There is plenty of stuff that the kids will like in the diner. Breakfast should be no problem. At lunch there's always a very good burger and a nice chicken sandwich. Dinner is more "grown up" but I bet you can find something they will like. There's often a pasta dish. I had a great Rack of Lamb the first night and a very good steak the second.

And, if they like dessert, they will love that part of the meal. The Bodacious Brownie is, well, Bodacious!

This was all on the Empire Builder last month.

The kids on our train all seemed to be having a good time and I didn't see any of them with gameboys or stuff like that. They were watching the scenery or playing small board games or, dare I say it, READING! Another thing I noticed was that there always seemed to be plenty of surrogate grandparents and aunts and uncle around. And that included the crew. One of my fonder memories of my first train trip on the "old" El Capitan was being "adopted" by a waiter in the diner whose name was also Frank.

I hope you can swing the sleeper.

Have a great trip--

1) I agree with TwinStarRocket, the cheese pizza in the cafe is very good. It contains no preservatives or additives and has enough carbs to fill up any child, or adult for that matter. At $3 it is a real bargain.

2) On the whole, I think food is reasonably priced on the train. The quality is, in my opinion, excellent for the most part. I would stay away from the Reuben sandwich however. As far as bringing wine on board, I think spillage or breakage is always a possibility and when that happens, it does have a way of creating a strong odor.

My advise is to buy the red wine on board the train. At $8 a half bottle it really is not that expensive. The bottle is kinda cute too and it always gave me a nice "buzz." Most of the red wine I have purchased on board was bottled at the Los Robles winery in California and is quite good. I would stay away from the white wine however that was characterized by one passenger as being "choir boy pee."

Having said all this, I must say I am rather disappointed at those posters who are suggesting that you bring alcohol on board the train. It's kind of sad to hear this talk from afluent people who can certainly afford to shell out a few bucks to purchase their drinks legitimately, from the cafe car.

Bottom line: If you can afford a sleeper, you certainly can afford to buy alcohol from the cafe car.

Furthermore, I suspect that bring alcohol on board is a violation of Amtrak's policy.

Alcohol: Passengers are not permitted to consume their private stock of alcoholic beverages in a public area. Only Sleeping Car accommodations for which a passenger has a valid ticket are considered non-public areas.

The current Chardonnay is a Meridian Vineyards 2001 Santa Barbara County. A very nice wine for $8.00 the half bottle. I didn't try the Pinot Grigio so can't speak to that. For some reason the same bottle is a dollar less in the Cafe Car and on the Surfliners. Corkage?

We usually travel with a nice quality box wine to avoid the spillage/breakage problems. On a two or three day trip it's a nice convenience. We were not offered glassware from the diner on our trip on the Empire Builder but I'm sure it would not have been a problem. The car attendant and diner staff were great. The Cafe Car attendent much less so.

quote:

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Originally posted by Nirvanagurl:
oh another quick question I had, the delux bedrooms which is what I am looking at, it says it has a plug for shavors and hair dryers, could you plug in battery chargers and things like that in it? Or a small portable cd player, things like that. I just want to make sure its a plain old regular plug, dont want to blow any fuses or bring something I cant use or something.

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The bedrooms have a standard three-prong outlet. It says "shavers only" but it is suitable for any light duty use, such as electronics. It won't handle any high wattage devices like hairdryers (hence the "shavers only" label).

I would suggest you not plug electronics into the outlet directly. Voltage may be uneven, so I recommend you get an inexpensive four-outlet surge supressor.

As for the diner food, I seem to recall reading that you had a bad experience once. Generally, I have found the dining car food to be mostly good, and sometimes excellent. Its not always 100%, and there have been a few clinkers in there, but overall it is pretty civilized food. Beverages are included with meals.

In the sleeping car, as others have noted, juice, water, and coffee are usually available. But official Amtrak policy is that free juice is only available in the morning. However, on our last trip the juice was available all day.

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Sing to the tune of Humoresque:
Passengers will please refrain,
From flushing toilets while the train,
Is standing in the station,
I love you.