For those in roomettes: have dinner in your room or with others

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kendoggbyrd

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When Amtrak asks what time do you want to have dinner in the dining car, what time do you choose or do you forgo dinner with others for dinner in your roomette? And why?
 
All your personal preference...meeting fellow passengers or alone. Also, are you physically able to make the walk to the diner?

We prefer to go to the diner...to get out of of our room and converse with our table mates.
 
I choose an early seating. I don't like late meals. I've always eaten in the diner.
 
I always eat in the DC because I enjoy the conversation with others from all over the USA and sometimes other countries. Also, I enjoy eating with the scenery passing by, maybe a sunrise or sunset to watch.
 
Always the dining car for us, too. Great scenery going by, and nice conversation. Last week we were seated with the tour guide for the on-board Amtrak vacations group, then later we sat with a couple from New Jersey who told us all about their tour through the southwest and the Grand Canyon. They were very impressed with the tour as a whole.
 
As the digital hermit lifestyle became more and more pervasive I've started eating in my room more often. I'm not sure what the benefit is to eating with people who are almost entirely focused on their phone/tablet/laptop. It just seems kind of pointless to me. If someone doesn't want to interact with anyone else why do they choose to eat in the dining car anyway? Why don't they get their meal to go and eat at their seat or in their own compartment where nobody will interrupt them? After being seated with phone junkies and tablet zombies a few too many times I started taking my meals in my room and found that I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would.
 
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I've never had Dinner in my Room even though I've had Downstairs and H Rooms on many trips, but did have the for Coach Passengers Only Chicken Dinner delivered to my seat by the Attendant on the Sunset Ltd. one time.

I too look forward to going to the Diner to enjoy the scenery and meet folks from all over!
 
I agree with other posters about the 'phone junkies and tablet zombies. While I will read or watch something while eating if I am alone, as soon as someone sits down, the device goes back in my pocket. I hate room service in hotels, and really wouldn't like to put the attendant through the hassle of delivering a meal from several cars away. As long as I can still walk to the diner, I will eat there.

The dining car experience has always been a highlight of the trip, despite the nonchalant and at times downright hostile dining car crews, the hostility level goes higher if you eat at the last sitting, as they are so bent on getting out, they will darn near snatch your plate out from under you.

Take as early a seating as you can, to avoid their running out of your favorite. I note that the crews ALWAYS have available to them the steak or other more desirable entrees, though...

-- Doc
 
I agree with other posters about the 'phone junkies and tablet zombies. While I will read or watch something while eating if I am alone, as soon as someone sits down, the device goes back in my pocket. I hate room service in hotels, and really wouldn't like to put the attendant through the hassle of delivering a meal from several cars away. As long as I can still walk to the diner, I will eat there.

The dining car experience has always been a highlight of the trip, despite the nonchalant and at times downright hostile dining car crews, the hostility level goes higher if you eat at the last sitting, as they are so bent on getting out, they will darn near snatch your plate out from under you.

Take as early a seating as you can, to avoid their running out of your favorite. I note that the crews ALWAYS have available to them the steak or other more desirable entrees, though...

-- Doc
They shouldn't act that way, but they want to get the car cleaned and prepped for the following morning. Some attendants are on board for up to 6 days at a time, working up to 18 hours a day. I see where they're coming from, but they should still be more polite about it.

Anyway, you could also head to the dining car and order a meal to go, if you would prefer to have it in your room, but don't want to bother your attendant.
 
Take as early a seating as you can, to avoid their running out of your favorite. I note that the crews ALWAYS have available to them the steak or other more desirable entrees, though.
Interesting. I had not noticed that previously but I'll keep an eye out next time.

They shouldn't act that way, but they want to get the car cleaned and prepped for the following morning. Some attendants are on board for up to 6 days at a time, working up to 18 hours a day. I see where they're coming from, but they should still be more polite about it. Anyway, you could also head to the dining car and order a meal to go, if you would prefer to have it in your room, but don't want to bother your attendant.
At first I wondered who you were claiming was working eighteen hours a day six days in a row. Then I remembered you previously made a similar claim about yourself. Except that so far as I could tell you weren't ordered or even begged to do so. Instead you chose to do it yourself. In fact you seemed to treat it as some sort of game. If you're snapping at customers from eighteen hours of fatigue, which you willingly brought upon yourself, then whose fault is it really? As for sleeper customers asking dining staff to prepare their meals to go, in my experience the dining staff will decline. They will instead tell you to go ask your SCA to get it. Precisely why they refuse I cannot say. Perhaps it is some sort of union issue involving division of labor.
 
Take as early a seating as you can, to avoid their running out of your favorite. I note that the crews ALWAYS have available to them the steak or other more desirable entrees, though.
Interesting. I had not noticed that previously but I'll keep an eye out next time.

