Coast Starlight Dining

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Oreius

OBS Chief
Joined
Jun 5, 2012
Messages
695
Well, now that the burnt trestle is repaired, I can look forward to my big Starlight trip in mid-September. How do they do meals on this train? This will be my parents’ first overnight train trip. I am familiar with full dining as done on the Meteor. Breakfast and Lunch were first come—first served. My attendant came to me and asked what time I’d like dinner. I’m assuming the same holds true on the Starlight. We leave Seattle at 9:30 AM and get to LUS at 9:00 PM the next evening. Therefore, we would get lunch, dinner, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Also, are the booths on the Superliner diners tight? I am a large person but have lost some weight. I fit fine on the Viewliner diner, and even the Amfleet 2 lounge.
 
My experience on the Starlight, which is pre-pandemic and pre-flexible dining, is they usually take reservations for both lunch and dinner. Always for dinner, most of the time for lunch.

The Superliner diners are okay in terms of booth space. I was only in a Viewliner diner on once and do not recall if the booths were larger or not. I am also a person of size.

Note that the second day dinner is abbreviated. They typically only had 2 seatings at most. Last seating was usually 6 ish.
 
Was onboard 11 on 7/3 from Emeryville to LA and the meal schedule followed the pre-pandemic routine. Breakfast was at your leisure until around 9:30am (if on time after all the Oakland passengers have a chance to eat). Lunch reservations were midday with around four seating's. Dinner was abbreviated with two seating's at 5:30pm and 6pm. All of the options were available at each of the seating's granted the train was only operating from Sacramento to Los Angeles. Community Seating was announced however they were keeping all the groups of two, three, and four at tables on their own while pairing up the singles into tables of two. Both halves of the car were filled. Reviews of the meals were mostly positive.

As for the booth themselves, they have ample space, however I have had a friend who had some difficulty. When we traveled, he mentioned this to the attendant. The attendant mentioned it to the dining car staff and they let him go into the dining car before meal time when it was empty to try the table out. He tested it out and they made some adjustments to the cushion to make it more comfortable for him. When it came time for meal time they had the bench set up for him each meal. He had a very enjoyable time with no issues in that regard. With that said, you can fit at the lounge table, you shouldn't have too much of an issue at the dining table IME.
 
Was onboard 11 on 7/3 from Emeryville to LA and the meal schedule followed the pre-pandemic routine. Breakfast was at your leisure until around 9:30am (if on time after all the Oakland passengers have a chance to eat). Lunch reservations were midday with around four seating's. Dinner was abbreviated with two seating's at 5:30pm and 6pm. All of the options were available at each of the seating's granted the train was only operating from Sacramento to Los Angeles. Community Seating was announced however they were keeping all the groups of two, three, and four at tables on their own while pairing up the singles into tables of two. Both halves of the car were filled. Reviews of the meals were mostly positive.

As for the booth themselves, they have ample space, however I have had a friend who had some difficulty. When we traveled, he mentioned this to the attendant. The attendant mentioned it to the dining car staff and they let him go into the dining car before meal time when it was empty to try the table out. He tested it out and they made some adjustments to the cushion to make it more comfortable for him. When it came time for meal time they had the bench set up for him each meal. He had a very enjoyable time with no issues in that regard. With that said, you can fit at the lounge table, you shouldn't have too much of an issue at the dining table IME.
Yep. However community seating was in effect on my SWC. However you had the option to dine with your party only.
 
There’s three of us, so I’m assuming they’ll seat us in our own booth. Some sleeper pax decide to eat in their rooms, so I don’t think eating in the diner will be an issue.
 
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