Well, we are off early in the morning, thanks for all the help and I will report in as I am able or at least when we get back. Dh will be flying home Sunday night so once again, mom and the kids on vacation without dad 
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What to see/do in DC?--adding trip reports, page 11 to start
- Thread starter golfgal
- Start date
Nancy for Disney
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Well, we are off early in the morning, thanks for all the help and I will report in as I am able or at least when we get back. Dh will be flying home Sunday night so once again, mom and the kids on vacation without dad
Please let us know how it went. Looking forward to it.
Ok, here is day one:
Got up at 4 AM for 6 AM flight. Flew from Minneapolis to Atlanta, arrived early, had to sit on the tarmac for about 15 minutes, flight from Atlanta to DC was scheduled for 1 hour after we touched down (1/2 hour after our scheduled landing time) so we got off the plane, used the rest rooms, walked to the next gate, waited about 10 minutes then boarded our connecting flight. That was cool. We took off about 20 minutes late because some people couldn't figure out how to find their seat.
We arrived at Reagan about 10 minutes late, got off the plane and walked a very short distance to the baggage claim area-nice set up there. Tried to find Grandma and Grandpa, couldn't find them any where, called them, they said they were at the "main terminal" and would walk over to where we were. We soon discovered that their "travel agent" booked them into Dulles, whoops (I booked their flights).
We took the metro from the airport to Alexandria-just 2 short stops away. We bought week long passes for the metro. We are staying at the Westin, about a 3-4 block walk from the metro-very easy. Got to the hotel and only one of our rooms was ready-we had connecting rooms reserved-one king, one with 2 doubles. It was ok because we were early. We put our things in Grandma and Grandpa's room and we all headed off to Arlington National Cemetery. 3 metro stops away. We already LOVE the metro.
Arlington is HUGE. The gravesites go on forever. We saw the Kennedy gravesite, got to see the changing of the guard at the tomb of the unknown soldier and just walked around there in general. ***here is a tip if you want to do the tourmobile at Arlington and the monuments at night tour, buy your tickets at the Tourmobile site at Arlington--it was less expensive then buying them online and they have a package deal that saves you about $8/ticket. I don't know that the tourmobile is worth it at Arlington unless it is VERY hot or you can't walk up and down hills.
No one else wanted to pay for the Monuments at Night tour so we decided to go over there after Arlington. We were going to hop the metro but then walking to the stop we noticed the Lincoln Memorial just down the road. On the map it looked to be about 1/2 mile, in reality it is closer to a mile walk, but easy. We stopped at the Korean War Memorial, which is eerie with the statues of the soldiers walking in the woods there. We then walked over to the Lincoln Memorial. By this time several other members of our group were complaining about all the walking. I reminded them that we COULD have taken the tour bus...
We decided to go back to the hotel but found that the metro stop was by the Washington Memorial so we walked over there. We walked through the Vietnam Memorial on the way there. I was expecting it to be bigger, but still, just the sheer number of names on the walls there... WOW.
We walked over to the Washington memorial, got a view of the White House, walked by some of the Smithsonian museum buildings. We walked along Constitution Ave by the Environmental Protection Agency building. It is a great building-love the architecture. We got on the metro at the Federal Triangle stop and came back to our hotel. The kids were falling asleep on the metro. It was about 9:00 when we got back to the hotel. We ate dinner at the hotel.
While we were waiting for our food I walked over to the front desk to get our key for our room (we had checked in already but they were cleaning the rooms so we didn't have our key). The kids went up to the room after they were done eating, but came right back down because the key didn't work. Went to the front desk, they re-coded the key. Went up to the room and walk in-it has ONE king bed, for the 5 of us. Went back to the front desk and the clerk there said that we weren't even in a connecting room-it was connecting but it is the ONLY connecting room set up with 2 king beds. She didn't even know that. She brought the manager over, they looked to see if they had a roll-away but they were all taken. They put us in a different double room for the night and said that today we can be moved to a different connecting set-up with the right number of beds
Today we have the Zoo, Cathedral and the National Archives on the schedule. We are also meeting my aunt and cousins at ESPN Zone (or something like that) for lunch.
