Next train trip: Chicago!

I know – I have been home for 2 weeks and I haven’t blogged the east coast trip yet.  I promise, I will!  I spent the first week home SLEEPING.  I was up late a lot of nights talking to friends and family, and I planned to stay overnight on the way home but it didn’t work out that way… I ended up driving straight 25 hours (very severe rain contributed greatly to this), surviving on 5 hour energy drinks!

The 2nd week I was home (last week) I had a LOT of stuff to do, and I am finally getting it caught up… except the housework, which still needs a LOT of attention.  Laundry and dishes piled up in my absence (and when I was sleeping), and the dog doesn’t stop shedding it seems!  As soon a I am semi-satisfied with the house, I will start blogging our trip.

But we are planning a new trip!  Last year when Walter and I bought our bed Slumberland was having a promotion and we have 2 free hotel nights in Chicago that we need to use by June 25.  Problem is, we’re still catching up financially from the first trip!  I think I am going to be spending some time collecting more scrap metal and stuff. LOL  On the bright side, we will only spend $72 each way on Amtrak for all four of us – it doesn’t look like Corinne will be interested in going. 😦

At any rate. we are probably going to get the Chicago CityPass, which takes care of admission for a lot of the big things we want to do, but that leaves out Navy Pier, and most importantly, the Chicago Children’s Museum which is there – Ben is barely 4 and Annalise is barely 4 – we gotta go there!

There is a new TV show coming to Chicago’s WTTW this Friday at 8:30 pm – Family Travel With Colleen Kelly – and she is doing a contest for passes to the Chicago Children’s Museum.  This is my shameless plea to be considered for those passes, and I promise to promote the heck out of you when I win, and after I take my trip! 🙂

On our way to Millennium Hotel in St. Louis!

The coupon class is done and we are on our way! First to Amtrak to check in some luggage tonight so there’s not so much tomorrow, then to downtown St. Louis Millennium Hotel where my fussing about bad reviews got us an arch view room upgrade, and back to station at 7 am for scheduled 8 am departure. I am so excited for this adventure with Ben and Annalise but sad Walter can’t go and Corinne didn’t want to do some with us.

Playing with my GPS tracking tool on the way. Lol

Response from Millennium Hotel re: my concerns

I feel a good bit better about this hotel now, and I will certainly update the blog after we stay there!  I just wanted reassurance that it would be clean… the upgrade is a nice bonus!

My fax to Millennium Hotel:

RE:  Mon., April 2, confirmation # 11544SY290522

Dear Manager:

The above-referenced room was booked because my children and I are leaving on an Amtrak train early Tuesday morning and we live almost 2 hours away.  My husband works late and he intends to go back to the hotel to sleep until it is time to check out after he drops us off. Our budget is not large and I used the Priceline “Name Your Own Price” to keep costs down.  I was given a room at your hotel for $47 plus taxes and fees for a total of $62 which was within our budget.  I am concerned about our stay after reading some reviews of your hotel, and Priceline’s Name Your Own is non-refundable.  I have a short description of my concerns on my blog for this vacation at https://toddlertraintraveling.wordpress.com/.

In a nutshell, many of the reviewers have said that the rooms in the Millennium are very dirty, with complaints of dirty sheets, dirty towels, food on the floor, even pubic hair in the dirty bathtub.  Needless to say this is not appealing to my husband and I, and we are especially concerned about our children, who are 2 and 3.

I am also dismayed at the parking fee of $18 per entrance into the garage.  We will have to go in and out of the garage twice in less than 12 hours and to have to pay $36 for that privilege is unreasonable.  That is nearly the base amount we are paying for the room and completely defeats the goal of finding a low cost room just to sleep in.

What can be done to ensure that our room is going to be clean and sanitary?  Is there anything that can be done about the parking?

I look forward to hearing from you.

Carolyn Gerding

Response from Millennium

Ms. Gerding,

I received your fax today concerning your upcoming reservation.  I am assuming it is the reservation listed under Walter Gerding.  I went ahead and upgraded your reservation to an arch view in our north tower.  I have read the reviews online and would like to assure you we have been improving our housekeeping staff and do hold them to a high standard.  If you, at any time, feel like your room is not clean, just notify the Front Desk or Operator and we can either send someone up to spot clean it, or move you to a whole new room.  However, I feel at check-in you will be satisfied with your room on arrival.

As to your parking concerns, I have a little less control.  Our doormen, do keep some cars on the driveway during the day only.  They charge $5 to leave it on the drive.  This may work for you for one of your parking needs.  As to overnight parking, we do not allow it on the driveway.  There is some metered parking nearby that you could park at your own risk.  There is also a different garage about four blocks away called Mansion House.  It is just past the Crowne Plaza on Fourth Street on the right.  They charge $9 every time you leave the garage, or for a 24 hour period.  That is the most inexpensive overnight parking I know of downtown.

