Travel Tip? - Traveling can be less stressful when keeping in mind, "Hope for the best, Roll with the detours".
We learned quickly in our community of Wallingford, PA that it felt like everyone went away for at least a part of the yearly spring break week built around Easter weekend. In 2003, I drove Phil and Henrik to Kentucky to visit my parents. It was a good trip, but the long 11 hour drive each way was more than I wanted to do the following year.
Hmmmm —where to go when you don’t want to drive and how to get there?
The internet still hadn’t been discovered by me yet. My home PC offered me not much use beyond word processing. Using the services of a travel agent appeared to be my best (and only) option for planning a trip for the week of April 5th.
With some trepidation, I walked into Park Avenue Travel, then a small travel agency in Swarthmore (now called Avenue Two Travel Agency located in Bryn Mawr). Eager to get ideas for the perfect spring break getaway, I was introduced to Bill, a mild-mannered, especially pleasant man whom I liked immediately.
Bill patiently listened to my wish list: maybe a beach, definitely a nice hotel, and most certainly a train ride. Bill said he knew of a brand new resort opening spring of 2004 on Kiawah Island called, The Sanctuary. He showed me the brochure and indeed, it looked beautiful, much more amazing of a destination than I could have imagined. Best yet, we could afford the introductory prices for our four day stay.
Bill suggested the Charleston, South Carolina coast because Amtrak runs a train there daily. To heighten the train experience, the run from Philadelphia’s 30th Street to North Charleston included an overnight stay onboard.
Perfect! Our sons, Phil (13) and Henrik (10) loved trains. We had already visited most every train museum in the Philly area along with many between PA and my hometown of Shelbyville, KY. We knew the boys would be fine bunking in their own quarters right across the hall from Pete’s and my separate accommodation.
It all sounded so perfectly romantic. I’d never slept on a train before.
I booked the trip with a deposit and great anticipation.
Then, came the first hiccup.
Bill called a couple of weeks before we were scheduled to ride Amtrak’s Palmetto train to Charleston to inform us that The Sanctuary wasn’t going to open on schedule. We would have to figure out other lodging plans. With the train tickets already bought, we were more or less locked into going to the Charleston area.
Undaunted, my travel professional,Bill, searched elsewhere and called back soon to let me know that he had found another great hotel for us to stay while visiting Charleston. Called Charleston Place, it too looked positively sumptuous,
To top things off, Bill had secured a room for the four of us on the club floor, whatever that meant. We wouldn’t have the beach, but we would be staying in the center of town and apparently had dibs on some great amenities the hotel offered for only “club level” guests.
It definitely looked like collared shirts and khakis for the boys needed to be included on the packing list.
My men were super excited to be taking the overnight train. Because we had a sleeper reservation, we had access to the lounge at Amtrak’s 30th Street Station in Philadelphia where we could relax before boarding for a 4:20 pm departure. . We felt pretty darn special when we entered the designated lounge on the second floor of the gorgeously restored station.
As soon as we were allowed, we boarded and were directed to our compartments. Leaving on time, all of us settled in quite nicely. In the early evening, dinner was delivered to our rooms and we happily discovered that Amtrak food is actually quite good.
Pete and I enjoyed the quiet ride along the rails. We checked in on the boys but they were more than content to hang out in their bunks, keeping themselves busy with their early generation electronic games. Pete and I enjoyed a glass of wine and a beer respectively, really enjoying not having to do any long distance driving on this trip.
Around 9 p.m., trouble came a knockin' on the door.
Pete had stepped out of our room to give me some privacy to use the facilities in our roomette. We had our own toilet cleverly hidden under the step normally used to reach the top bunk. As I sat “on the throne” so to speak, there was a quick rapping on the door.
“Track work, everyone off at 3 am.”