Got up at 4 AM for 6 AM flight. Flew from Minneapolis to Atlanta, arrived early, had to sit on the tarmac for about 15 minutes, flight from Atlanta to DC was scheduled for 1 hour after we touched down (1/2 hour after our scheduled landing time) so we got off the plane, used the rest rooms, walked to the next gate, waited about 10 minutes then boarded our connecting flight. That was cool. We took off about 20 minutes late because some people couldn't figure out how to find their seat
.We arrived at Reagan about 10 minutes late, got off the plane and walked a very short distance to the baggage claim area-nice set up there. Tried to find Grandma and Grandpa, couldn't find them any where, called them, they said they were at the "main terminal" and would walk over to where we were. We soon discovered that their "travel agent" booked them into Dulles, whoops (I booked their flights).
We took the metro from the airport to Alexandria-just 2 short stops away. We bought week long passes for the metro. We are staying at the Westin, about a 3-4 block walk from the metro-very easy. Got to the hotel and only one of our rooms was ready-we had connecting rooms reserved-one king, one with 2 doubles. It was ok because we were early. We put our things in Grandma and Grandpa's room and we all headed off to Arlington National Cemetery. 3 metro stops away. We already LOVE the metro.
Arlington is HUGE. The gravesites go on forever. We saw the Kennedy gravesite, got to see the changing of the guard at the tomb of the unknown soldier and just walked around there in general. ***here is a tip if you want to do the tourmobile at Arlington and the monuments at night tour, buy your tickets at the Tourmobile site at Arlington--it was less expensive then buying them online and they have a package deal that saves you about $8/ticket. I don't know that the tourmobile is worth it at Arlington unless it is VERY hot or you can't walk up and down hills.
No one else wanted to pay for the Monuments at Night tour so we decided to go over there after Arlington. We were going to hop the metro but then walking to the stop we noticed the Lincoln Memorial just down the road. On the map it looked to be about 1/2 mile, in reality it is closer to a mile walk, but easy. We stopped at the Korean War Memorial, which is eerie with the statues of the soldiers walking in the woods there. We then walked over to the Lincoln Memorial. By this time several other members of our group were complaining about all the walking
. I reminded them that we COULD have taken the tour bus...We decided to go back to the hotel but found that the metro stop was by the Washington Memorial so we walked over there. We walked through the Vietnam Memorial on the way there. I was expecting it to be bigger, but still, just the sheer number of names on the walls there... WOW.
We walked over to the Washington memorial, got a view of the White House, walked by some of the Smithsonian museum buildings. We walked along Constitution Ave by the Environmental Protection Agency building. It is a great building-love the architecture. We got on the metro at the Federal Triangle stop and came back to our hotel. The kids were falling asleep on the metro. It was about 9:00 when we got back to the hotel. We ate dinner at the hotel.
While we were waiting for our food I walked over to the front desk to get our key for our room (we had checked in already but they were cleaning the rooms so we didn't have our key). The kids went up to the room after they were done eating, but came right back down because the key didn't work. Went to the front desk, they re-coded the key. Went up to the room and walk in-it has ONE king bed, for the 5 of us. Went back to the front desk and the clerk there said that we weren't even in a connecting room-it was connecting but it is the ONLY connecting room set up with 2 king beds. She didn't even know that. She brought the manager over, they looked to see if they had a roll-away but they were all taken. They put us in a different double room for the night and said that today we can be moved to a different connecting set-up with the right number of beds
Today we have the Zoo, Cathedral and the National Archives on the schedule. We are also meeting my aunt and cousins at ESPN Zone (or something like that) for lunch.
Christine
DIS Legend
- Joined
- Aug 31, 1999
- Messages
- 32,603
golfgal,
Sounds like you are doing very well already!
