My Trip Reports: Washington DC 24 June - 30 June 2019 staying at Eldon Luxury Suites

Monday 24 June
Our flight was one and a half hours late taking off and arrived three quarters of an hour late. I watched 2 films - First Man (about Neil Armstrong) and then Stan & Ollie. We were served lunch of chicken or pasta with a drink then later on we had treacle toffee ice-cream and another drink. About an hour before landing we were served a ham and cheese pastry and a cup of tea. When we landed we walked off our plane and straight into a huge vehicle with lots of seats which took us to the main terminal. This is what it looked like and there were loads of them on the airfield.

When we arrived we couldn't believe the length of the queue for immigration - it must have been about 10 really long lines deep due to the fact that about a dozen planes all came in at the same time. We had landed at 4.08pm and we didn't get through immigration until just after 6pm. Thankfully our suitcase was sitting waiting for us. We had booked a shuttle bus online so went in search for it. Checked in with the attendant then had to wait nearly 30 minutes for our shuttle to arrive. The airport is quite a distance from the city centre and we got held up on the motorway with a broken down car so we didn't get to the Eldon Suites until about 8pm. Checked in and we were pleased with our suite on the 3rd floor.

After unpacking we went for a little walk nearby to get our bearings and found a liquor store where we bought some cans of lager. Had a drink and watched some TV in our suite before going to bed exhausted.

Tuesday 25 June
Woke really early after a bad night's sleep and managed to get back to sleep for a few more hours. Walked to McDs for breakfast before setting off for the White House and the National Mall. We took photos at the nearest place we could get in front of the White House

This is the annual Christmas tree which is decorated and lit up each year.

We then walked past the Washington Monument and along to the Smithsonian American History Museum.

My goodness - what a lot of things there are to see in there! It's on 3 floors with East and West galleries.

Believe it or not this is a toaster!

We were in there for over 4 hours and by the time we came out we were tired and hungry. Luckily we came across a Subway when we started to walk back to our hotel so stopped for a bite to eat before our walk back. Relaxed and had a drink whilst watching TV before bedtime. The weather has been great today with temperatures in the high 80s.

Wednesday 26 June
Had breakfast in a closer McDs which I found on Google maps last night then caught the DC Circulator bus to Union Station and exchanged the tickets we bought online for tickets on the Big Bus hop on hop off bus. We didn't notice until we changed from the red route to the blue route and asked about the extra attraction we were supposed to have on our ticket that we discovered that the girl had only issued us with a one day ticket instead of a two day ticket. Anyway we rode past lots of the Smithsonian museums before changing buses to go to Arlington cemetery. Once there we paid for a guided tour which took us in a little tram of 5 or 6 carriages up to the grave of JFK where there is an eternal flame burning although you can't see the actual flame in the photo.

This is part of JFK's famous inaugural speech - "ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country"

We then walked over to the tomb of the unknown soldier and watched the changing of the guard at 1pm. There was then a ceremony where they changed the wreath in front of the memorial and replaced it with a wreath from one of today's 26 funerals. The soldier in charge asked that those in uniform salute and everyone else place their hand on their heart which we did. A bugle was played - it was a very moving experience.

We then caught the tram for a further guided tour passing the Lockerbie Memorial to the 270 people killed on Pan Am flight 103 and on the ground on 21 December 1988.

After the tour we caught the Big Bus back to Union Station and went back to see the girl who had issued our tickets. She was very apologetic and went to check with her supervisor about what she should do. I think the problem arose because we bought our tickets via the City Sightseeing website as we had a discount code for 20% off but our voucher said it was operated by Big Bus tours so we assumed that they would know what to issue us with. Anyway we benefited from her mistake as she then issued us with a two day ticket with a boat trip, a walking tour of the White House and Madam Toussaud's thrown in and the Spy Museum as our extra attraction and our tickets are valid until 4pm on Friday. We'll have to go some to pack all that in. Had a Chinese meal in the food court at Union Station before catching the DC Circulator back to our hotel. After such an exhausting day we chilled out at night with a glass of wine.

Thursday 27 June
Had breakfast in McDs then caught the DC Circulator to Union Station and caught the Big Bus tour to the Wharf and took a water taxi to Alexandria, Virginia, which was included in our Big Bus ticket.

We only spent about 15 minutes there as we have so much to get through and we are running out of days but it looked like a very picturesque town. Returned on the water taxi and then jumped back on the Big Bus for one stop to the Spy Museum, which was included in our bus ticket. We spent two and a half hours there and Jim enjoyed it a lot more than I did. We were given undercover mission IDs and had to remember our spy name, profession, where we came from and where we were travelling to. At various stages we had to complete missions but there was so many people in the museum we spent a long time queuing to access a monitor.

I managed to drag Jim out after our debriefing and we caught the Big Bus to the Lincoln Memorial. This is a stunning monument with a carved image in marble of Abraham Lincoln looking out onto the Reflecting Pool and the Washington Monument.

Caught the DC Circulator back to Union Station where we ate in the Food Court again. Caught the bus back to our hotel and just made it in as the rain was coming on. Finished off the night with a glass of wine.

Friday 28 June
Had breakfast in McDs again then walked to the White House where we waited for our walking tour which was included in our Big Bus ticket. Our guide, George, from Georgetown was very knowledgeable but I think a lot of the people in the group thought that he would be taking them on a tour of the grounds of the White House - sadly not.

After about 45 minutes he left us at the White House visitors centre and we went inside and watched a very interesting film all about the White House told through the eyes of various Presidents and First Ladies.

