We will be staying in Alexandria and plan to drive in and park in DC. We're coming with a baby and two elderly parents, thus why we're not taking the metro. We plan to use the Old Towne Trolley tours. Can anyone mention a place where parking is relatively close to the Trolley stop? I'm trying to find a location to quickly drop off the family so they have a small walking distance, and then I can go park the van. Looking for somewhere near the Holocaust Museum, FDR memorial or the Lincoln memorial.

We do have handicap accessible permits

One of the main stops for Old Town Trolleys (and I think they have a kiosk there too) is Union Station. That would be a convenient place to start your tour; there is plenty of parking there; and the rates are among the best in the city.

I forgot to add that even with handicap accessible permits, your time parking on the street at a handicap spot would be limited. The parking enforcement in D.C. is quite strict and you will save yourself a lot of worry and aggravation by parking in a garage.

Old Town Trolley has a hotel shuttle service to take people to a trolley pickup spot. I helped a friend figure this out last year and if I recall correctly there were a half dozen hotels in Crystal City that were shuttle points. Have you checked their website to see how close your hotel or CC daily parking would be to one of those spots? That would be much easier than driving downtown. Thought you were talking about staying at the Americana in CC in one of your posts.

Otherwise, agree that Union Station is a good option. Wouldn't recommend messing with street parking.

The handicap permit allows you twice the posted time for legal on-street parking in DC (so four hours in a spot with a two-hour limit whether metered or not), but is of no use with the rush-hour no-parking areas that are everywhere downtown. I do not recall ever seeing a handicap-designated on-street parking space, I guess that's because of the double limit on any legal spot.

I agree that Union Station garage looks best for your group.

We were in DC last week. We took the Old Town Trolley Moonlight tour. We parked at Union Station and it worked out very well.

We opted to drive in for the night tour because we were not sure how it would be to take the trolley back to our hotel late at night. However, we used Metrorail to come in during the day and it was very easy.

We really enjoyed seeing the monument and memorials at night. We had a great guide; our tour ran over the expected time because he was showing us some extra points along the way--very enjoyable.

Thanks for the info, I've been to DC several times as a chaperone, but never planned my own trip, yet alone with all the requirements we need. We will be staying in Alexandria, but I'll look into parking at CC.