I hope the weather holds out for you today. I was SHOCKED to wake up to overcast skies and light rain. Was is UP with that? That have no clue how to forecast weather here. It was such a beautiful day yesterday. Good news is that it is at least not too hot.
Sounds like you are doing very well already!
I hope the weather holds out for you today. I was SHOCKED to wake up to overcast skies and light rain. Was is UP with that? That have no clue how to forecast weather here. It was such a beautiful day yesterday. Good news is that it is at least not too hot.
marathonmommy
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- Jul 14, 2005
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- 2,064
Keep them coming . . .
clutter
DIS Veteran
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- Apr 29, 2001
- Messages
- 4,310
The one in DC? Not worth it. The one in Baltimore is worth it.
jillyb
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Mar 30, 2008
- Messages
- 2,437
Thanks! That's pretty much what the UG to D.C. says. Think we'll skip the aquarium. We've got some time planned at the zoo and I know that will be a hit.
Nancy for Disney
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Apr 7, 2008
- Messages
- 1,114
golfgal,
Thanks for the update. Can't wait until it is my turn although we won't have a computer to do it live.
Thanks for the update. Can't wait until it is my turn although we won't have a computer to do it live.
NotUrsula
DIS Legend
- Joined
- Apr 19, 2002
- Messages
- 20,074
Golfgal,
sounds like a good trip so far! Just remember, come Monday rush hour, on Metro, it's stand left, walk right. It's not posted, but trust me, the commuters will tell you about it!
On my recent visits, the pattern was the opposite: stand right, walk left. Actually, SPRINT left, for the most part. Makes sense if you think about it -- that is the same rule that is used on US highways, where the slow lane is the far right.
In any case, pay attention to it, and get out of the way of people who are walking ASAP (especially be aware of where your children are standing -- they tend to be the worst offenders because they are too busy looking around.)
clutter
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Apr 29, 2001
- Messages
- 4,310
OMG, you're right!!! I haven't taken the Metro for years. But my boss does, and I hear about the ^&%* tourists every day from her!!! And yes, the locals do sprint.
There's a link in my signature.
torinsmom
<font color=red>I have someone coming to scoop<br>
- Joined
- Apr 7, 2004
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- 8,921
Learned this real quick on our trip earlier this month. For some reason, DS14 could not remember and I had to pull him over to my side quite a few times. I was AMAZED at how fast some of those people were going down the escalator, especially the long one at Woodley Park!
Marsha
Day 2:
The kids were wiped out and we finally had to roll them out of bed close to 10:00 yesterday morning. We ate breakfast at the Whole Foods Market in Alexandria. We were going to eat at the Table Top Cafe but there was a line. The Whole Foods food is nothing to write home about but it was food.
We decided since we got such a late start to go to the archives as we were having lunch with my cousins at 1:00 at the ESPN Zone. We got to the archives but the line was pretty long so we decided to walk around. My Dad is a want-to-be writer of crime novels and wanted to go see the FBI building so we walked by that. We then discovered we were only a few blocks from the White House so we walked over there. We got there and the sidewalks were barricaded off with police standing guard. Apparently the "Family" was outside in the yard. We didn't have time to walk around the Ellipse so we walked back to ESPN. We got there right about 1:00 so we went in and ate. We stat and chatted for about 2 hours.
After lunch we walked back to the archives. The outside line wasn't too bad so we went in. The inside line was a different story. We saw the Magna Carta, saw the line, went to the gift shop and left figuring we would come back later as someone here mentioned there is generally no line late in the day. We decided to go to the zoo.
We got the the zoo at about 5:00 with a 6:00 closing so we went straight to the Pandas. They were all inside so we got to see them, 2 were sleeping, one was eating. We walked around the zoo for a bit and saw the cheetahs and some of the other animals. The habitats are so small for the animals. I was surprised at how small they were. We stayed at the zoo for an hour, stopped at Starbucks across the street and then headed back to try the archives again. We got to the archive building at about 6:45 and it was closed-even though the sign said that it was open until 7:30 so we hopped the metro and came back to the hotel.