After leaving there we walked to Madam Tussaud's where we saw every single US President in numerical order and a few celebrities. There were some interactive parts and plenty photo opportunities.

We left there and just had time to walk along to Ford's Theatre where Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in 1865 and then noticed the house opposite where he was taken to after he was shot.

We jumped on the Big Bus to take us to the National Archives Museum

where we saw the original Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. We also saw one of the only four surviving originals of the 1297 Magna Carta. No photos were allowed in the National Archives Museum. We then caught the Big Bus for the last time back to Union Station where we ate in the food court again. Caught the DC Circulator back to our suite and finished off the night with a glass of wine.

Saturday 29 June
Had breakfast in McDs then caught the DC Circulator to Union Station and visited the Postal Museum next door to the station. It turned out to be more interesting than we thought with lots of different displays of stamps and how the postal service came into being.

We then caught the DC Circulator to the Air and Space Museum and spent time there looking at all the exhibits.

I was a bit disappointed that there wasn't anything about 747s or Concorde as I was sure that I'd read somewhere that there was a Concorde in the museum (I've since discovered that there is an Air France Concorde in the Air and Space's sister museum at Dulles Airport). I was also expecting to see a lot on Apollo 11 and Neil Armstrong as the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing is coming up soon so I was disappointed that nothing was mentioned apart from the fact that his space suit was arriving next month and there was one photo of his footstep on the moon with his "one small step" speech.

After an hour or so we moved on from there to the Hirshhorn Museum next door. I only have 2 words to describe that museum and the polite version is "modern art" - the least said the better but here is an exhibit to show you what I mean.

There is a sculpture garden nearby so we wandered through that on our way to the bus stop.

Caught the DC Circulator to the Vietnam Memorial wall which has the names of over 58,000 soldiers engraved on it, who lost their lives in the Vietnam War and then saw the statue of 3 soldiers - 1 European American, 1 African American and 1 Hispanic American - all of which was very moving.

We also saw the Women's Memorial.

Caught the bus back to Union Station and ate in the food court (Chinese meal). Caught the bus back to our hotel and packed our case then relaxed with a glass of wine.

Sunday 30 June
Had breakfast in McDs then checked out and left our suitcase at reception as we have a late night flight. Caught the DC Circulator to Georgetown and had a walk along the waterfront. We enjoyed seeing all the yachts, water taxis, canoeists and ducks on the Potomac River.

We then wandered up into the town and we were really surprised at the number of designer shops and restaurants there. We could have had a lunch with the number of people outside restaurants offering us tastes of pizzas and desserts.

We caught the bus back into Union Station and transferred onto the National Mall route and visited the Botanic Gardens.

It was very hot and humid inside so we left and decided to walk up to the Capitol Building next door. The Visitors Centre was unfortunately closed on a Sunday so we were only able to take some photos.

We then jumped on the bus again to go to the Natural History Museum.

We had a quick look round but it was very busy with a lot of children so we decided to call it a day and go for something to eat. We caught the bus back to Union Station then the other bus to near our hotel where we ate in a place called Potbelly. We both had soup and half a sandwich which was very filling. We were just walking back to our hotel when Jim got a text from the shuttle bus driver to say he was outside waiting for us. He was about 45 minutes early but we didn't mind as it saved us waiting around our hotel. We set off and he said that he had other people to pick up. We drove for quite a long time before he finally stopped at a hotel and a couple from England got on. Whilst we were chatting to them the driver set off to try to find his final passenger. He drove for miles and when he stopped at the address he was given the person was nowhere to be seen. He had to make some phone calls before he discovered that the woman had given the wrong address and had transposed the numbers of the address - should have been 1133 but she told them it was 3311 so we set off again and virtually ended up nearly back at our own hotel. When the woman got on she had 5 huge suitcases as she had been working and living there for 5 months and was going home to Morocco. You'd think after 5 months she would know the address she lived at! We finally got to the airport over 2 hours after we were picked up - a journey which was supposed to only take 45 minutes. When we arrived at the airport we still had to get changed into clothes that were in our suitcase so we did a quick change in the rest rooms and joined the queue to check our luggage in and print off our boarding passes. Luckily we had TSA precheck clearance so we didn't need to stand in a long line at security and just breezed through. We had a short time at our boarding gate to try to charge our phones up then it was time to board. We were served chicken with cheesy pasta with a white wine followed by treacle toffee ice-cream. I watched the film Can You Ever Forgive Me and then had a sleep before we were served breakfast of a pastry with jam and a tub of yoghurt. We landed on time and our suitcase was waiting for us on the carousel.

Final thoughts:-

We absolutely loved Washington DC. There are so many famous sights to see and places to go and many of them are free. There are 11 free Smithsonian Museums on the National Mall and 17 altogether in DC.

The weather was very hot and humid (most days it was in the 90s) - there were a few rain showers which we were lucky to miss plus some thunder and lightning.

Even though we were on a lot of buses we must have walked for many miles each day and were exhausted each night. We left our hotel sometimes before 9am and didn't get back until about 7pm.

I researched the bus system before we went and discovered that the DC Circulator used to be $1 per ride or 50c for seniors per ride up until February this year when the mayor decided to make it free for everyone for a month. Since then she has kept extending it for a extra month and it is now indefinite so we were able to ride around DC for free - unbelievable.

There are a lot of ride share bikes in DC and even more ride share scooters which we saw abandoned all over the place. To ride them you scan the QR code on the scooter with your phone and off you go - we saw loads of people riding them.