Passenger Trains > Amtrak Roomettes capacity

2 years ago, I took an AGR trip in a roommette with my gf and 2 year old daughter. No problem - enjoyable trip.

I tried to book the same trip with Guest Rewards this year and they would not book the trip with 2 adults and a small child. He flat refused and said he would not book 3 people in 1 room even if 1 person was a small child. I find this absurd and terrible customer service, especially since I've done this before and know that it will work fine again. My understanding is you book the space and the price is the same regardless of the number of people in the room. How do they expect a couple to travel with a small child?

P Wrote:
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> 2 years ago, I took an AGR trip in a roommette
> with my gf and 2 year old daughter. No problem -
> enjoyable trip.
>
> I tried to book the same trip with Guest Rewards
> this year and they would not book the trip with 2
> adults and a small child. He flat refused and
> said he would not book 3 people in 1 room even if
> 1 person was a small child. I find this absurd
> and terrible customer service, especially since
> I've done this before and know that it will work
> fine again. My understanding is you book the
> space and the price is the same regardless of the
> number of people in the room. How do they expect
> a couple to travel with a small child?

I'm on your side but a 4 yr old my have thrown up the red flag. Can the kid pass for 2.5? He may be thinking two things.

1- The Conductor is going to pissed "someone" booked this crap, and he will be dealt with accordingly and

2- He may have been thinking three meals for a room that is designated two will get him in trouble.

IDK.

One way to make your trip happen is book a bigger room.

Roomettes are designed for two people. The alternative for you is either a bedroom (formerly deluxe bedroom) or a family room--which is designed precisely for this situation. The beds in a roomette simply don't have the room for an both adult and a child of more than a year or two to share one bed. I don't think that the meal situation is an issue; rather it's one of space. Getting a bigger room does increase the price but, as you know, having a child makes a lot of your expenses increase--it goes with the territory.

This new policy of flat out not booking sleeper space above stated capacity came about a year or two as a way to IMPROVE customer service. From what I understand, which could be wrong, they ran into many a situation where a family balked at the price of a bigger room/more rooms and talked the agent into just booking more people in a room than the stated capacity. These same people would then board the train months later and be appalled at the lack of space, and somehow take it out on the railroad.

And so it goes. They reworked the computerized reservations system to not allow a booking to exceed the capacity. As with almost anything, it is possible to bypass this safeguard but you're asking the agent to really stick his neck out on the line. If anything went wrong and the reservation were looked at, it would have his sign-on number all over it...

I am one that had both my granddaughters plus my wife and I in one of those little rooms. The girls were quite small and could share the bed with us. As luck would have it, the lady next to us was by herself and allowed one of the Granddaughters to stay in her room, the OBP didn't have a problem with it. As to food, the kids didn't eat enough to cost Amtrak anything. However, I know people to take advantage of things and I am sure those that griped have caused much trouble, for the rest of us. One way to get through this is to book a seat along with the bedroom, then go on and sleep as you would without it. At least Amtrak cannot say you didn't pay your way.

Amtrak.com will not allow you to book 2 adults and a child in a roomette either. The verbatim message states:

" Problem With Selected Accommodations: The accommodation you have selected is too small to accommodate the number of people traveling. Please select a different accommodation or increase the number of accommodations. Or, for additional assistance, please call 1-800-USA-RAIL (1-800-872-7245). "

Amtrak considers "passengers 2 to 15 years of age" to be children, so you must have just squeezed in on your prior trip.

As far as the previous poster's idea of booking a coach seat for the child then having the child just stay in the roomette, it might work but you might also run into hassles. Since the sleeping car attendant will check you into your car, showing up with an extra passenger is going to raise questions. The only other alternative would be to let your 4 year old go on the coach, initially, by herself/himself. Even if you were willing to do this, Amtrak will not allow children under 7 to travel by themselves. Food for thought.

Ken

I'm surprised you're even bringing this issue up. An airline will make you buy a seat for a child older than babe-in-arms age. Why do you think Amtrak would be any different? Get a family room and your problem is solved.

It would be a great scam for, say, 6 college kids to go in and book a roomette to go home for the summer, then eat for free in the diner. That one's absurd, but where does one draw the line?

As far as I'm concerned, an Amtrak "roomette" isn't big enough for two adults, much less two plus a small child. Get a bedroom -- or a family room.

I used to travel with my son when he was four or five years old, and we fit into the roomette nicely. We'll be taking the Autotrain this Christmas, he's now 13, and we're getting a bedroom.

calzephyr48 Wrote:
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> I'm surprised you're even bringing this issue up.
> An airline will make you buy a seat for a child
> older than babe-in-arms age. Why do you think
> Amtrak would be any different? Get a family room
> and your problem is solved.
> where does one draw the line?

Aren't we Mr customer service?

The airlines will allow a child without a paid fare as long as you agree to have them ride in your lap and / or they do not take a seat from a paying passenger. You will not see this in writing, of course, but that is what happens in the real world. Once a child reaches 4-5 or so, it is imparactical for them to ride in your lap, but mostly what determines this is the child's size.

My biggest beef with this new 'rule' is that the roomette is purchased and costs the same regardless of the number of people who ride, whether 1,2,3 or whatever. If a small child can ride somewhat comfortably in the space provided, then that should be up to the passenger. A 3 year old is much smaller than a 13 year old and as such should be allowed, but not a 13 year old. When I told the agent my child was 2, he still wouldn't book the room! That is unreasonable.

