Choo Choo Auto Train

Instead of flying or driving to Florida we decided to take the train.  There is one Auto Train that I know of and it just happens to be near where we live and it goes to where we were going.  I love traveling by train, I wish that I could do it more often.  The gentle rocking and the relaxing, old world atmosphere of trains makes train travel so pleasant.  There is no rush, rush, rush feeling of airports and you are not tied to your chair as you are in a car or airplane.  I like that you can move about from car to car, hang out in the lounge car, have dinner in the dinning car or just watch the scenery pass you by (you see some pretty interesting things) from the window of a train.

The trip from Lorton, VA to Sanford, FL is an 18hr ride and is suppose to leave at 4pm and arrive in Sanford (20 minutes from Orlando) at 9:30am.  Our train was delayed 4 hours getting into Lorton (near D.C.) because of a fire (not on the train but by the tracks in Georgia).  But they did manage to get us rolling by 5:15 and we arrived an hour early into Sanford (yeah Amtrak).  We did have to wait a bit to check in our car as they were still unloading cars from the previous trip but once our car was loaded the waiting was not too bad. The terminal is really nice and there is a small playground for the kids.  Our wait was made super eventful with an explosion from our 3 year old...it was a good think he was wearing a sweater and we had a change of clothes.  However as the train ride progressed we were a bit worried that Tavish and Kyle would run out of clean clothes.  Aside from the intestinal issues and small bumpy bathrooms (these two things don't mix well) we had a great train ride, in my opinion a bit short.

We had a family bedroom which worked out perfect with two adult beds and two child beds.  I loved this bedroom as it was a good amount of space for 18hrs and a train.  The nice part about this room is that you have window's on both side of the train so you don't miss a thing.  Dinner is served on the train and while it's not 5 star dining it's pretty good considering you are on a moving train.  Breakfast was nothing special but again its on a train.

All in all the train was the perfect way to get to Disney World and it was nice to have our own car as we were not stay on Disney property.  I almost would have preferred to take the train back from Disney (due to cost we decided to only take the train one way) as it would end a Disney vacation on a relaxing note.  I must say I'm looking forward to my next train trip.

 Super excited to be on the train

 In his train PJ's and playing on the top bunk

 Callen chilling out with his owl

Time for some travel games

Nice and sunny and time for our cars to come