that much longer.

We rolled on through the night with no delays, and got into Lorton on time. Then we had to wait in the station a really long time before our car was ready. When it was, we dumped out carry-ons in the back, and off we went. We had absolutely no traffic problems for our drive back to Baltimore, which is a rarity when driving right through Washington, DC. We were home by lunch, and our Auto Train Experience is behind us.

In retrospect, I wouldn't have done this for a trip a short as we took, especially since we were going to Miami Beach. The drive from Sanford to Miami Beach is a real killer, especially the last couple of hours south of Wet Palm Beach. In fact, if I ever went back to Miami Beach, I'd just take the Meteor of the Star all the way to Miami, then take a taxi to the hotel and not bother with a car at all, except for maybe a daily rental for a day trip. But generally, I'd just stay on the beach and rely on the buses and Uber. Obviously, the savings of not having to rent a car is nice, but I think this is most advantageous if you're staying down longer. Where the Auto Train really works nicely is if you're final destination is in Central Florida. Anyway, I'm not sorry I did it, and it was quite the experience. They do have some of the best service I've encountered on any of the Amtrak long-distance trains.
 
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