As to booking a larger room, well fine, but as usual, these rooms are often sold first and unavailable. In fact, I ended up booking the roommette through another agent and was told it was the last roomette on the train as well.

I've been able to book two small children and one adult in a Superliner economy room (aka roomette), but not two adults and one child over the age of 2.

What I would do -

book the sleeper for the two adults. The three of you board the train. Treat the child as if s/he were a last-minute, family-issue-related addition to your group. ("When we booked our tickets, we did not know for certain if our little one would be traveling. We are so lucky that it all worked out that s/he could join us afterall." )

Deal with it if and when an issue arises.

Don't be evasive, but allow the on-board personnel to suggest the best way to handle it (there may be no issue at all . . . but if they raise an issue, offer to buy a half-rate fare for the child.) And remember, that roomette only entitles you to two meals in the diner, so offer to pay for the child's meals - make that plain to the diner attendant (two of us from the sleeper, and the little one will be paying his/her own way (smile) ).

I suspect all will work out if you act with courtesy and in a cooperative mood.

Another wrinkle on how to book.
Book the roomette for one adult and one child. Book a coach seat for the second adult.
When boarding, adult and child head to the sleeper and adult #2 heads for the coach.
After the dust settles and everyone's ticket is lifted, have the big reunion in the sleeper.
I'll bet you won't hear boo from the attendant.
Mike

Speaking of booking adults with children/infants....I ran into a problem yesterday with Amtrak's web page that I can not figure out or understand. I will say up front that I am using a Macintosh computer, and I have tried the following scenario with both Safari and Firefox:

-Go to Amtrak's home page, and try booking a trip from San Jose (SJC) to Sacramento (SAC). Pick any travel day you would like.

-Assume you are traveling with one adult and one child (no infants).

-Under the number of passengers, select "2" (One adult/One child)

-Under the number of adults, select "1"

-Under the number of children, select "1"

-Notice that it says "Infants", but there is NO box to select the number of infants

So now you should have chosen SJC to SAC, and you should have selected 2 passengers (1 adult and 1 child). Now click "Next" and watch what happens! It will give you THREE coach seats. I have played around with this to try and figure it out, and so far I have not figured it out.

Now if you go back to Amtrak's home page again, do everything as above except change the following:

-Under the number of passengers, select "1" (Even though you still want one adult and one child)

-Under the number of adults, select "1"

-Under the number of children, select "1"

-Now click "Next"

See what happened? This time it gave you TWO coach seats, but scroll down to the bottom of the page....look what it says now! Now it tells you that you have booked One Adult, One Child, *and* One Infant. I have not found any way around this. If you click "Next" (after filling in the drop-down menu for Adult and Child) to purchase this ticket, Amtrak requires you to put in the names of ALL THREE passengers. Keep in mind that there is no infant in this reservation----this is just one adult and one child traveling.

I ran into this yesterday morning trying to book this trip for my mom who is taking my niece on a train trip. The only way I could figure a way around this was to continue with the reservation with the infant (even though an infant does not exist). I named the infant, "Gomer Pyle" on the Amtrak reservation.

When calling the Capitol Corridor's phone number for assistance, I was told "We can not help you with booking reservations. We can only answer travel questions". Okay, fine. So my mom called Amtrak, and the gentleman she spoke with told her, "Sorry---they are an entirely different unit from Amtrak and we have nothing to do with them. Call their 800 number" (which we already did).

I haven't tried any more "one adult/one child" reservations on Amtrak's web page, but I'm assuming this is true for ANY reservation?? If you Windows users out there see a third box for selecting an infant in your reservation (from the main home page), then I will know this is a Mac issue. But it sure seems odd that I'm not able to book a simple one adult/one child reservation. And calling the various AmPhoneNumbers just made things more frustrating.

smitty195,
Tried it on my mac. Works fine. But I don't see a total passengers box. I only have drop down menu's for "# of Adults," "# of Children," and "# of Infants." So I plugged in one adult and one child. I never had to enter 2 passengers.

Is this what yours looks like? The first box is "Passengers", then "Adults", then, "Children", and the for "Infants" there is nothing there.

---

Uh-oh...I think I just figured it out. Oops on my part.

The first box is not number of passengers like I thought it was. Okay, so the "passengers" thing is just there and doesn't refer to any box. The three boxes are for adult, child, and infant. Now I get it.

Am I the only idiot, or have others thought the same thing? :)

smitty195 Wrote:
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> Am I the only idiot, or have others thought the
> same thing? :)

Don't worry. Your the only one. :-D

I was afraid of that.

I once hosted a group of 12 college students in a standard 10-6 bedroom on the Spirit of California from Davis to Los Angeles. That was unofficial, of course.

> The airlines will allow a child without a paid fare
> as long as you agree to have them ride in your lap
> and / or they do not take a seat from a paying passenger.

In theory, the limit for free-on-lap is 24 months of age for a domestic flight. Now that airlines are charging for every conceivable extra, it wouldn't surprise me if they begin enforcing the lap policy more carefully. It's difficult to pass off most children of 3 years plus as being under 2.

> As far as I'm concerned, an Amtrak "roomette" isn't big
> enough for two adults, much less two plus a small child.

I agree, it's a tight fit especially if they're both tall.