ORLANDO — Brightline’s Miami-Orlando schedule is out, and tickets are now on sale — even though an official start date has not yet been announced.
Starting today, travelers can book tickets on Brightline trains between Orlando International Airport and South Florida destinations. Tickets are on sale for trips Sept. 1 through Jan. 7, 2024; however, the official launch of 16 daily Orlando-Miami round trips will likely come before that date.
A media advisory issued Tuesday says the “ official opening date and inaugural rides will be announced after Brightline has completed required testing. Guests should sign up for Brightline emails on www.gobrightline.com to be the first to know when summer inaugural rides will go on sale.”
This strategy allows Brightline to begin selling daily inventory after the company is reasonably certain it has satisfied Federal Railroad Administration performance verification requirements for new trackage north of West Palm Beach capable of 110mph and 125 mph.
As with existing Miami-West Palm Beach service, seats in both Smart and Premium classes are reserved at the time of purchase at Brightline’s website. Miami-Orlando fares for Smart Class, billed as a “business class option” with four-across seating, start at $79 for adults and $39 for kids. Groups of four or more traveling together are eligible for a 25% discount.
Full-route fares for Premium Class, offering wider seats in a two-and-one configuration, start at $149. Initially, there will be one Premium and three Smart coaches on every train, so prices could rise sharply with demand for any given departure.
On the other hand, there are periodic actively marketed deals. For instance, the upcoming “305 Weekend” promotion is offering limited quantities of $10 adult and $5 kids fares May 19-21. Trains News Wire repeatedly received an “OOPS, our servers are busy…please try again soon” message when attempting to ascertain the fare range on Tuesday. This is not the first time Brightline’s site has been overloaded in recent weeks.
Not all Miami-Orlando trains will serve every station, but the Brightline website includes printable grid timetables. All trains will stop at Aventura — a change from current operations between Miami and West Palm Beach — but six to eight will skip Boca Raton, depending on the direction and whether it is a weekday or weekend.
Travel times between Miami and Orlando vary from 3 hours, 25 minutes to 3 hours, 30 minutes.
A ticket change fee policy was unavailable as sales began. News Wire will look at this and other details in an upcoming analysis.
The good news just keeps on coming.
Cool! I will book a round trip with an overnight in Miami. Sounds like fun!
May this premiere have better luck than that insanity with SoundTransit/WSDOT/Amtrak and that who’s on first in the cab.
No reason why Brightline and high speed rail can’t work in this country. Other nations not as great or powerful as us have managed to build world class top of the line rail networks linking major cities in Europe and Asia. 125 mph is considered a major accomplisnment here in the United States but to other nations that is simply a routine speed and pales in comparison to what Japan and now China are doing with high speed rail and China is working on trains that go 200 mph plus. The diffference between us and the rest of the world is while we argue and debate and pour millions of dollars into useless studies and surveys that go nowhere and yield nothing, those nations in both Europe and Asia get to work and build their rail systems. Of course the argument that some folks in this column will say that those rail systems are built with government funding which is true while the American people are against any government funding or subsidies to rail and any form of transportation but we live in a different time and era now where almost all forms of transportation have become a ward of the government with subsidies to keep things moving. While it is great to see Brightline built and created with private funding and investment, some government assistance and funding was necessary to bring this about. It will be interesting to see how Brightline grows and expands into the future as well as be the trendsetter and model for future rail systems to develop in this country. Brightline can be the harbinger of a new era of rail travel in this country just as the high speed rail networks in Europe revitalized rail travel on lines destroyed by the ravages of World War 2. As it’s name implies here is to a new and bright future of rail travel Go Brightline
Joseph C. Markfelder
We need to believe in a government of the people, by the people and for the people.
The success of this service will show other parts of the country that higher-speed rail is a viable option. Hopefully, this is the catalyst that gets this country moving on rail projects.
WoW! I’m so excited to see a modern intercity passenger service with a top speed of 125-mph in America, outside the NEC.