We grabbed some Pizza on the way back and we were going to go sit in the hot tub but apparently you have to be 16 to even get IN the hot tub here so we just came back to our room and ate. We were all pretty tired so we turned in early.
All in all we didn't see much yesterday (we did stop by a shop called Teaism-Grandma loves all things to do with tea--they have some pretty cool teapots, bowls, etc. I found a small cast iron tea pot that will look great on some shelves in my kitchen that I am trying to decorate. We will stop by on Thursday to actually buy it because I didn't want to lug it around.
Today we are going to some of the Smithsonian museums-American History and Air and Space. We are then going to head up to Georgetown to do some shopping and hope to stop by the archives on the way back. We will get there eventually
.
The kids were wiped out and we finally had to roll them out of bed close to 10:00 yesterday morning. We ate breakfast at the Whole Foods Market in Alexandria. We were going to eat at the Table Top Cafe but there was a line. The Whole Foods food is nothing to write home about but it was food.
We decided since we got such a late start to go to the archives as we were having lunch with my cousins at 1:00 at the ESPN Zone. We got to the archives but the line was pretty long so we decided to walk around. My Dad is a want-to-be writer of crime novels and wanted to go see the FBI building so we walked by that. We then discovered we were only a few blocks from the White House so we walked over there. We got there and the sidewalks were barricaded off with police standing guard. Apparently the "Family" was outside in the yard. We didn't have time to walk around the Ellipse so we walked back to ESPN. We got there right about 1:00 so we went in and ate. We stat and chatted for about 2 hours.
After lunch we walked back to the archives. The outside line wasn't too bad so we went in. The inside line was a different story. We saw the Magna Carta, saw the line, went to the gift shop and left figuring we would come back later as someone here mentioned there is generally no line late in the day. We decided to go to the zoo.
We got the the zoo at about 5:00 with a 6:00 closing so we went straight to the Pandas. They were all inside so we got to see them, 2 were sleeping, one was eating. We walked around the zoo for a bit and saw the cheetahs and some of the other animals. The habitats are so small for the animals. I was surprised at how small they were. We stayed at the zoo for an hour, stopped at Starbucks across the street and then headed back to try the archives again. We got to the archive building at about 6:45 and it was closed-even though the sign said that it was open until 7:30 so we hopped the metro and came back to the hotel.
We grabbed some Pizza on the way back and we were going to go sit in the hot tub but apparently you have to be 16 to even get IN the hot tub here so we just came back to our room and ate. We were all pretty tired so we turned in early.
All in all we didn't see much yesterday (we did stop by a shop called Teaism-Grandma loves all things to do with tea--they have some pretty cool teapots, bowls, etc. I found a small cast iron tea pot that will look great on some shelves in my kitchen that I am trying to decorate. We will stop by on Thursday to actually buy it because I didn't want to lug it around.
Today we are going to some of the Smithsonian museums-American History and Air and Space. We are then going to head up to Georgetown to do some shopping and hope to stop by the archives on the way back. We will get there eventually
.
Mickey Fliers
DIS Veteran
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- Sep 18, 2004
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- 4,872
Have fun! It is going to be a warm one here today. The Archives are worth it...stick with it.
Nancy for Disney
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Apr 7, 2008
- Messages
- 1,114
Thanks for the update. Keep them coming. Sorry to hear about not being able to see the archieves. Now you have me worried. I guess we are going to have to plan an extra early start when we go.
I do have an update on my Holocaust Museum advance tickets purchase. I ordered them Friday night and they were already in the mail today.
I do have an update on my Holocaust Museum advance tickets purchase. I ordered them Friday night and they were already in the mail today.
