2023 New England Fall Colors by Rail

      Portland, Maine

      SI
      Special Interest Tours
      • Email address verified
      47 reviews
      Sep 29 - Oct 6, 2023
      Group size: 15 - 40
      2023 New England Fall Colors by Rail
      Portland, Maine

      Special Interest Tours
      • Email address verified
      47 reviews

      Sep 29 - Oct 6, 2023
      Group size: 15 - 40

      About this trip

      Join this fully private car adventure to spend the colorful fall season exploring the best of New England's scenic railways and museums. Enjoy incredible adventures on narrow gauge, cog railways steam charters and more!

      What’s included

      • 7 Nights Hotel
        2 Nights Hyatt Place Portland, 3 Nights Lake Opechee Inn and Spa, 2 Nights Lord Camden Inn
      • Ground Transportation
        Private Cars on all Trains and Private Coach Bus 9/30-10/5. The hotel shuttle will provide transfers to/from the Portland airport and Amtrak station on 9/29 & 10/6
      • 2 Meals Daily
        Breakfast and either lunch of dinner on full tour days
      • Boat Cruise Dinner
        On the Opening NIght
      • 1 Breakfast
        On the morning of departure
      • Maine Narrow Gauge
        Private Steam Charter with photo runby
      • Seashore Trolley Museum
        Private Tour and Trolley Ride
      • Hobo & Winnipesaukee RR
        Private Car Turkey Dinner Train around Lake Winnipesaukee
      • Mt Washington Cog
        Private Shop Tour & Steam Train Ride
      • Conway Scenic
        A full day in private cars -Includes the pass through the Crawford Notch
      • WWF Railroad
        Private shop tour and steam charter with photo runbys.
      • Belfast & Moosehead
        Private Charter Rail Excursion with photo runbys
      • Boothbay Rail Village
        With a Shop Tour
      • Cafe Lafayette
        A private car dinner train on the Hobo Railroad. Named a top 4 dinner train in the world by Wall Street Journal
      • Lobster Bake Dinner
        At Boothbay Rail Village
      • Visit to Bar Harbor
        Guided Park Trolley Tour

      What’s not included

      • Pre-Tour Transportation
        Transportation to/from Portland. We can help arrange flights by request.
      • Additional Alcohol
      • Personal Items
        Purchases of a personal nature

      Available Packages

      Double Occupancy

      Per person price based on two guests sharing hotel rooms.

      $6,970
      Deposit: $500
      Single Occupancy

      Per person price based on one guest in the hotel rooms.

      $8,270
      Deposit: $500

      Available options



      Itinerary

      Day 1 - Sept 29
      Arrive in Portland - Private Sunset Cruise & Welcome Dinner

      Arrive in Portland and get settled at the hotel. We will provide shuttles on this day from the Portland airport and railway station to the hotel.


      In the evening get acquainted with the Trains Magazine special guest and your fellow tour guests while we will enjoy a private sunset harbor cruise with drinks, followed by our welcome dinner.

      Your Organizer


      SI
      Special Interest Tours
      47 reviews
      Joined in June 2021
      See profile

      Reviews

      We had a great trip! We saw a lot, learned a lot and made new and interesting friends. As we've come to expect with Special Interest Tours, everything exceeded our expectations. Our hosts graciously and attentively cared for all of us, and once again created many wonderful memories for us. What more could one ask!! Thank you!
      By Lynn D for Group 1 -2024 Total Solar Eclipse in Texas, with Astronomer Bob Berman on Apr 20, 2024
      We had a great time.
      By James M for Group 1 -2024 Total Solar Eclipse in Texas, with Astronomer Bob Berman on Apr 20, 2024
      Well done! We had a great trip. Thank you!
      By James P for Group 2 - 2024 Total Solar Eclipse in Texas, w/ Astronomer Bob Berman on Apr 19, 2024
      Thank you Anjali, Sam, Julia and Andres for all your hard work. The private tours of the space center, River walk boat, and the Alamo were great venues, and even though we all would have enjoyed a longer totality, the entire package with a nice group of people made for a very enjoyable trip. See you on the next one!
      By Paul Z for Group 1 -2024 Total Solar Eclipse in Texas, with Astronomer Bob Berman on Apr 19, 2024
      The overall structure of the trip was excellent. We enjoyed the venues, special tours and various stops. Having said that, the actual organization of the trip was poor and chaotic and times. We recognize weather and other unforeseen events always happen, but that is not an excuse for keeping the folks in Group 2 informed which was not the case. The guide on our bus is a nice person but he had little useful information - he was more of a "babysitter" than anything else. He had to wait for somebody from the first bus to come on board and inform us of the up to date schedule and then that was not always clear. Cell phone communication usually works even in Texas. Having to deal with our own luggage to and from buses was a pain. I don't usually go on tours, but the ones I do always have folks from the hotel load and unload luggage from the buses. I know there was complexity related to having two buses that is easy to deal with. Give everybody tags attached to their bags where they write Group 1 or Group 2 to make sure that the right bags get into the right bus. And, then folks can take a look and confirm their bags are loaded if they want to double check. This is just one example on how to improve the. operational/detail aspects of the tour. The venue at the eclipse site (we did not stay there) was poorly run, disorganized and did not seem to know how to handle a medium size group such as ours. Again, the various guides on the trip were slow to step in and make sure things worked as promised. You know there is a problem when you can't even get a cup of coffee. You need additional professional help to better run your tours. Sometimes the small details can make the difference between a good trip and a bad trip. Having said all that, I will again note we enjoyed the trip and thought that having Bob Berman and the Hubbell's as part of the tour was a real positive., and we are considering the 2025 Chile trip. My last word is that if you want sophisticated clients you need to be operationally more sophisticated and professional which seemed not to be the case for this trip.
      By Michael D for Group 2 - 2024 Total Solar Eclipse in Texas, w/ Astronomer Bob Berman on Apr 19, 2024
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