Spirit of Washington Dinner Train - Cruise Line Fans: Cruise Forum, Reviews and Chat From Real Cruisers

Chudley · 07-20-2005, 02:08 PM

This is a fun thing to do if you're staying in Seattle for a couple of days before or after your cruise. It goes up to the Columbia Winery where your tour the winery and taste wines. You have dinner and drinks on the train. They have murder mystery nights on it also. I will let you all know more after Saturday night as we will be on it.

isujim · 07-20-2005, 05:52 PM

Look forward to your review Chud............you'll get some frubals

Blizzard · 07-20-2005, 08:37 PM

It is a very nice trip. It starts in the city of Renton, a little south of Seattle. As I recall you order your entree when you make your reservations. When we took it they had a choice of Salmon or Prime Rib. The route go north along the east side of Lake Washington and over a good size trussel along the way to the Columbia winery. Dinner is served during the northbound trip. You can take a tour of the winery followed by the tasting room, or just go right to the tasting room. During the southbound trip they serve desert.

I am sure Chud will have a lot more details.

Chudley · 07-20-2005, 10:10 PM

We were given the tickets by the kids at Christmas and wanted to wait until it was still light out because of the beautiful scenery. Our tickets were for the Mystery one but we couldn't schedule it with our schedule so we switched the tickets to the dome car tables.

MCcruiser · 07-21-2005, 01:59 AM

Scenery? The heck with that! John's post made me HUNGRY!!!!

isujim · 07-21-2005, 07:45 AM

JOhn and Carol...........just saw an HD Discovery show on the STate of Washington...........what a beautiful state you have..........

Chudley · 07-21-2005, 11:42 AM

It really is Jim, when relatives from the midwest come out here, they are in awe of things. From majestic mountains to ocean beaches, you can't beat it.

isujim · 07-21-2005, 11:43 AM

We have to work that in our travel schedule.............when we come I'll let you know......maybe you and John can meet us for lunch or something.......but first I have to figure out when we can come.....

Chudley · 07-21-2005, 11:50 AM

If you do that Alaska cruise, you're here!!

Chudley · 07-25-2005, 05:56 PM

Back from an up close and personal experience on the dinner train. What a very very nice evening. When you first go to board, they will take a picture of you in front of the train, ours turned out nice.

Then you board and go to your car. We were in the dome car on the lakeside. If you go, ask to be seated on the lakeside, the view is wonderful. The train wasn't leaving until 6:30 but they started boarding at 5:45. Once you are seated the servers come and take drink orders. It takes about 45 minutes to get to the winery but doesn't seem like it as you're watching the scenery and having dinner. We had prime rib which was really good with an apple horseradish on the side. The other things on the menu where salmon, stuffed chicken breast and some kind of pork. We noticed some eating vegetarian dishes, also. When you get to the Columbia winery either you can take a tour or go straight into the quite large store and start shopping or tasting wine. Choosing the latter, it was very enjoyable. If you buy any wine, they give the train pax 10% off bottles or 20% off cases. After purchasing some wine "souvenirs" we boarded the train for the ride back to Renton. There we had coffee and dessert. Since there were just the two of us and because when we made our reservation, they only had tables for four left, they seated us with another couple. We got lucky and had the nicest people to sit with. The four of us had so much fun, the servers thought we had come together. They have Sunday brunch trips and lunch trips also. If you're going on an Alaskan cruise and are spending a couple of extra days in Seattle, this is really a worthwhile thing to do. We live here so we get to go again and we will.