Please email me if you have any further concerns.  We look forward to your stay.

Regards,

Matt Rothfusz I Director of Front Office Operations

Nightmare hotel stay at Millennium in downtown St. Louis coming???

The train station is downtown, close to Busch Stadium, 90 minutes away from home.  We need to be there by 7 am so we’d have to leave by 5 am to account for any traffic or other delays.   Walter and I do not want to get up that early so we decided to get a hotel for the night before.  We wanted it to be close by so he could go back and sleep until it was time to check out – he’s got sleep apnea and we are going to have to leave home late – I am teaching a couponing seminar that evening.

All of the rooms near there through normal channels were $100+. The closest ones that were $50-$60 were near the airport (about 15 miles away) so I did the Priceline “name your own price.” The hotel that we got (Millennium in downtown St. Louis, right next to the  Arch) is 1.5 miles from the train station. It was $47 – including taxes and fees it was $62.  I looked on Expedia and the hotel’s website, and this room would have been $80 plus taxes and fees without the “name your own price.”  At first I got excited because on the hotel’s website it’s supposed to be so nice.

The nature of the “name your own price” to get the super cheap deals is that you don’t know what hotel you’ll get AND IT’S NON REFUNDABLE, which I didn’t think about being a problem since we’re definitely going, but it never occurred to me that the hotel itself would be a problem!

But it has awful reviews (it is apparently DIRTY – time and time again in these reviews) and I am really freaked out.

TripAdvisor – click picture to enlarge – click here for more reviews

Priceline – click picture to enlarge – click here for more reviews 

I am emailing the manager with a link to this blog entry and I will update later when I get a response.  I am so distressed about this it’s not funny.  We don’t want to sleep in a dirty hotel, and I especially don’t want to have my kids there.  And this is supposed to be nonrefundable so we are stuck with it or lose the $62.  You can be sure I will do an updated post with my experience and do reviews on TripAdvisor and Priceline one way or the other.

To make matters worse, Priceline doesn’t take into account that the dang parking fee is $18 EVERY TIME YOU ENTER THE GARAGE – no in and out! And if you want internet it’s $10!  So the parking will cost us $36 if Walter goes back to sleep a total of $80 – $90 if we want internet – for what is apparently a dirty hotel!  I think it is very wrong that Priceline does not take the parking fee into account with their prices.  No way would I have bid that much. I am complaining very loudly to Priceline about this.

I looked into public transportation to avoid the 2nd parking fee and to take the Metrolink to the train station we’d have to walk 0.3 miles to the Stadium metrolink station, then get off at Civic Center (next stop) and walk another 0.2 miles to the train station. Kids ride free, one ride for me is $2.25, 2 hour pass for Walter is $2.75 – I’m thinking it is not worth the hassle to save $13.

They also have the nerve to take a $50 deposit for “incidentals” – I don’t know if that’s supposed to be long distance, stolen stuff, damage, or what – but you have to give that before you get your room.  I don’t trust this hotel one bit and I am going to try to pay that in cash so Walter can make sure he gets it back when he leaves.

I called Amtrak and we can check the bags in up to 24 hours ahead of time, so when we get into St Louis Monday night we will to do that, then we just have to worry about the carry ons in the morning.

Update – read the manager’s response to me in this post

Our shore hotel is a block from the boardwalk :)

We are staying overnight down the shore because we are spending two days with my friend Becky and her kids.  The hotel we are staying at is pretty close to the boardwalk and the beach : )

It does not appear on BedBugRegistry.com and nearly all of the reviews I found on TripAdvisor and other sites were favorable. It is a little less than $60.

Planning fun stuff for the trip :)

We are going to see my friend Becky who lives in Ocean City, NJ (“down the shore” for non-east coast people) and my Aunt Jean and Uncle Bob live in Brigantine, which is also a beach town not far away from Ocean City.  Becky’s daughter is a year older than Ben and her son is a year younger than Annalise, so they will have a lot of fun together.  I have not seen Becky since 11th grade (1990) and am looking forward to getting together and meeting her kids.

We are taking the kids to the  Cape May Zoo  one day (free!), then leaving there and touring Lucy the Elephant in Margate ($7 adults, $4 kids) .  We can climb up into it, which I am sure all of the kids are going to find really fun.

The next day we are taking the kids on a whale watch with the Cape May Whale Watcher tour.  I have been on a number of those and have never seen a whale but have seen lots of dolphins and porpoises.  My kids have never been on a boat and I think they are really going to enjoy that too.