Day 3
I got the kids up earlier then yesterday so we could actually see something. We ate at Table Talk in Alexandria, nothing special there but it was breakfast. We took the metro into DC and went to the American History Museum. I have to say I was really disappointed in this. They really didn't have all that much on display and I was expecting to see more known artifacts from around the country. When they had the Smithsonian tour several years ago they had a lot more on that tour then they had in the museum.
We walked down to the Old Post Office for lunch. The pictures in the guide books looked better then it really was but it is still a neat building. DD and Grandpa went up in the tower, the rest of us passed.
After lunch we went to the Air and Space museum. I like this one much better and spent a lot of time there. I especially enjoyed looking at all the satellite photos and the other photos of the world.
We then walked down to the Botanical Gardens near the Capital. We looked around there some and decided to take our tired feet back to the hotel. It was getting close to 5:00 so we thought we would eat first to avoid rush hour metro traffic. Well, we found out that the cafe in the Museum of the American Indian closes at 5:15 sooo, they didn't have much food left. We had what amounted to a snack there and headed over to the metro. We took the metro to the hotel and went right for the hot tub to soak our tired feet.
We are trying to decide if we should get something to eat now or not. I was trying to find something other then pizza that delivers but no luck there.
We were going to go to Georgetown today but didn't quite make it up there. I think we will do that on Wednesday or Thursday.
Our hotel:
We are staying at the Westin and I have to say, I don't know that I would stay here again. The rooms are really not much better then a Courtyard by Marriott-actually I prefer the beds at a Courtyard. The front desk staff, while pleasant, doesn't really seem to know what they are doing. See my post about our first day room mess-up. We have told them several times to take the roll-away out of Grandma and Grandpa's room, they still have not done that. There is no information hear about what is available in the hotel, around town, not even a map. They have a concierge desk but so far we have not had any luck catching someone there. I DO like staying in Alexandria though. If I were to stay here again I would stay at the Embassy Suites for convenience.
Tomorrow we have more museum tours, Holocaust, Am Indian, Natural History and we have a guided Capital tour.
I got the kids up earlier then yesterday so we could actually see something. We ate at Table Talk in Alexandria, nothing special there but it was breakfast. We took the metro into DC and went to the American History Museum. I have to say I was really disappointed in this. They really didn't have all that much on display and I was expecting to see more known artifacts from around the country. When they had the Smithsonian tour several years ago they had a lot more on that tour then they had in the museum.
We walked down to the Old Post Office for lunch. The pictures in the guide books looked better then it really was but it is still a neat building. DD and Grandpa went up in the tower, the rest of us passed
. After lunch we went to the Air and Space museum. I like this one much better and spent a lot of time there. I especially enjoyed looking at all the satellite photos and the other photos of the world.
We then walked down to the Botanical Gardens near the Capital. We looked around there some and decided to take our tired feet back to the hotel. It was getting close to 5:00 so we thought we would eat first to avoid rush hour metro traffic. Well, we found out that the cafe in the Museum of the American Indian closes at 5:15 sooo, they didn't have much food left. We had what amounted to a snack there and headed over to the metro. We took the metro to the hotel and went right for the hot tub to soak our tired feet.
We are trying to decide if we should get something to eat now or not. I was trying to find something other then pizza that delivers but no luck there.
We were going to go to Georgetown today but didn't quite make it up there. I think we will do that on Wednesday or Thursday.
Our hotel:
We are staying at the Westin and I have to say, I don't know that I would stay here again. The rooms are really not much better then a Courtyard by Marriott-actually I prefer the beds at a Courtyard. The front desk staff, while pleasant, doesn't really seem to know what they are doing. See my post about our first day room mess-up. We have told them several times to take the roll-away out of Grandma and Grandpa's room, they still have not done that. There is no information hear about what is available in the hotel, around town, not even a map. They have a concierge desk but so far we have not had any luck catching someone there. I DO like staying in Alexandria though. If I were to stay here again I would stay at the Embassy Suites for convenience.
Tomorrow we have more museum tours, Holocaust, Am Indian, Natural History and we have a guided Capital tour.
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