The Amtrak staff are usually short-tempered and or rude.
Comes from running on rented freight bumpy tracks and alway always being late, for having to pull over for Every lousy freight train!!
Bad neighborhood.
So bathroom is "c" grade, often damaged and never cleaned often enough.
Always sit by LEFT WINDOWS of the train FOR BETTER VIEWS.
if you change seats on the train, say go upstairs, be sure to take your tiny white seat ticket with you. Or the mostly grumpy Conductors will enjoy berating you for something you can't be expected to know everything about!!
In Merced, again, SIT BY THE LEFT WINDOWS FOR THE BEST VIEWS UP THE MERCED RIVER HIGHWAY TO YOSEMITE VALLEY.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED:
1- The 2 hour, about $25 Valley Tour Tram Ride. Yes, there is the Free Valley Shuttle in $250k diesel-electric buses, if you want to feel like a sardine. Maybe you remember the 'custom' badly made doubledecker open top buses of the 70s-80s that carried more people and were much more spacious and enjoyable public transit. And the whippy 3 car trams, again a flawed construction contract, but more fun than current boring expensive urban fleet.
2-Sometimes there is a Native California indian, the world famous basketweaver JULIA PARKER, at the INDIAN MUSEUM and VILLAGE, that most tour guides do not mention, unfortunately.
She is a National Treasure, in my opinion!!
Check out her WIKIPEDIA page.
3-Yosrmite Lodge cafeteria is just ok food for a visit, not constantly. I get the spagetti or tube rigatoni pasta and meatballs, buy extra meatballs, and always ask for "extra sauce, please". And parmesan.
Or the cheeseburger.
Or the small pizza.
Or the ruben sandwich.
Sometimes the hot soups.
Again, NPS park policy prices are SKY HIGH and most of the food in the park is just "ok", with a few exceptions.
4-You may or may not on a sf turn bus or train-bus tour have time for lunch at the super expensive, fancy hotel, the Ahwahnee, but for some this may be a happier option.
I like early 7am breakfast at a deuce ,2 seat tiny table by South windows with GREAT VIEWS. I also skip dinner here and eat at the Lodge Broiler Room-steak restaurant, then cross plaza to Lodge bar for a draft beer, and I'm good.
5-There are usually black (brown) bears in the middle of the valley eating grass and veg to fatten up after winter hibernation.
This DOES NOT MEAN YOU SHOULD GO LOOKING FOR THEM IN THE TALL GRASS,,, WILD ANIMALS, VERY PROTECTIVE MAMA BEARS OF THEIR CUBS !!
IF you go hiking on a trail, you might want to wear a tiny bell on your daypack or person, just so you don't surprise a bear walking around a rock or tree.
6-IF you are parking your car or a rental car anywhere in the YNP, but especially the apple orchard lot at Curry Village and the May Lake High Sierra Camp paved Parking Lot, I always (discreetly) powder my left and right side doors with RED CHILI POWDER, cheap if buy in bulk at a major city restaurant supply store, to keep the bears from peeling down both side windows and causing $ BILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN CAR DOORS DAMAGE OVER THE DECADES. Check before you go to see if YOUR car insurance covers bear damage in a NPark.
HUGE PROBLEM OVER THE DECADES. Many bears have been terminated. Too many.
7- Don't EXPECT to be rescued.
So don't do stupid stuff like rock climb, without a guide , gear and training.
Or jumping off bridges into the river. Rangers will yell at you, and can ARREST YOU and take you before one of the scary imfamous "hanging federal judges of Yosemite", especially for fist fights and shop lifting!!
Nasty federal jail right in Valley.
Also EXCELLENT MEDICAL CLINIC !! in Yosemite Village, East of General Store.
8- Read some John Muir in the Valley he so loved.
He walked the first time from Frisco!!
There is a thin small brown booklet you can buy cheap.
The other MUST BOOK is the former $4, now $10,,, YOSEMITE ROAD GUIDE !!
Why NPS decided to retail gouge us on this essential book, priced so low for decades, is beyond Bureaucratic! !
9-RESPECT THE PARK, all over 1000 square miles of it.
Enjoy !!
Thanks , Teddy Roosevelt and President Lincoln !!