GPS maps and tracking our trip

This is from an Android app called “My Tracks.”  You simply press one button to tell it to start tracking you, then when you’re done, tell it to stop, and then you have the option to upload to Google Maps, where I used the Windows Snip Tool to make this JPEG.  I am going to have fun with this!  This is a test I did from Mineola to New Florence to see how it works.

Click the picture for full size

Logistics of train traveling with toddlers

We leave St. Louis around 8 am and get to Chicago around 2 pm, then have 4 hours in Union Station to walk around, which is great so they’re not stir crazy. It’s a 6 hour trip and we will have all these activities and books and such with us, and I think the novelty of it will last a good while. We will eat dinner at Union Station. Going by the website, the only place picky Ben will eat is McDonald’s, so I guess that’s dinner!

Then the train to Chicago leaves at 6 pm and gets to Washington DC at 12:30 pm the next day. This really isn’t bad – it’s 17 hours of which the kids will sleep 8-10. A few hours before they fall asleep, and a few hours after they get up. The only catch is that we are taking a train that doesn’t have checked baggage the whole way. We are taking the Capitol, which is a Superliner, and is bigger than the one that does go through, the Cardinal, which is only a Viewliner. Not to mention total train time is about 7 hours longer on the Cardinal! But my baggage can go on the Cardinal and get there a few hours after I do.  One of the features of the Superliner is the sightseeing car:

We are traveling coach. The private room would have been another $255 and I think it’s an unnecessary expense. I can sleep about anywhere, so can the kids, and the seats look pretty comfy and recline, and there is a tray/desk on the back of the seat in front of you. The Amtrak description of the seats is here.

So I will stay in the Washington DC station about 5 hours before we go to Wilmington because the DC station is much bigger (it’s  like a mall – see directory here) to kill some time until my luggage gets to Wilmington. There’s a good chance the kids will fall asleep and if not, we can sit somewhere and watch a movie when we’re not walking around, and we will have lunch as soon as we get off the train, and dinner before we go on to Wilmington.  Note that there are only two seats in a row – but the kids are small enough that they will fit on one with no problem.

The kids each have a backpack they love to wear (Cars and Dora) and that’s where I’ll keep their books and crayons and all, as well as some snacks and drinks and their little throw blankets. Pillows will be provided on the train to use. I will also have my laptop and a backpack with my books, extra clothes for all of us, and my blanket. I am also taking a small soft sided cooler for ice and perhaps some food and soda for me so we don’t have to pay the pricy train snacks and food prices (see menu here) . The cooler might fit in the backpack, but if not, it’s got a long handle like a purse.

I am also taking the double stroller so if I need help carrying stuff in the layovers and if the kids get tired I will have it for them to sleep in. That can be held on the train like they do on an airplane so I can get it easily when we disembark. We each get to check up to 3 bags (not that we need that much) and I can check their car seats.

There is an electric outlet at each row of seats so we can plug in the laptop and watch DVDs.  I bought a bunch of new toys and a couple of DVDs at Dollar Tree to keep them occupied, and some snacks we don’t normally get.  With toddlers anything novel will keep their attention a little longer!

Traveling on a train for 1000 miles with 2 toddlers – by myself!

My 16 year old daughter, Corinne, is getting a car from her dad.  That’s the simplified version, but it’s the only information that’s relevant. 🙂  We live in Missouri and he is in Pennsylvania, so I volunteered to go out there and drive it home.  My husband Walter is a farmer and it’s spring, so he’s going to be working, meaning I can’t leave my toddlers home.

Aside from that, I have a LOT of friends and family on the east coast and if I’m going to travel out there to get Corinne’s car, I might as well visit while I’m at it.  For me to fly out there was going to be about $170, and for another $94 me and both toddlers can take Amtrak.  Corinne can’t come with us because her school only gives off one day for spring/Easter break, so I don’t have any time limit at all and I can visit to my heart’s content. I am excited!

We are leaving on April 3. Benjamin will be 4 on April 1, and Annalise will be 3 on April 7. They are 12 months apart. They are best friends, when they are not fighting. They’re not aggressive, just typical stuff, fighting over toys and whatnot. They are VERY good car travelers, so I have high hopes for the train. We have driven this route lots of times so they’re used to long trips, and this time I’ll be able to be right with them instead of them stuck in their car seats alone in the back seat, so I think it will be fine.  More details on the logistics of the trip in this post.

We’ll be out east for Easter and Annalise’s birthday.  I think I will not give them Easter baskets or anything out there.  I will get the candy etc. half price the next day, pack it, and do the egg dying and the basket after we get home so my husband isn’t missing out on that.