Coast to Coast with Amtrak in September

[paoxiao]

Hello! I would appreciate any help or advice regarding our upcoming trip this September.

The route is as follows: Starting in Boston taking the Lake Shore Limited to Chicago, then taking the Empire Builder to Seattle.

Then onto San Francisco on the Coast Starlight, continue on to Los Angeles, also with Coast Starlight.

And then the last destination will be San Diego with Pacific Surfliner. All except Pacific Surfliner is booked with bedroom.

I am staying at each stop for at least 2 nights, so there should be no need to worry about connecting trains.

Starting date is September 8th and will arrive in San Diego on Septermber 24th.

I hope I have chosen a good period to travel, weather wise and crowd wise.

My wife is gluten intolerant, so any tips or advice about handling food questions aboard Amtrak will be greatly appreciated.

My questions are:

On the Lake Shore Limited from Boston, will we be in our sleeper from the start? Or do we get to it at Albany? What meals will we get between Boston and Albany?

The information I can find is not really that informative so it is a bit hard to know what to expect.

We are staying at the Silvermith Hotel in Chicago, easiest way from and to Union Station?

Arriving in LA at 9 PM if on time, we are staying at the Miyako Hotel, it seems to be quite close to LAUS, but since we are arriving late, is it safe to walk or should we get a cab?

Thanks,

Anders

 

[slimchipley]

My wife is gluten intolerant, so any tips or advice about handling food questions aboard Amtrak will be greatly appreciated.

My questions are:

On the Lake Shore Limited from Boston, will we be in our sleeper from the start? Or do we get to it at Albany? What meals will we get between Boston and Albany?

The information I can find is not really that informative so it is a bit hard to know what to expect.

We are staying at the Silvermith Hotel in Chicago, easiest way from and to Union Station?

Arriving in LA at 9 PM if on time, we are staying at the Miyako Hotel, it seems to be quite close to LAUS, but since we are arriving late, is it safe to walk or should we get a cab?

Thanks,

Anders

Get your gluten free request in now and follow-up a week prior to departing. I also recommend she take enough snacks to be nurished in the event that they miss the mark.

The dining car comes on #49 from NYC and will be added to your train along with the rest of #49 at Albany. You'll likely be dining around 8:00 at the earliest.

 

[the_traveler]

Welcome aboard!

Are you in a sleeper on train #449 out of Boston or in coach? If in a sleeper,your meals are included but in coach you must pay for them. Between Boston and Albany they serve a lunch to sleeping car passengers, and coach passengers can buy something from the cafe car if they wish

In Albany are you staying on #449 or "switching to" train #49? (They are the same train, and connect together in Albany.) The reason I ask is that the #449 cars (from Boston) are placed at the front of the train, but the Dining Car and the sleepers coming fron New York City are on the rear of the train. That means you must walk thru almost the whole train to reach the Dining Car! Dinner is served after departing Albany. The following morning, breakfast is served, although they stop serving around South Bend, I believe.

Amtrak does offer special meals, but they must be requested 3 days in advance.

I'll leave the hotel questions to others, as I don't know where they are located.

 

[AlanB]

We are staying at the Silvermith Hotel in Chicago, easiest way from and to Union Station?

Cheapest is to walk the 10 blocks and it's rather straight forward to walk, just head east on Adams about 8 blocks to Wabash. Turn left and walk two to hotel near the corner of Wabash & Madison. Easiest would be cab. Finally there is the 151 bus that can be caught on Jackson just outside the Amtrak station. It would leave you about 1 block away from the hotel. On the return, it runs right on Madison by the hotel.

Arriving in LA at 9 PM if on time, we are staying at the Miyako Hotel, it seems to be quite close to LAUS, but since we are arriving late, is it safe to walk or should we get a cab?

Certainly appears to be walkable, but I don't know enough about that area to know if it is safe. Would also be a short cab ride or you could ride one stop on the Gold Light rail line to the Little Tokyo stop and eliminate at least part of the walk.

