We've been trying to take a trip like this for years now. We actually booked a roomette from Chicago to Arizona several years ago, but the concierge at Chicago station failed to tell us our train had arrived, and then had left. Yes yes it's "our responsibility to know", but this was our first time, and there are no train arrival departure screens in the fancy high end waiting room they had us in. It was the employee's job to tell us when to leave.

We asked the staff several times, showed them our tickets, the whole works. They just said get your stuff ready and sit over there. So we did. Eventually, one of the several times I went back up and asked, they said "your train left, you missed it".

The whole thing was a debacle. The guy was incompetent. I can write up a whole story on it, but man, it really soured me on Amtrak.

We got refunded, but that was it. It took literal YEARS to get any extra compensation out of them for the horrendous treatment one particular employee gave us, and the last minute plane tickets we had to buy (we still had to get to Arizona).

Now we're using the voucher we got from that experience, to try again. And you better believe I'm gonna be watching that arrival time on my phone, like a hawk. And I'm gonna pester those workers, in a kind way, but I won't be forgotten again. I want to know exactly when the train is boarding, and I want to be there when it does.

Is there anything else I should know?

I've read to bring an extra blanket, and snacks, and drinks. Is that excessive? My SO does get cold, and snacky.

I plan to bring a power adapter for chargers, and some handheld gaming devices for when the views aren't amazing, or it's dark out.

I know not to trust the arrival time, so I'm gonna reserve a car rental at the airport in Sacramento for 24 hour pickup, and our hotel is prepared for late check in.

We plan to drive to calavera to the big tree park to look at Sequoias the whole day, then get dinner, and drive back to Sacramento the next day to catch a flight home.

The trip is really just an excuse to ride the train, and see the sights. But we can't take much more time off to do anything else in CA. We like nature and hiking so I think it'll be a good fit.

Update: Pretty sure we're gonna go with a RailPass and just rough it, to maximize how much we can see! We're young enough.

Plan is to leave Chicago in January, and spend about 2 weeks away from home. Ideally 11 days, but if needed, 18 is possible.

Initial thoughts are to take the California zephyr west at least as far as Sacramento. As west is the best direction to go, I've read.

After that it gets muddy.

We want to see some Sequoias, so an overnight stop somewhere in Sacramento or LA would be necessary I think.

We also want to see the Grand canyon, which seems doable on the southwest chief, but...

We've got family in NM, so it'd be nice to see them, the sunset limited gets us closest, but doesn't run daily and also isn't the sunset chief. I see there's a bus connection from Flagstaff to Tucson, maybe we could catch the sunset limited if we timed it out right? Seems scary, trying to time anything... I haven't looked closely at the time tables to see how tight that would be. Maybe we could rent a car? Or time it so we show up a day early for the sunset limited east bound?

Also we wanted to end up in new Orleans at some point, so that's another vote for the sunset limited.

As a stretch goal, we could take the crescent up to Connecticut, we have friends there, and then take one of the several trains that go there, back to Chicago. Lakeshore limited? This probably isn't going to happen and isn't important. I'd rather emphasize staying a night or two on each of our west coast stops, than trying to cram as much riding as possible in and get to the east coast.

Additionally, we're not opposed to going north on the coast starlight to Seattle and taking empire builder home, never been out that way, just not sure how much it has to offer in the winter. Especially compared to redwoods, maybe the canyon, and family.

Anywho these are the rough plans! Please let me know what everyone thinks!

Original post:

We've never been on a trip before, we booked a roomette to Tucson once before, but missed our train because an employee looked at our ticket and told us to sit and wait for him to call us. He never did and our train left, then he was very rude, convinced us to cancel our ticket (which was the wrong advice). It's a long story, needless to say, we got our money back, plus repayment for last minute flights (we needed to be in Tucson), plus this voucher for another trip.

The trip can be any time of the year next year, not February, March or April. Assuming summer is best?

The plan is to ride out west somewhere, California? And then rent a car to road trip home. It'll be the first and probably only time we can afford something like this, so we wanna make it count. It might make more sense to drive out and train back? But... I worry about missing the train... Again.. no no, we're leaving from Chicago.

I know some routes are better than others, and I know they change sometimes, what they're offering, what they used to offer, etc.

We'd like a roomette, and we wanna see the sights in one of those glass roof cars, and I know the food options vary too, so whatever the better of the food options would be ideal.

Bonus points if you have suggestions of things to check out on our way back east. We've never been out west before, besides Tuscon. Maybe see the Sequoias? Grand canyon? We like backpacking so the return trip will probably involve some car camping, or real camping, for the fun of it.

Thanks!