Not to long ago the Brightline opened in Miami (the first privately owned train line since 1993) and runs from Downtown Miami to West Palm Beach. They are also currently working on building an expansion out to Orlando. This is train was created to fill the need of quick, affordable transportation between the popular neighborhoods of Miami, especially as traffic gets worse.

Miami to Fort Lauderdale: 30 minute trip

Miami to West Palm Beach: 60 minute trip (Opened May 19)

Normally a trip from Fort Lauderdale to Palm Beach takes 50 minutes to drive without traffic

This same Fort Lauderdale to Palm Beach trip on transit would take over an hour

Miami to Orlando: 3 hour trip - currently being built

has a planned stop in Cocoa

expected to open in late 2022 - delayed due to COVID - over 50% completed

more expected in the future

All the stations have Lyft, Uber, and Taxi spots so you can be picked up and head off to where ever you need to go once you arrive at your destination. Currently you can also park at the stations for free. The stations also have grab-and-go food areas which serve beer, wine and a variety of pastries and other snack items.

Miami Station - MiamiCentral

600 NW 1st Avenue (entrance is on the corner of NW 1st / NW 6th)

This station connects to the Metrorail, Metromover, trolley, and the bus. It will also be connected to the Tri-Rail station.

Fort Lauderdale

101 N.W. 2nd Ave (between Broward Boulevard / NW 4th St)

This station connects with the Sun Trolley and bus system. They also own a plot of land nearby with current plans to create a transit development.

West Palm Beach

260 Quadrille Plaza Drive (north of CityPlace and west of Quadrille Blvd)

Connects to Tri-Rail, Palm Tran Downtown Trolley, and Amtrak West Palm Beach Station.

Orlando - Orlando International Airport Intermodal Terminal

This will be inside the completed Orlando International Airport once the construction is completed. Plans are for it to be connected to the SunRail system and maybe the rail to International Drive / Orlando Convention Center.

While the website does not always work very well (I find the mobile works better than the desktop), there is a lot of information out there but you do book the tickets direct on their website.

Costs seem to vary depending on the location, season, and time you are traveling. For us we bought a ticket from Miami Downtown to Fort Lauderdale for $15/person but we decided to go for the Select class as it was a $3/person price more.

Each train is made up of three Smart Coach cars and one Select Coach cars. The Select Coach has larger seats and complimentary food and beverage service where as the Smart Coach features the same items for a fee. Another perk of the Select Coach is that in the afternoons & evenings you can get complimentary beer and wine. Since we were are on vacation and it was only $3 more than Smart, how can we say no to that?

After the trip in September, I will update this and let you know what it's like to use the train. Have to say I am excited and glad that this train opened up when it did as it will save us a lot of money and will be easy to get to from the cruise port via taxi.

A little while ago I wrote an article about the new train that runs from Miami to West Palm Beach with a stop in Fort Lauderdale (and soon Orlando). It was new, it was exciting, and there wasn’t a lot of information on it but since it was faster and cheaper to a cab into Fort Lauderdale from Miami i booked two tickets on it.

Booking tickets online was extremely easy and no different than booking a flight. The eTickets were emailed to me and i screen grabbed them to my phone (goo thing too as the link in the email expired after a month and without haven’t internet while travelling there was no way to log into the website to get them). They even showed the different fares and inclusions so it was a no brainer to pay the extra $5 per person to get upgraded to Select.

Once at the station (the Miami one is a 5-10 minute walk from Bayside. Market) it was very clean and easy to figure out where to go. After walking into the building we were met by two ladies that were the baggage’s checkers. Here we found out that our full size suitcase has to be check in but we also found out that as select we were able to check 1 bag per person for free. Checking them in was quick and we were given tags that we have to keep to collect our bags in Fort Lauderdale.

After check in, we went up stairs to the lounge. At the lounge you need to scan you ticket barcode to get into the lounge. The trick with the lounge scan in is that you can only go through one at a time or you will set off an alarm. As we only had one ticket on one phone, i scanned it and went through before passing it over to my husband so he could scan it and come through.

Within the lounge we found lots of comfy seats, lots of places to charge things, and a full minibar with three types of beer, lots of water, and some pop. There was four types of wine, three types of potato chips, and a bunch of different fruits. There was also some flavoured chilled water and a few energy bars. The great thing about this? Since we are select it is all you can great and all you can drink after 3 beers, and grabbing 2 bottles of water as well as chips to go, we got our moneys worth.

Since Select gets a 30 minute pre-early boarding and the train was supposed to be departing soon we headed over to the escalator to the train. We then found out we were actually supposed to wait in the lounge until we were called. Too late to go back at this point so we kept waiting. Once we were called it was up the escalator and onto the train.

The cars were clearly marked and there were lots of staff on hand to help. In our coach, the seats were large and very comfy with outlets to charge items. There is also a menu that explains what is included, a map of the train lines, safety procedures, et. This is also where i learned that Select only gets free alcohol after 3pm. Since it was just after 2pm that would mean no booze for us oooorrr does it?

Looking out the window I saw a little welcome bar for Select so I jumped out and grabbed another 3 beers and a water before jumping back on the train. I figured that with a 37 minute train ride we could easily finish 3 beers. That is when the train started moving and we were off on our trip. The beginning of it was very slow as we got through Miami and then it picked up. It was also at this time the galley service started. Turns out we were allowed alcohol so i got a gin slime and the hubby got another beer but the server opened it so he now had two open beers which would be fine to finish.

Except we didn’t realize that there was only 10 minutes left in the trip. Before we knew it, we were off the drink with a drink in each hand and trying to carry luggage into the terminal. As soon as we got into the terminal we found a place that we could stand and finish our drinks as we were not allowed to leave with them. The staff was really nice and had no problem with us just hanging out. We spoke with a few and found out that the rail line the train uses is actually a freight line that they rent space which explains why it has the location that it does. The train also gets extremely busy during rush hour with all the commuters so if you are planning on traveling during the week make sure you watch the times you book as rush hour will not only cost you more than booking during the slow seasons, things fill up quick so if you have to travel during high times make sure to pre-book.

With the beers down we headed downstairs and our bags were waiting there with the baggage handlers. After giving him our luggage tickets he off loaded them and then helped us call a cab. If you have the Lyft app they have lift spots where drivers will be hanging out. Unfortunately they don’t have any of these for cabs so you do have to wait for one to come over but there is a comfy waiting area with air conditioning.

Overall I would recommend Brightline in a heartbeat and i certainly felt that we got our money’s worth. The great thing with this train is that it opens a few new options. You could easily look at flying into Miami and taking the train into Fort Lauderdale or vice versa. With it expanding into Orlando, that will give you a third airport that you can fly into for even more deals or if you want to spend a weekend on the beach ad then head into DisneyWorld, you can. If you are cruising, both the Miami and Fort Lauderdale stations are both 20 minutes (drive) away so it is very easy to get around.

Currently pricing is still low (not as low as when they first opened but still low) so it will be interesting to see what the price will be. I’m hoping that they will keep it competitive with the airfare but affordable as it sounds like there are a lot of locals it sounds like who take it. If you are wanting to pop around between the three stops it does currently, you can get weekend all day/unlimited passes for a discount so make sure to check those out if you are wanting to get around.