I am taking Mrs Wavy and the Wavettes (11, 9 and 7 yrs old) to Washington D.C. next week and I need some help. Specifically, any good ideas where I can park near the Mall so we can check out the memorials. I want the kids to see the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, the Jefferson Memorial and the Vietnam memorial. The kids have already said they want to see the Air and Space museum at the Smithsonian. Any good ideas on getting out the National Zoo?
Also, the whole family is rather fond of seafood. Any good lunch spots you could suggest to feed that craving?
We will have three days to visit and we are staying with some friends out in Calvert County MD east of the city.
Stay away from Union Station. I am getting sick of all the tourists around here already. To get to the zoo take the Metro (there is a stop for it, you get off and walk up the hill). Actually try metroing wherever you go, every touristy thing is readily metro accessible and it gives the kids a chance to torment the commuters. With kids your age the Natural History Museum is also a good bet. It is also metro accessible. It is diagonally across the mall from the Air and Space Museum. The Air and Space museum also has big named fast food places inside (it used to have a cafeteria by Aramark and a rather pricey sit down restaurant. If you don’t know Aramark, they are the AAFES of the civilian world. Blech).
My SO and I took the kids to DC in April and had a wonderful time! If you can avoid bringing bags with you when you tour the Smithsonian museums you’ll save youreself some time. They are searching every single bag as you enter the buildings–no exceptions and, in some cases, they’re doing it by hand so it takes even longer.
One place I’d definitely see again is the International Spy Museum. It was wicked cool! They have a history of spying and little movies of how listening devices are installed–there’s duct work to crawl through and a James Bond car. It almost made up for the fact that the FBI wasn’t giving tours till the war’s over. It was a little pricey to get in, but we spent over three hours there. You can check it out online at www.spymuseum.org
That may have had to do with the party we were having in Iraq. By May, they weren’t being so diligent. Air & Space still had metal detectors and searches, but other museums didn’t.
The Spy Museum is really cool, but as lauramarlane said, the lines tend to be pretty long, especially now that schools are letting out for the summer. When I took my family, we waited in line for about 45 minutes.
I second the suggestion about taking the train. It’s really not that expensive, and it’s very very convenient. http://www.wmata.com/metrorail/systemmap.cfm gives you a map for Metrorail. I would drive to the nearest station and take the train in. If you get off at the Smithsonian or Federal Triangle stops, you can walk (short walk) to the Mall.
Also, parking at the Metro lots is free on the weekends. You can get day passes at the station (which means unlimited rides for the day), or you can just get them on a station-by-station basis. Sure, it’s a bit more than parking your car, which would be one flat rate instead of five different train tickets), but parking in DC is very tough to come by, especially near the tourist stuff, so you might not want to take the chance.
And yeah, get Metro day passes and take those. You can take the Red Line up to the Zoo. It’s a ten minute walk from there, and it’s free admission. Be sure to see the pandas.
The Orange or Blue Lines will drop you around the Smithsonian/Monuments area. You can walk from the Air and Space to the Washington Monument, Lincoln, etc. You should go try and see the Teddy Roosevelt Monument, too, it’s nice and no one ever goes there because it’s out of the way.
You can try and visit your Representative. They always like having constituents visit and you can have them take you on a tour of the Capitol Building (at least they used to, I don’t know about anymore).
You can head over to Thompson’s boat house and rent a canoe (weather permitting) and take a little canoe trip up the Potomac and play around on the Three Sisters. That’s fun, too.
Wow! Thank you all very much. Looks like I need to find a metro station and park there. lauramarlane, the spy museum sounds excellent. My nine y.o. son loves all that stuff (and does Dad :D) Cool.
Do they have day passes for the Metro on weekdays?
You can get day passes any day of the week. They are $5 and I think they are good from 9am to 9pm. Also, you will probably want to go to the New Carrollton station. If I am thinking correctly it is the closest to Carroll County and its on the Orange line which will take you directly to the mall.
Check out the Old Post Office and its clock tower if that’s been reopened. Second-tallest freestanding tower in DC after the Washington Monument and hardly any line to speak of, ever.
You can rely on mass transit. Since you have children, you probably won’t be out too late at night, so it should be safe. I recommend the Capital Building at night if you do happen to be up late, though. All sorts of folks hang out there, including tourists, and the lights make it pretty darn cool.
Excellent seafood and chicken entrees: Old Ebbitt Grill just east of the White House on 15th Street NW. Very reasonable prices and a classic Washington restaurant, around since 1865. Beautiful artwork on the walls, antique gas lamp lighting and beautiful wood bar. You will run into lobbyists and politicos here. The First Lady eats there every so often. It’s only a couple blocks from McPherson Square Metro, which is also the closest Metro stop to the White House. Another restaurant in the same chain is Clyde’s in Georgetown.
Excellent view: Rooftop bar/restaurant at the Hotel Washington, also on 15th Street NW near the White House. You can eat outside on this large covered balcony, with a view of the Washington Monument, the Lincoln memorial, the White House, the Old Executive Office Building, and the large US Treasury Headquarters. The prices here are also quite reasonable, considering the view you get.
You should also check out the American History Museum on the Mall. There’s a great exhibit on the American presidency, and another on September 11.
The Metro is the best mode of transportation, by far. Park at the closest Metro stop to you and take the train into town. Streets are confusing to navigate by car.
Also use the WP’s Entertainment Guide, great for finding what’s going on in the City, from food to theatre to movies to public forums. http://eg.washingtonpost.com/
Be sure to bring either raincoats or umbrellas as we’ve been having a very cool, rainy spring/early summer. Also, there are heavy afternoon thunderstorms, so those can sometimes damper your plans.
We had to get to the New Carrollton station by about 7:00 AM to be sure of getting a parking space. (But there may be parking across the street that I didn’t see.) I guess it’s that way at every station.
Not necessarily. It depends on how far away the next station is. New Carrollton is at the end of the Orange Line, so everyone east of it would go to it. Greenbelt’s the same way, as is Glenmont.
WavyDavy, I hope you and your family enjoy your visit to DC next weekend. The Metro fares, as well as costs for parking at subway stations, are going up on Sunday, June 29th, so please take a look at the main Metro website: http://www.wmata.com
You shouldn’t have too much trouble parking at any of the stations on the weekend, btw–during the work week, though, the lots fill up -very- quickly, especially for stations at the end of rail lines. Besides New Carrollton on the Orange Line, from Calvert County you also have the options of Addison Road (Blue Line) and Branch Avenue (Green Line). Someone else has already given you a link to the Metro map, so check them out; I don’t know which would be closest, but you do have those three options.
When you take Metro to the Zoo, I’d suggest getting off at Cleveland Park; the Zoo is actually about mid-way between the Woodley Park-Zoo and Cleveland Park stations, but from Cleveland Park, you walk -downhill- instead of up. Then you can walk down to Woodley Park-Zoo station to get back on the subway.
No restaurant recommendations here, but … your friends in Calvert County may know of some good places down on the Bay, in either Calvert or St. Mary’s County–good eating, and fresh caught, more than likely.
To get to the zoo take the Metro (there is a stop for it, you get off and walk up the hill). Actually try metroing wherever you go, every touristy thing is readily metro accessible and it gives the kids a chance to torment the commuters. With kids your age the Natural History Museum is also a good bet. It is also metro accessible. It is diagonally across the mall from the Air and Space Museum. The Air and Space museum also has big named fast food places inside (it used to have a cafeteria by Aramark and a rather pricey sit down restaurant. If you don’t know Aramark, they are the AAFES of the civilian world. Blech).