<p>We waited to look into flying our s home from a NC college to the northeast. Now the airfares are exorbitant. Train will be a lot cheaper but the travel time is 11+ hours and since he can't leave until wed morning he will be traveling all day wednesday and all day sunday .</p>
<p>Has anyone done it? Is it that bad or should we bite the bullet and pay for the airfare?</p>
<p>both could be delayed quite a bit because of weather- but if he is only coming home for a few days-it seems kinda a waste to spend most of it traveling, unless he likes traveling or can use the time to study.</p>
<p>Scoutmom – just had this conversation with H today. S is 7.5 hours away driving or by train. and with holiday delays, about 9 hours. His top priority will be spending time with Hs friends when he gets home and we’re fine with that. I think we’ll spring for the airfare.</p>
<p>Can he book a room-ette on the train, where he can travel by night and sleep, so double-use the travel time? I know it has to be done long in advance.</p>
<p>^^
This is just our data-point, but when we travelled by Amtrak about 10 years ago, we found that a roomette was 3x the price of a coach seat, making it more expensive than airfare.</p>
<p>My grandparents swear by it. They take a train every year.</p>
<p>When I checked Amtrack there did not appear to be any evening trains. I agree that would not have been so bad if he could sleep all night on the train (departing tuesday night) and arrive wednesday earlier.</p>
<p>When we did NC top Boston, it was about 18-21 hours, but that included some slowdowns due to work on the tracks. Also long stopovers in DC. Both going down and coming back up, part of the trip was during sleep hours. We left Boston at 11pm or so and got to NC in the late afternoon. Then we left NC around 9 or 10 am and got in early the next morning.</p>
<p>I love trains but it was kind of an ordeal. The seating in coach is more crowded than in older trains, not all that comfortable, and they left lights on at night. The Acela might help with time, but it costs more: sometimes they have deals if you get tickets way in advance. Don’t know about tickets for the roomettes, but traveling alone, I have found them a little claustrophobic.</p>
<p>If you can get a good fare on a plane, it would seem more reasonable, at least for one leg of the trip.</p>
<p>The long-distance trains often run late–hours late, and not just because of weather. Trains in the Northeast corridor get extremely crowded around holidays (as does Penn Station if that factors in at all). I’d opt for a plane ticket and consider the train for longer breaks. Thanksgiving break isn’t long enough to spend virtually the whole first and last days traveling–exhausting both for the time at home and for re-start of school.</p>
<p>Amtrak shares the rails with CSX Freight trains. CSX owns the tracks so they get priority. This can cause long delays, even in the best of times. If one thing goes wrong your son could be eating a turkey sandwich on a train for Thanksgiving. I’d go for a plane ticket as well, and save the money when he has more time.</p>
<p>Our oldest d did the train when she came home for her first Thanksgiving because we thought flights were expensive then :rolleyes:, and because a train took just about as long as a flight, since there were poor connections to our airport. We wound up driving to the train station in a horrific snowstorm, one of the worst we’ve ever driven in, and the train was several hours late. Thanksgiving travel is just very, very difficult, no matter how you do it. In our experience, when the weather is bad enough to delay flights, a train is never going to be on time. On the plus side, many kids from d’s college traveled by train, and they still mention how much fun they had on that trip. (My belated apologies to anyone who happened to be on the same train. :))</p>
<p>S takes the train regularly from DC to the northeast. His worst delays have been at Xmas with weather being the issue. He’s been fortunate to not have been more than 1/2 to 3/4 hour late at Thanksgiving, but his trip is only about 6 hours. If he had to go much further I’d probably opt for flying.</p>
<p>scoutmom, I sent a PM to you.</p>
<p>I don’t know if it’s the same way in NC, but when I looked into flying home from DC to NY, the flights were about the same cost as the planes in some cases. But that was a very direct shuttle run that happen 10+ times a day.
I opted against either option (I own a car) because it would take me over an hour to get to the airport from school, and more than two hours to get home from the airport once I landed in NY. As for the train, it was easier to get to from my school. (Only about 20 minutes, and cheap) But the number of transfers to get out of NYC into the suburbs made it not worth it.</p>
<p>Basically what I’m saying is consider how he will get to the train station or the airport. Also consider which is closer on your end.</p>
<p>Have you checked the cost of flights to nearby alternative airports? Sometimes it’s cheaper to fly to nearby, if slightly less convenient, airports.</p>
<p>scoutmom, When you checked the airlines, did you check Southwest and Airtran sites directly? They often don’t show up on search engines. What I’ve found frustrating is that while classes may be listed as being held on the Wed (or even Tuesday) before Thanksgiving, they are often cancelled. Has your student double checked with any Wed. Prof’s to see if they will for sure hold classes?</p>
<p>We were originally going to stick with train travel for our daughter who attends in Georgia, and must travel home to NJ. I was fortunate to grab an airfare in October last year (about 6 weeks out) that was only $50 more than the train…worth it to save 10 hours by rails.</p>
<p>In the process, I discovered that having her travel by train really wouldn’t be the best for her. The station is located in a very out-of-the-way place, and not very busy. The school shuttle schedule would mean long waits alone in early morning or late-day (only two trains per day). Adding the cost of a roomette? Might as well fly her home.</p>
<p>So flying it is.</p>
<p>Unfortunately Thanksgiving is very expensive, and you don’t have much wiggle-room on the dates/times. We looked at sending our D back on Saturday instead of Sunday, flying out Thursday morning instead of Wednesday night (they had class on Wednesday). </p>
<p>In the end we couldn’t afford or justify the cost. So she didn’t come home for Thanksgiving last year. A friend from church was flying to her city to spend Thanksgiving with her married daughter, and they invited her over for dinner. She got lots of homework done over the weekend.</p>
<p>We have done better with one-way tickets instead of round-trip for Christmas, spring break, etc. That might be another thing to look at.</p>
<p>We have the same issue; our son took the train from California to Willamette University in Oregon a couple of weeks ago; it’s an 18-hour trip, but he shared a “roomette” with a friend and they could each bring 5 50-lb bags for free, so it was definitely worth it. However, the school holds classes on Wednesdays of Thanksgiving week, so the train is out. Flying isn’t so straightforward either, since it involves taking a shuttle up to Portland, then catching a flight.</p>
<p>After talking with some other families, we’ve all decided to wait a month or so to let our son decide whether to come home. He’s already made some friends who live closer, and he could possibly spend Thanksgiving with a family in Oregon. We also learned that the dorms are open over Thanksgiving, and because each dorm has a full kitchen, some kids get together and cook their own “Thanksgiving meal” together.</p>
<p>Interesting post. I am a graduate student at NYU and I want to travel home (FL) around Christmas. I looked into plane tickets and they are like $500-$600 roundtrip right now to fly the week before Christmas!!! The train is about $300 roundtrip BUT the train from NY to FL is about 24 hours. I hate to waste 2 days on the train but looking at the cost… idk. Anyone taken a train ride this long in the past?</p>
<p>In reference to the OP, I would say if the prices are an extra $100 or so, just fly. Take the cheaper route for Thanksgiving because you will need that money for a Christmas flight!!!</p>