It was a little difficult to find a good way to go to the Amtrak station, even the guys at the Hostel Reception weren’t really helpful. I tried Google Transport again, which proposed going to the Airport and taking the Metrorail from there. Our Amtrak Silver Meteor to Orlando was scheduled to leave at 8.20 a.m. so we got up at 6.20 a.m. and took the 150 bus to the airport at 6.55 a.m.
There we almost missed the train, but it turned out we needed to go South from the Airport to transfer to the northbound train. We got off at a station we stopped at earlier with the bus, so we should have just got on there. By now we were already running quite late and finally arrived at the Tri-Rail station at 8.10 a.m. From there we still had to go two blocks to the Amtrak station, so we had to run with all the luggage. We finally arrived quite exhausted at 8.15 a.m., but at least we didn’t miss the train. Normally you check in bags like at the airport and just take some small things into the car, but it was far too late, so we had to take everything in. It was no problem at all due to enough overhead storage space in the car, but we were told it would violate the luggage policy and would not be possible the next time.
The ticket said reserved seats, which were assigned directly in the train by the attendant. He was very funny and entertaining and again the service was nice. He greeted everyone nicely and explained where to find the trash cans, restaurant car and toilets.
Actually the train made a better impression than I expected, with clean and comfortable inclining seats, plenty of leg space and power outlets. We even got pillows. While we were a little astonished about how empty it was when we left Miami more and more people got on at the next stops and it wasn’t really getting crowded, but at least reasonably used.
We followed the public transport directions from the hostel we were heading to and were lucky not to have to wait a lot for the bus at the Amtrak station. It was pretty crowded and almost exclusively used by black people, but seemed to run on schedule. We were pretty annoyed by the number of stops – one about every 150 meters, but we reached our destination. When we got off we weren’t sure where to go exactly and while we stood there wondering were to go a man with a hummer stopped and offered us help. He looked up the hostel address in his smartphone and offered to drive us there in his huge Hummer (!), even though it was just around the corner. Americans are just amazing!
The hostel turned out to be a hotel, but the price was alright and we had a nice room. We had some time to get settled until we met my dad, who by coincidence was in Orlando on a business trip. We were really hungry, so we started at Fridays and walked over to the Universal Studio and the Citywalk – both popular tourist destinations and pretty crowded.
