You follow signs and then take a shuttle to the airport station

Have you looked at the BWI website?

The shuttle is not a short trip, either, it takes 10-15 minutes. And of course, Amtrak sucks so your likelihood of an on-time train is mediocre.

Honestly, given the hassle and the cost of Amtrak tickets (although MARC fares are less), if the difference between a BWI ticket and a Reagan National ticket is less than $100 round-trip, the Reagan ticket makes more sense.

No. I have not looked at the website. I just found out we were going to have to fly into Baltimore rather than Washington.

We get into Baltimore at 5PM. There are Amtrak tickets available at 6:56PM for $22 total for the 2 of us, if we book now.

Room for the bags depends on their size. Will they fit in an overhead rack? If not, it could be a problem because the trains do not originate at BWI so will already have passengers when you board.

More important, does your arrival time at BWI match up well with the AMTRAK schedule when you consider the time to wait for your bags and wait for the shuttle? Once on the shuttle it is only about 5 minutes to the station. Will you have time to buy your tickets or have you bought them online? Depending on the time of day there could be considerable time between trains.

There are shared shuttle vans from BWI to DC as another option. For example, a shared van from BWI to the White House area is $38 for the first person in your party + $13 for each additional person in your group. A private car would be $150 for 2 people. Those options would give you the easiest transfer.

akabavah - The other posts came while I was wtiting mine. Forget Amtrak. You are cutting it too close. Spend the $51 and take a shared van from the airport to your door.

I usually take the MARC from BWI but with all that luggage basingstoke2 has the best idea.

Thank you. What's the best shared van service?

http://www.supershuttle.com/en/BWIAirportShuttleBaltimore.html
SuperShuttle is your only choice for pick up at BWI. Their desk is near the luggage carousels. Just follow ground transportation signs. Although a reservation is nice, you don't really need one for airport pick up.

Agree that Reagan National is the best to fly into to come to DC. I don't know what "cutting it too close" means with 32 trains per day stopping at BWI on the way to WAS.
If your bags fit in the overhead on the plane, they will fit overhead on Amtrak. If you are waiting at baggage claim for a 49.6 lb bag you might have a problem. The shuttle buses travel on a 12 to 25 minute schedule. There is a Quik-trak kiosk and a full service ticket counter which can tell you if there are any delays. There are 3 trains stopping at the station between 5:55 and 6:53. The problem comes if your hotel is far from Union Station and you still need a taxi.
Don't buy Amtrak tickets online when there is a Quik-Trak kiosk and a ticket counter open.
Since Amtrak owns their own tracks from Boston to Washington DC, their on time performance is better than the freight rails they run in the rest of the country.

>>Don't buy Amtrak tickets online when there is a Quik-Trak kiosk and a ticket counter open.<<

You can save quite a bit of money by buying early, though. We didn't realize that when I wanted to buy Amtrak tickets online from Union Station in DC to BWI. We ended up taking the Metro to the Greenbelt station, then taking the bus to BWI.

akabavah, if that time is cutting it too close, is there a later train you could take?

Lee Ann

cutting it too close means that the OP was asking about an online ticket purchase for a specific time to save some money. There is less than a two hour plane to train transfer time. If the plane is late, luggage delayed, or has to go through customs (OP did not where they were coming from) they could be out the $22.

More importantly, these are 2 persons juggling 6 bags of a size not mentioned so one can't assume they would fit overhead. These trains coming into BWI are often full, particularly at the time the OP wants to travel so they might not even find a seat and 6 bags will not help matters even if they got to the station in plenty of time. And, as you infer, they most like will have to take a taxi once in DC since I don't think they are planning on sleeping at the station. With all that, the train makes little sense in their situation.

SuperShuttle will take you forever to get to DC and is an awful option. You could also take a taxi, which will be about $100.

The train, especially at rush hour, isn't going to be bad. You probably can't get a MARC train, but Amtrak isn't going to be a problem at that time of the evening and there will be plenty of room.