“What? Three?” Did he just say, three as in three am?” I must have misheard. Our train wasn’t due into North Charleston until at least mid morning. Not able to open the door as I was a bit indisposed, I yelled out, “What? You’re kidding, right?” The porter returned to my closed door and stated perfunctorily , “Missed the window, track work. Everyone gets off at 3. I’ll wake you at 2:30”.
And with that, he was gone.
“You’ve got to be kidding”, I said more or less to myself. When Pete returned, I relayed the message and we both sat stunned for a while before deciding we had better get some sleep. 3 am was going to come in a blink.
And it did. As promised, we were woken up around 2:30 am. Our train stopped in Rocky Mount, NC and out we went into the night. I had never seen such a bedraggled group of travelers. No one said (or complained) much, probably from exhaustion. Within the hour, buses arrived and we all climbed into available seats, finishing our “train trip” via a big bus.
It wasn’t exactly luxury traveling, but the boys seemed nonplussed. Determined to keep things positive, we continued our journey, choosing to make this unexpected pit stop just one more memorable moment of what we all hoped would be a terrific adventure down South.
Sure enough, Charleston Place was like no other hotel we had ever experienced. The boys loved having to use a special key card for the elevator to go up to our floor. The golden lift would only go up to the top “club” floors with special cards inserted in the designated slot.
We could only afford one room but it was quite large and comfortable for the four of us. Best yet, our rate included food and beverage service available to us pretty much 24/7. Phil and Henrik made quite a few trips to the cookie and snack table while Pete and I enjoyed hors d'oeuvres and cocktails served on the landing not far from our room.
By the afternoon of the second day, Phil announced, “We need to always stay on the club floor”. Gasp, we had created a hotel snob!
Our visit to Charleston was lovely and thankfully uneventful. We braved a Charleston ghost tour, drove out to Magnolia Plantation, ate wonderful Southern food, and finished up our visit with a tour of the USS Yorktown , the 10th aircraft carrier to serve in the US Navy, seeing action from WWII to Vietnam.
Charleston is a beautiful city to visit for couples and families. Because it was only April, the air temperature was perfect with relatively low humidity. I hope to return someday. I never got my ride on the horse drawn carriage.
Thankfully, our train trip back to Philly was uneventful. I contacted customer service at Amtrak and received a voucher for future train travel as compensation for being dumped out in the middle of North Carolina. I wasn’t sure Amtrak would do anything for us but their response was quick and in my opinion, fair. Happily, we were awarded enough voucher funds for all of us to take Amtrak to Washington DC round trip later that summer.
It was during this adventure, I truly fell in love with traveling by train, especially overnight. This was our second Amtrak trip but our first staying in a sleeper. We took the Auto Train from Lorton, Virginia to Sanford, Florida a couple of years earlier but did not not have sleeping accommodations.
We learned the hard way that if you are traveling by coach overnight, try to get a seat in the middle of one of the coach cars. We were having so much fun watching our 1996 Ford Taurus get loaded on the train that we didn’t board the coach until only the seats near the rail car doors were available.
Needless to say, it wasn’t the best nights sleep because it’s amazing how many people pass between rail cars between midnight and morning. The mechanical banging of the doors opening and closing seemed endless. I vowed after this experience to splurge on a bedroom for future long rail trips. Even when sleeping in a very tiny compartment, I’ve had some of the best sleep while rocking gently along the rails.
Using a travel agent for this trip worked out very well. Despite the unplanned stop in Rocky Mount, everything else went smoothly. The four of us decided we needed to do another trip, and soon!
Turns out Bill had a great suggestion using a different type of transportation none of us had tried yet. But that's another story.
PS - Amtrak held their 50th Anniversary celebration this past April 30th, on what would have been my dad's 92nd birthday. How fitting since my father was a huge rail buff. Congrats to Amtrak! I have since journeyed many times all over the country on Amtrak and have had great experiences. Highly recommend and Happy Birthday Amtrak!
Passing along his love of trains, my dad (Bill Matthews) with Henrik at the Strasburg Train Museum in 2000.
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