Canada/US Rail trip next summer . . . .

[JennyWreny]

We (DH, me and 2 teens) are planning a trip next summer and before I book it, I wondered if anyone might spot any glaring mistakes I've made with the itinerary. One thing I'm really concerned about is if I've planned to be in cities where there are big events on, like the NYC marathon for example (I've checked the marathon dates!).

21/6 - Fly to Toronto (3 nights)
24/6 - Tour to Niagara (1 night)
25/6 - Train to New York (4 nights)
29/6 - Train to Boston (4 nights including a day trip to Cape Cod)
3/7 - Train (1 night) to Chicago (1 night)
5/7 - Train (2 nights) to San Francisco (6 nights including a day trip to Yosemite and a day trip to Monterey)
13/7 - Train to Santa Barbara (1 night)
14/7 - Train to LA (3 nights)
17/7 - Flight home

Also I wondered if anyone could tell me if £510 per person is a good price for those flights (LGW->Toronto and LAX->LHR) on BA - it seems cheap, but this is the first big holiday we have done in many years, so I'm doubting myself.

Flip a coin, leave one at home!

Could you book 2 roomettes and a coach ticket and take it in turns to sleep in the coach? We only have coach tickets on Lake Shore Limited from Boston to Chicago overnight, but I figured that one night will be OK (I got a good deal on a nice hotel in Chicago to make up for it).

''Tis a thought,I like the leave one at home option.

At the end of the day, it's nearly £500 per roomette (if I've calculated it correctly). It's an awful lot of money, especially if you have to have three. Did you have three on the Coast Starlight? You could always book two rooms and a coach then look out for the price of upgrading the coach ticket to another roomette if they have late availability (sometimes you can upgrade on the train. Here's a (pretty dreadful but it works) website I found for tracking Amtrak fares - biketrain.net/amsnag2.0/watch/logon.php

Sorry, I've just remembered, I think some days it was less than those prices, maybe by £300 total. I remember thinking we could move our dates, but then working out that the flights then went up by £300 so didn't make any difference. So if you can be flexible with the dates, it's definitely worth experimenting on the booking page to see which days are cheaper. Think we are leaving on a Friday, maybe midweek is cheaper.

You’ll get through immigration, but it will probably take several hours. The land crossings at Rainbow and Peace Bridge are notoriously long.

The issue is that the border guards in the little booths on the road cannot issue a I-94 90-day permit. They send you to secondary immigration in the same line a asylum seekers, previously deported etc.

If you enter through a US airport, the first person you see has the power to admit you, so it only takes a few minutes.

Once you have the I-94, you can freely cross the border, as if you were a citizen. I would always recommend that someone doing a joint USA/Canada holiday, to make their entry to the continent via a US airport. If you enter in Canada, and make a land crossing, prepare for a long wait and make sure you have $6 in US currency.

Thanks for the info and explanation CraftyGin - I'm glad we are planning to cross the border the night before the train leaves. Will make sure we are prepared for a long wait.

Can't be helped now we have booked the flights, but at least we know it's likely to be complicated.