Nonsense. The super shuttle will take either I95 or 295. At that time of day the traffic south is not a problem - if they were going north it would be different matter. The driving time will be about an hour. However even though the train takes less time, there is still waiting for shuttle to the train, driving to the train station and waiting for the train itself, then getting from the DC station to the hotel - timewise it's a wash and the super shuttle is easily more convenient. Taxi is the best way but by far the costliest. It is an unknown how many stops the super shuttle will make to the hotel - they may be first, they may be last. as far as Amtrak having plenty of room, sometimes there is, sometimes not.

Are there any hotels in DC (pref near the White House) that offer shuttle service to/from BWI? We are traveling with small children and luggage and would be swayed on which hotel to book if they offered transportation.

No hotels in DC offer out-of-town shuttle service.

Darn. I think a taxi would be the best then as we have two children under 7. The trains (Amtrak, etc) seem to have a lot of switching from shuttle at airport to the Metro once in DC. With having luggage the vans are $80+ car seat price and taxi seems to be about $60, but do taxis have car seats?

I've never seen a regular taxi with a car seat anywhere in the world. But if you can order a car service as opposed to just jumping in a taxi, then a car seat might be arranged. I'd seriously consider renting a car and dropping it off in DC. You could stop off the family and then return the car to National Airport and take the Metro back to your hotel or maybe even drop it off in town.

BWI taxi info and contact
http://www.bwiairporttaxi.com/


DC Taxicab commission info and contact
http://dctaxi.dc.gov/

Thanks ya'all!

My recollection is that the commuter line between Baltimore and Washington, D.C. is much less expensive than Amtrak. Same station at the beginning and end of the line.

Clarification: Same station at BWI and in D.C.

Michael is correct about the commuter train.

Depending on the age of your children and the amount of luggage, taking the MARC trains would likely be the best option for you if you're thinking of saving some money, $6 per adult.

http://www.bwiairport.com/en/travel/ground-transportation/trans/marc

You can catch the MARC train at Union Station in DC, ride the train to its station at BWI, then take a free bus to your airport terminal. Just follow the other passengers to get from train station to bus, not difficult.

Be sure to check the train schedule as the MARC trains don't run with the frequency of city buses or city trains.

Also give yourself plenty of time to get to the airport, especially with children, probably an hour would be minimal.

Same thing in reverse going in the opposite direction from BWI to DC.

If you are really worried about transferring from train to bus, etc. then using a shuttle service would be best. Some shuttle services have car seats, you just have to ask.

Good luck!

And of course, Amtrak sucks so your likelihood of an on-time train is mediocre.

I took my first Amtrak train from Sarasota (a bus) to Tampa and then an overnight to New Orleans . The train was delayed about 3-4 hours on the way out, pretty much on time on the way back.

Our second short trip was from Chicago to New Buffalo, MI. It was right on time both ways.

Our 3rd trip was on the overnight Auto-Train from Sanford (Orlando), FL to Lorton (DC), VA. The train had to stop because we had a fallen tree on the tracks so they had to wait for a clean up crew. About 1 hour delay. There was some reason on the way back but we never found out what the reason was as we slept like a rock. We did arrive back in Sanford about 1 hour late.

All I'm trying to say is that quite possibly the long range trains, cross country routes may not have the best record but the eastern board trains have a remarkable on time performance.

BWI-DC is a 30-35 minute ride. How late can it be? There are about 25 Amtrak regional trains on this route daily and they show about 90-95% on time performance.

Stop spreading the myth about Amtrak on-time performance, especially on short, regional routes.

>>Are there any hotels in DC (pref near the White House) that offer shuttle service to/from BWI? We are traveling with small children and luggage and would be swayed on which hotel to book if they offered transportation.<<

The hotels you've mentioned on the other thread probably have a relationship with a car service. Call the hotel directly and ask -- if the front desk or concierge doesn't have the info on fares to BWI at their fingertips they'll be happy to find out.

I strongly disagree with the suggestion to rent a car. The area of downtown you're looking to stay in during the Cherry Blossom Festival will be much busier with foot & car traffic in addition to the everyday commuter traffic.