I have one afternoon evening free to tour the Napa Valley. I found this link to the Napa Wine Train and wondered if anyone has done this and is it worth the 3 hour trip (is the scenery from this train beautiful and is the dinner good)?
www.winetrain.com

There seems to be different train cars with different menus, so if you have been on this, what car/menu did you choose and how was it?

The Wine train was founded by the Rice A Roni mogul.

The locals were up in arems. You'll see many 'no wine train' signs on your trip.

If it's not a weekend, particularly in the summer, I would suggest you either join on your own or join a tour group.

The price looks pretty high to me. I looked at the Vitner's lunch and it was $169.

Personally, I would go to Bistro Jeannty in Yountville and have a delicious lunch from Philippe Jeanty. WWW.bistrojeanty.com

the train trip is lovely, food not excellent but decent, but WAY overpriced.

I didn't even look at prices...but that does seem a bit ridiculous -especially if the food isn't great....hmmm.

Thanks for the thoughts!

The train follows Highway 29 from Napa to St. Helena, so you actually get the same views by driving the highway. Then you have your choice of many fabulous restaurants along the way. I must admit I've never taken the Wine Train, but many people do, so there must be something appealing about it. However, in my opinion, you're likely to have a wonderful time without it.

We did a lot of driving around the wine area and found it so nice to have the freedom to drive thru the charming little towns and communities at our own leisure. You also get to experience the local restaurants (of which there as so many great ones) that are much better priced. We lunched at Ad Hoc in Yountsville (a pretty high end restaurant owned or at one time operated by a world class chef) for much less than $169.

My husband and I did the wine train dinner some years ago; sorry I do not remember which level we selected, don't think there were too many options; anyway, the dinner was very good but not fabulous given the options available in Napa. The train scenery was not exciting heading north, so it was just as well it was dark when we returned south. Would not put it on my recommendations for Napa.

My husband and I had dinner on the wine train several years ago. While the food was good, it wasn't fabulous. The view was not great since the train tracks went along the highway and it was getting dark already so you couldn't see that much anyway.

The main appeal is if you just want to experience eating on a moving train. From what I remember, there were 2 seatings (we had the later one) so we had drinks in one car, got to walk through the kitchen car to watch the food being prepared, and then were seated for dinner.

There are plenty of much better restaurant choices if you just want good food, but if you want to ride the train, it's kind of unique.