volcanogirl

Hi, all - we're interested in going to Mount Vernon. If you've been, did you enjoy it? Which tours did you do? And did you buy your tickets in advance? Approximately how much time would you allow to tour the house and property? Thanks for any guidance you can give me. Are there any other sights in the area that you would recommend seeing?

MichelleY

We loved Mt. Vernon! However, we went with a Greyline tour and it just was not enough time. This was about 10 years ago and since then, a new visitors center has been built and other changes. Not sure how it is now and hope others will chime in.

We went in March, so the trees were bare but remarked that it must be beautiful at other times of the year. Don't skip it....go! Give it at 3-4 hours.

michele_d

We really enjoyed our visit to Mt Vernon also. We very much enjoyed the kitchen gardens. We enjoyed sitting on the porch in the rocking chairs next to the river. Glad we went.

RoamsAround

We were there this past October and found it very interesting - spent about 3 hours touring the property.

NewbE

We were there last November and loved it. We took the house tour, and spent about 90 minutes on our own wandering the grounds, which have interesting displays regarding farming and livestock, kitchen gardens, the family crypt, and of course gorgeous river views.

Then the house tour took about 30 minutes. The film, which is pretty good, another 30 minutes, of sitting, which was nice And we rushed through the museum but wished we had more time. So if, weather permits time outdoors, 3-4 hours would be optimal IMO. We did not buy tickets in advance.

We were told that there's a distillery or brewery nearby that uses Washington's recipes, or recipes from the time--sorry, I'm foggy on the details. But that sounded interesting to us.

MichelleY

I love the Christmas ornaments I got in the gift shop. So leave time to browse. Lots of good stuff.

nytraveler

Yes, we loved it. Drove inout own car and arrived at about 9:30 am. Spent more than 3 hours and could have spent a lot longer. And this was offseason - in November.

kamae

We were there for about 5 hours and could have spent more. We toured the house, took the National Treasure tour, and wandered over to the gardens and the mill where we stopped for several demonstrations of different sorts. One was a short talk by a slave reenactor. Another was a soldier of the period who showed us how to make a large kettle of camp breakfast over a fire. After the gardens, we walked down to the wharf and took the boat tour up and down the river a little bit.

We enjoyed the day very much. It was a little thing but my favorite part was sitting in a chair on the piazza that overlooks the river imaging what life would have been like during Washington's time.

We did not buy tickets in advance because we went early in the season. If you can get them just before you leave for the plantation, it might be a better idea to get advance tickets during more crowded time. One thing I highly recommend is going on a nice day. Most of your time will be spent outside.

Rich

We planned it so that we arrived prior to the tour/school busses and walked right up and bought tickets . . Spent most of the morning on the houses and grounds, then went inside when it started drizzling for lunch and a look at the shops/displays.

volcanogirl

Thanks to all of you for this great information. I'm glad to hear that everyone enjoyed it. Sounds like most people drove themselves and did not buy tickets ahead, so I think that will be our plan. We're talking about going in late April. Does anyone know if there will be cherry blossoms then?

basingstoke2

We are lucky in that we live less than an hour away in good traffic so have visited several times. Set aside a half day.

NewbE

I should mention that because we didn't buy tickets ahead, we had to wait almost two hours until our house tour began. It wasn't a problem at all to pass the time outdoors on the grounds or in the museum, but if your time is limited, advance purchase is a good idea.

volcanogirl

Thanks, everyone. We're thinking of staying in Old Town Alexandria. Does anyone know how long it would take to get to Mt. Vernon from there?

volcanogirl

Thanks, everyone. We're thinking of staying in Old Town Alexandria. Does anyone know how long it would take to get to Mt. Vernon from there? We would rent a car for the day.

NewbE

Gosh, as I recall, about 20-30 minutes without traffic (we went on a holiday weekend).

obxgirl

It's a 20 minute trip down the Geo Washington Parkway from OT Alex to Mt Vernon. The parkway abuts the north and south end of OT Alex and is called Washington Street.

The part of the GW parkway you'd be traveling on to MV is all local traffic. Even during rush hour you won't normally find much congestion. No stop lights and a relatively low (45 MPH) regulated speed.

alley

We have gone twice. First time, we arrived when they opened and we were the only two people on the first tour of the day, which was wonderful. Second time, we arrived mid-day and the buses of schoolchildren had arrived for tours, so much more crowded and harder to get as much out of tour. So get there early if you can. Mount Vernon was my favorite part of visiting DC. Enjoy!

oktotravel

We went maybe ten years ago and got there very early -- maybe just before 8:30. There were very few people at that time -- but there was a family with a couple of kids maybe ten years old. The son wound up being part of the morning flag raising with pictures taken by (I think) the National Park Service and I'm sure a copy given to the family. DH and I were on our own that day but watching the little boy has always stuck in my memory. I thought at the time it would be a wonderful souvenir for the family. I think at least at the time it was something that happened each morning.

Ozarksbill

Recently we visited the mansions of "three friends"...Jefferson, Madison, Monroe. These are located not far from one another at Charlottesville in western Virginia...Monticello, Montpelier, Ash Lawn-Highland. An idea for another history related trip. This was a Road Scholar program including also tour of University of Virginia which Jefferson was proud planner.

LouisaH

Volcanogirl, I am carefully monitoring the cherry blossoms this year because my daughter is getting married on April 18 and the venue is between OT Alexandria and Mount Vernon. They are predicting that blooms will peak between April 11-14, about a week later than they normally do this because of our cold winter. More snow actually predicted for tomorrow.

Here's more information about the cherry blossoms this year. http://www.nationalcherryblossomfestival.org/?s=2015

If you do stay in OT, you can take a boat over to the Tidal Basin in DC to see the blossoms rather than dealing with the nightmare traffic.