familygoboston
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Jan 28, 2011
- Messages
- 349
First my Washington DC advice:
-If you can't get timed tix, please contact your local Congress person, they can often arrange something...if not White House at least the Capitol building, and possibly a hand shake with them ( which is cool for your kids!)
-consider "Bike the Sites" http://www.bikeandroll.com/washingtondc/
We did their biking the monuments at night, it was fabulous! DC is flat as a board, so even if you are not expert bikers ( like me
) it's easy, and since the monuments are one of the few things "open" at night, it maximizes your time for the day things and they are just magnificent lit up at night. You get time to stop and wander around the monuments , then the guide rolls you to the next, very easy, one of our favorite experiences!
- arrive at the major line attractions early ( I mean early!) You know the attraction where you need to go see this one famous thing that will take 10 minutes, but the line will be 2 hours by 10 Am? It takes a while to wake, dress, feed and bus all those 8 th graders to places like the National Archive, while they are doing that, you get there before 9 AM and see the whole thing in 20 minutes or so. As you head out the door, those bus tours are just starting to roll up. Plan one major "line attraction" for every morning and get there before it opens. Then head to the places where you are likely to spend more time poking, like a museum.
- if you plan to do the the zoo, get up early( are you seeing a trend here? ) like WDW, ( which don't we all love or wouldn't be here
) it's better to go early and nap mid afternoon, than wait 2 hours to look at the constitution in the Archives for 10 minutes! Back to the zoo: go early, right at opening. Start with the Asian exhibit ( the pandas are there, but so are lots of other great animals) it will be gridlocked by 11 AM, so start there and move elsewhere once people start arriving. Plan to leave right around lunch time to save your sanity.
- chunk your daily itinerary into sections...so go to a "line builder attraction" early, then see the museums and other attractions in that area, the next day hit another area, this minimizes walking!
-prioritize...like WDW you can't do it all in one visit, so pick and choose, we decided to tour the whitehouse since we could get tix, but just visited the Court and Capitol buildings. We did Air and Space and one of the Art museums (taking in the sculpture garden as part of our walk from one end to another) because that was what interested each of our kids. We did the monuments at night to maximize the day hours and forgot about the bonus of how gorgeous they'd be!
Good luck! We only spent 2 full days, so we had to power tour...you might have a more relaxed schedule...but I'm gonna go with go early and plan well!
Oh, and where are we going, you ask? Most immediately to western NY and Philadelphia to check out design colleges, ( maybe run up the Rocky steps
) then on an ABD to Ecuador and the Galapagos in August, on a cruise from Tahiti through French Polynesia in October, and next April taking the kids on the worlds largest cruise ship, Allure of the Seas! In between I'll be chill axing in my favorite place in the world...Maine!
-If you can't get timed tix, please contact your local Congress person, they can often arrange something...if not White House at least the Capitol building, and possibly a hand shake with them ( which is cool for your kids!)
-consider "Bike the Sites" http://www.bikeandroll.com/washingtondc/
We did their biking the monuments at night, it was fabulous! DC is flat as a board, so even if you are not expert bikers ( like me
) it's easy, and since the monuments are one of the few things "open" at night, it maximizes your time for the day things and they are just magnificent lit up at night. You get time to stop and wander around the monuments , then the guide rolls you to the next, very easy, one of our favorite experiences!- arrive at the major line attractions early ( I mean early!) You know the attraction where you need to go see this one famous thing that will take 10 minutes, but the line will be 2 hours by 10 Am? It takes a while to wake, dress, feed and bus all those 8 th graders to places like the National Archive, while they are doing that, you get there before 9 AM and see the whole thing in 20 minutes or so. As you head out the door, those bus tours are just starting to roll up. Plan one major "line attraction" for every morning and get there before it opens. Then head to the places where you are likely to spend more time poking, like a museum.
- if you plan to do the the zoo, get up early( are you seeing a trend here? ) like WDW, ( which don't we all love or wouldn't be here
) it's better to go early and nap mid afternoon, than wait 2 hours to look at the constitution in the Archives for 10 minutes! Back to the zoo: go early, right at opening. Start with the Asian exhibit ( the pandas are there, but so are lots of other great animals) it will be gridlocked by 11 AM, so start there and move elsewhere once people start arriving. Plan to leave right around lunch time to save your sanity. - chunk your daily itinerary into sections...so go to a "line builder attraction" early, then see the museums and other attractions in that area, the next day hit another area, this minimizes walking!
-prioritize...like WDW you can't do it all in one visit, so pick and choose, we decided to tour the whitehouse since we could get tix, but just visited the Court and Capitol buildings. We did Air and Space and one of the Art museums (taking in the sculpture garden as part of our walk from one end to another) because that was what interested each of our kids. We did the monuments at night to maximize the day hours and forgot about the bonus of how gorgeous they'd be!
Good luck! We only spent 2 full days, so we had to power tour...you might have a more relaxed schedule...but I'm gonna go with go early and plan well!
Oh, and where are we going, you ask? Most immediately to western NY and Philadelphia to check out design colleges, ( maybe run up the Rocky steps
) then on an ABD to Ecuador and the Galapagos in August, on a cruise from Tahiti through French Polynesia in October, and next April taking the kids on the worlds largest cruise ship, Allure of the Seas! In between I'll be chill axing in my favorite place in the world...Maine!
We did ABDs in 2008 & 2009 and Tauck Bridges trips in 2010 and 2011. This summer, I'm sending my daughter to horseback riding camp, and in August we are going to Beaches in Turks & Caicos for a week. So with that, our vacation budget is officially shot! My daughter has been pining for that Caribbean turquoise water since we went two years ago. 
). He was surrounded by a whole bunch of staffers, so we really couldn't stop him on the street. The kids found it exciting playing "eye spy" with people they normally saw on tv!
SO not ready!!! 
