Epic East Coast - Day 17 & 18

We started the day by checking out of our condo and hauling all of our luggage to the metro station, since it is an easy way to get to Union Station, now that we have the metro figured out.  A couple of short subway rides later and we had arrived.  There is a baggage storage location at Union Station, which we wanted to use, as it was just past 11:00am and our train did not leave until 3:05pm, since this train is an overnight train from New York to Miami.

We dropped off most of our bags, but not all of them, as the prices resembled usury, and then headed to the food court to eat lunch.  There was a Taco Bell that most everyone ate at, including Jonathan, who devoured three Doritos tacos and a large chocolate brownie.  After dawdling for a bit, we picked up our luggage and headed to the gate where we would get on our train.

It was a still a long wait, so we sat around while Bradley played with a little girl who was also waiting for the train.  Eventually we boarded.  I had been concerned about finding six seats together on a train that was already full, but they board you into cars based on your destination.  That meant the car full of people going to Washington was pretty much empty, and the Amtrak employee at the door was assigning seats to people as they went on board.  We found our seats, got settled in and somehow got ready for the 18 hour overnight train ride.

Tired of train food, we purchased crackers, cheese, fruit, meat and bread at Safeway yesterday and Sandra packed them in a mini-cooler with frozen water bottles, so that meant we had a decent supper on the train.  Also, as this is a train to Florida (and passes by Disney World), there were a lot of kids on the car with us.

We ate, played video games and then put the kids to sleep.  It took some of them a long time, but eventually they all fell asleep.  I slept fitfully, as it really was not a comfortable seat.  In the morning, we had breakfast and then watched some more shows as we waited to arrive in Kissimmee.  We were an hour late, which isn't really that bad on such a long trip, so we got in around 11:40am.  There was a minivan taxi waiting at the train station, but we continue to have bad luck with cabs.  While it had seven seats, it only had six seat belts and he put one of the seats down to fit in our stroller.  The cab drivers really don't seem to care about anything, as long as they can get the people in their car.  Luckily it was a short trip to the Avis rental store and he drove quite well.

We had booked a 3:00pm rental, so our van was not ready.  We drug all of our stuff across the street to a Waffle House and sat down for a long lunch.  Once that was done, we ran back across the street, trying to beat a thunderstorm, which was a close call.  The rental place didn't really impress me much, as they did not have any car seats, just booster seats, and Bradley isn't big enough for that yet, so we decided to cancel the car seat and head to Wal*Mart to buy a cheap car seat, since we are driving everywhere else in Florida.

At Wal*Mart, Sandra found a car seat for $45, which was $20 less than the car seat rental.  We also bought a little bit of food and our tickets to Disney ($1200 US for two days! - but we saved 50 cents per ticket by buying them at Wal*Mart).  Back at the van, Sandra installed the car seat, while a steady line of cars sat behind us waited for our spot before giving up and driving away.  We then drove the short way to the resort near Disney where we have a very spacious room for the next couple of days.  (Sorry Jen, but our room here is bigger than your house - 1440 square feet.)

After a simple supper in the room, we headed out to the resort's pool and let the kids spend the evening swimming.  Of course the kids thought that was the greatest part of the trip, as many of them are ready to spend two days at the pool rather than at Disney.  Tomorrow we head out for a very long day at Magic Kingdom.