Shannon's Adventures: Riding The Amtrak from Newark Penn Station to Providence Rhode Island

Alright a few weeks ago my boyfriend and I took a week off of our jobs and headed for a last minute vacation... and after planning a last minute trip to Disneyland... we decided maybe we shouldn't do that trip last minute and go to the Disneyland of New England: Providence. Okay this isn't the Disneyland of New England... it just seemed fun and we wanted to see how the Amtrak train would go.

So before we took the Amtrak- we took the train to get to Newark Penn Station... and we had some delays there- which wasn't great... but our Amtrak was also delayed about an hour... so we weren't doing too badly on time. We got lunch at the Penn Station McDonald's and eventually we were on our way!

So- when we got on the train we could not really find a seat anywhere. It was packed and there were a few single seats we could have sat at- but there was an older lady in front of us... and we kind of wanted to make sure she had a seat first. The first stop however- was New York... and a lot of people on the train got off after that... so it was pretty easy. We got two seats next to each other in an air conditioned car... which yep... not all the cars had air conditioning and the staff and passengers were pretty mad about that. It was also an incredibly hot week in June so... it would have been awful to be in a car with no air conditioning. We were very lucky to be in our car- and we stayed in our seats till the very end, other than when my boyfriend got food... which is the next thing I'll talk about!

So they do have dining cars on the train- you can get something to eat and sit in the dining car or you could bring it back to your seat. We probably should have packed lunch or brought snacks and eaten it on the train... but we did end up getting doritos, haribo gummy bears and sodas on each train ride... which was enough to hold us over.

Oh forgot to mention along with the air conditioning being broken in some cars- our train was delayed again because they got someone on the train to try to fix it... so for one more hour we were stopped in Connecticut and no one was able to fix it... and some people were upset because they had meetings and other things to do... I was kind of expecting trains to have delays so I didn't make any plans for my boyfriend and I the night we first got to Providence. We've been delayed on a train before and we missed quite a lot of the musical Hadestown because of train delays... so I'm a little skeptical about train travel and a little more cautious now.

So yeah I think I would like to do an Amtrak train again- even though it was expensive and it took a long time... I think maybe if we had gone on the train earlier or later we might have had more luck not getting delayed. I also think it might have been better in the fall or spring- depending on the weather. The Summer and Winter tend to have more problems for the trains in general... so I think it might be better in more mild weather. It was also more comfortable than the Greyhound bus- which we've also taken to New England and it is a lot cheaper and they don't have the same delays the trains do... but its just not that nice of a time.

Anyway those are my thoughts about the train itself... I'll have more about my trip in posts coming soon!It was a really fun time!

Bye!

-Shannon