Hello All,
I'm actually hoping to get some information from folks that have taken the Autotrain since the schedule was changed and the departure and arrival times were were changed to leaving at 5pm and arriving at 10AM. I'm guessing that since the train seemed to e arriving late more and more often that that was the main reason for the changes. I'm wondering how that has worked out. What are the recent experiences with the train since the times were moved ahead one hour?
To bring anyone that had been reading my trip reports we have continues using the train going south in December 2019 and December 2021. We didn't go south at all in December 2020. We did however take the train North in April of 2020, a few weeks after the Pandemic broke out. It was a very spartan trip... fewer than the normal number of people on the April 1 train, most people were wearing some type of mask or face covering, dinner was served in our sleeper but there was self serve continental breakfast in the diner/ lounge car in the morning. We had again used the priority offloading and we were the first or second car off the train. We made it back to Boston in about 6 hours. There was no traffic on I-95 going home. We stopped in one of the New Jersey Turnpike rest areas for gas and to to try to eat something. The gas wasn't a problem but the only food was at McDonald's . We got what they had and ate in the car. We were required to pull into the first rest area in Rhode Island where the State Police had set up a road block and we had tell answer questions about where we were going and where we had come from. Didn't take very long and we were back on our way.
We did go back to Florida on the Autotrain in December 2021 as we had for many years. Trip left lorton late and arrived in Sanford very late. Traffic to Naples gets worse and worse and the trip down took about an hour longer than usual. Drive home on I-95 in April 2022 was the longest trip back ever. Traffic delays all the way back on I-95 even though we were traveling on Saturday and Sunday.
We have just booked the trip South for December 2022. Cost for the sleeper including the car and the priority offloading was nearly double what the trip South cost in December 2021.
Back to the point.... What has your experience been since the new schedule went into effect?