They shouldn't act that way, but they want to get the car cleaned and prepped for the following morning. Some attendants are on board for up to 6 days at a time, working up to 18 hours a day. I see where they're coming from, but they should still be more polite about it. Anyway, you could also head to the dining car and order a meal to go, if you would prefer to have it in your room, but don't want to bother your attendant.
At first I wondered who you were claiming was working eighteen hours a day six days in a row. Then I remembered you previously made a similar claim about yourself. Except that so far as I could tell you weren't ordered or even begged to do so. Instead you chose to do it yourself. In fact you seemed to treat it as some sort of game. If you're snapping at customers from eighteen hours of fatigue, which you willingly brought upon yourself, then whose fault is it really? As for sleeper customers asking dining staff to prepare their meals to go, in my experience the dining staff will decline. They will instead tell you to go ask your SCA to get it. Precisely why they refuse I cannot say. Perhaps it is some sort of union issue involving division of labor.
It has also been my experience that they will not honor requests for food to go.
 
It's been my experience that they will honor requests for food to go.

In fact once I got up late & my SCA would NOT get me breakfast--service was over. Went to dining car myself to get a continental breakfast to go, and waiter said "You can always come in for a continental to go," even after they were done with serving breakfast.

Obviously, can't predict in advance--people will have different experiences with different staff members.
 
I always take my meals in the dining car rather than in my roomette.

Like others I too have pleasant conversations with my meal mates and enjoy being able to watch the scenery out both sides of the dining car.

For the scenery I try to make my dinner reservation such that I'm eating desert as the Sun sets.
 
I too always chose the DC. I have met many interesting people from around the world. And the scenery can't be beat! :)

As far as not allowing you to order meals to go - They do not want you to be carrying plates of hot food ad liquids thru the moving train and between cars. Yes, maybe you have been on many trains and are used to it, but many passengers are not. (Whenever I get coffee or tea at the café, I drink it at a table there.) The SCA is much more used to moving around and carrying thing on a moving train than most passengers.
 
As far as not allowing you to order meals to go - They do not want you to be carrying plates of hot food ad liquids thru the moving train and between cars. Yes, maybe you have been on many trains and are used to it, but many passengers are not. (Whenever I get coffee or tea at the café, I drink it at a table there.) The SCA is much more used to moving around and carrying thing on a moving train than most passengers.
If that's the real issue why don't they simply say so? In my experience most food on Amtrak isn't anywhere near hot enough to burn skin. When assembled to go it's packaged and repackaged to the point that it's virtually impossible to spill it on yourself. The hottest liquid in the diner is probably the hot tea and they let almost anyone walk away with that. I'd have to be Mr. Bean levels of klutzy and curious to harm myself with AmChow.
 
If that's the real issue why don't they simply say so? In my experience most food on Amtrak isn't anywhere near hot enough to burn skin. When assembled to go it's packaged and repackaged to the point that it's virtually impossible to spill it on yourself. The hottest liquid in the diner is probably the hot tea and they let almost anyone walk away with that. I'd have to be Mr. Bean levels of klutzy and curious to harm myself with AmChow.
I have to agree with DA here; I just came back from the diner following our SCA who was taking a room service lunch back to the accessible bedroom. Everything was packed in plastic and carried in a large paper bag with handles. The days of Pullman porters juggling a tray of china and silver between cars are long gone.
 
As far as not allowing you to order meals to go - They do not want you to be carrying plates of hot food ad liquids thru the moving train and between cars. Yes, maybe you have been on many trains and are used to it, but many passengers are not. (Whenever I get coffee or tea at the café, I drink it at a table there.) The SCA is much more used to moving around and carrying thing on a moving train than most passengers.
If that's the real issue why don't they simply say so? In my experience most food on Amtrak isn't anywhere near hot enough to burn skin. When assembled to go it's packaged and repackaged to the point that it's virtually impossible to spill it on yourself. The hottest liquid in the diner is probably the hot tea and they let almost anyone walk away with that. I'd have to be Mr. Bean levels of klutzy and curious to harm myself with AmChow.
Yeah, considering that they do not really give you plates of anything to carry away anyway, this is just making up excuses. From the lounge what I get is a wobbly cardboard box with a Hamburger and a Pizza - sizzling hot - precariously balanced on it. :)

I (and many others) routinely carry hot tea/coffee and entire meals on trains like the Silver Star (hot Pizza/Burger and such) from the Lounge Car to my seat or room, sometimes several cars away. Is Tea/Coffee from lounge somehow less prone to burning people than food from Diner?
 
"Dinner in the Diner" is one of the things that makes traveling by train so attractive to me. Always, I dine in the Diner and am pleased to share my table with fellow travelers from all over the world. The vast majority of time, my conversations with others have been interesting.

I prefer a later dining time for dinner. For Breakfast, it depends upon the itinerary. Going East on the EB from Seattle, I want to be an early bird for breakfast so that I can get to the SSL for a good seat as the train travels through Glacier National Park. That same thought applies for a lunch reservation time.
 
Maybe they don't want passengers waiting in the DC for their food clogging up the aisle for the servers and passengers wanting to be seated.
If that were the case they could simply seat them out of the way in a booth or ask them to wait in the SSL. No need to send passengers all the way back to the sleeper to go looking for the SCA.
 
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