 

[NW cannonball]

Hello! I would appreciate any help or advice regarding our upcoming trip this September.

The route is as follows: Starting in Boston taking the Lake Shore Limited to Chicago, then taking the Empire Builder to Seattle.

Then onto San Francisco on the Coast Starlight, continue on to Los Angeles, also with Coast Starlight.

And then the last destination will be San Diego with Pacific Surfliner. All except Pacific Surfliner is booked with bedroom.

I am staying at each stop for at least 2 nights, so there should be no need to worry about connecting trains.

Starting date is September 8th and will arrive in San Diego on Septermber 24th.

I hope I have chosen a good period to travel, weather wise and crowd wise.

My wife is gluten intolerant, so any tips or advice about handling food questions aboard Amtrak will be greatly appreciated.

My questions are:

On the Lake Shore Limited from Boston, will we be in our sleeper from the start? Or do we get to it at Albany? What meals will we get between Boston and Albany?

The information I can find is not really that informative so it is a bit hard to know what to expect.

We are staying at the Silvermith Hotel in Chicago, easiest way from and to Union Station?

Arriving in LA at 9 PM if on time, we are staying at the Miyako Hotel, it seems to be quite close to LAUS, but since we are arriving late, is it safe to walk or should we get a cab?

Thanks,

Anders

In Seattle, near the train station, check out the ID (International District) near the station - lots of good restaurants - and Uwajimaya - the big oriental grocery-deli only a short walk from the King Street station.

Or walk a klick or two up from the station to the famous Pike Place Market or just wander the space between. (Zwischenraum?) Or visit the Capitol Hill area.

Hope your trip goes well -- typically the Empire Builder to Seattle is less crowded and more on-time after the beginning of September.

Weather -- Chicago - Seattle - usually pretty decent - no tornadoes probable - West coast south from Seattle - I don't know -- but usually fairly good travel in September

 

[Ana]

It sounds like an awesome trip!

I can't eat gluten either and I am really sensitive to cross contamination. Unfortunately Amtrak do not offer gluten free special meals. However, I have done fine having the steak (no sauce) , veges and the baked potato. I usually have that for dinner each night and I do my own breakfast and lunch (I bring stuff like fruit, nutella and bread, crackers etc). However, if I had someone to eat those meals with, as she does with you, I'd probably go to the dining car and have parts of the meals - there's fruit with the continental breakfast, for example (though I checked the label on the yoghurts on the CS and I couldn't have those, but perhaps the offerings vary). I met a family with a gluten free child on the EB and they found that there was using something their daughter could have, but as a person on my own on really busy trains I really didn't fancy taking up a seat in the car only to find I'd only be having a beverage and dessert (there's quite a few gluten free dessert choices!). I felt awkward about that. Usually my SCA would bring me a diet pepsi and a haagen daaz icecream to my room for lunch. But please, make sure you have enough food for your wife. I believe the baked chicken is also ok, I had that on the Cardinal once and was fine but I've not had it on the western LD trains.

If you have a look there are some other threads with ideas. I need to update the one I posted earlier this year but I will pretty much be saying the same as I've said here.

This trip I didn't say anything to the staff (they are busy, the general public have little enough awareness, it's not like the chef has much room to make amendments) but I found my fellow diners on this most recent trip were much more knowledable than others in the past which I thought was interesting.

Also, I stayed at the Silversmith Hotel in July. Nice place, extremely helpful and friendly staff. They stored my bag for me for 5 days before my arrival, it was absolutely no problem. Very handy to everything. I arrived from O'Hare so I took the blue line but I got a cab to Union Station for my return trip. I had too many bags (and it was insanely hot) to muck around with the bus or El. It was less than $10.

 

[paoxiao]

Thank you all for your replies! We are in bedrooms all the way from Boston to Los Angeles.

Ana, thank you so much for your input regarding the food, it should work out well I hope!

Thanks again,

Anders