hockeymom

I've got lots of information on museums, etc., but I've still got a few questions.
We were thinking of a trolley or tourmobile during the day, but the nighttime monument tours sound good, too. There's four of us. What's the best way to go about this? Is it worth doing two different tours? We want to go to Arlington National Cemetary. I know Tourmobile goes there, but then would we switch to a different tour once at the Cemetary? That's what it sounds like. It looks like we'll be going to the Capitol on a Wednesday. Having never been to Washington, I know there's a lot to see. We leave 4/15 for Virginia and then to Washington on 4/19. All help is appreciated!

laurelee

I thought the night time monument tour was really nice. The only thing is: you are only allowed a limited amount of time at each monument(Monuments by Moonlight) so you might want to spend more time there on your own during the day. On our tour, we also got to drive through Arlington at night-not usually done but our guide did. However, he didn't stop at the WW II Memorial-just drove by. Hope this helps.

pollyvw

The Arlington Cemetary Tour is entirely separate from the Tourmobile which will take you to the ticket kiosk at Arlington Cemetary. The thing that is so neat about the monuments at night is just SEEING them. A drive by would be sufficient and I would not forego the opportunity to explore them in more depth during the day.

rb_travelerxATyahoo

With 4 of you, maybe you'd like to just get a taxi to drive around at night to see them and do a day tour separately.

The monuments are really beautiful at night, but the VERY short nighttime tours are almost as much as the full day long tickets. If I remember correctly, Tourmobile sells tix for JUST within Arlington Cem. and also higher priced tix for Arlington+the rest of the DC mall area.

Peteuk

The monument tour at night sounds good with a number of recommendations.

Can anyone let me know which tour company offers this, maybe with a website link to see what is offered, cost etc.

Thanks

richbutnot

Let me offer an alternative. We did much the same tour last June. We took the Metro to Arlington National Cemetery and took the Tourmobile tour ($21 for 4). Then we took the Metro back to the Smithsonian Station and started walking the monuments: Washington, WWII, Vietnam, Lincoln, Korean, FDR, Jefferson and then back to the Smithsonian Station. I had my handheld GPS with me and measured it at 4 miles. We (43, 38, 14, 11) are not in the best shape, but had no problem walking the loop. The advantages of walking over the tourmobile are cost ($84 I think), no waiting for an empty bus, and you get to see more of the mall area. You could cut about a mile off this by taking a taxi to the WWII memorial and starting there.

We drove our own car to see the Vietnam and Lincoln Memorials at night a few days later. This was the only time we took the car out all week, and also stopped at the White House and the Capital. We parked along a side street close to the Vietnam Memorial and it was a short walk from there.

This day spent touring the monuments was the best part of our 5 days in DC. Do NOT miss the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown. Have fun!

repete

Don't know if you've left yet, but ...

Another way to do this is to Metro to Arlington and either walk or take the short Tourmobile, then walk across the bridge to the Lincoln and start working your way back with the various war memorials to the Washington Monument, then the Mall and Capitol.

You'll have to figure out sidetrips to the Jefferson and FDR (most underrated IMO), but it's a pretty efficient plan.

mlm59

We took one of the evening tours, but I can't remember which one. We took the metro to Union Station and met the tour there. We stopped at several locations and were allowed enough time to see them, although we had already been there in the day time. We really enjoyed this tour. During the day we walked and rode the metro everywhere instead of spending money for a tour.