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We love to travel and find new things to do together as a family. This blog shares our thoughts about the places we explore, mainly in the Metropolitan DC area (Maryland, DC, Northern Virginia, sometimes referenced at the DMV). And, occasionally we will write about places we visit on our vacations. Sometimes you just wish someone had told you "Don't waste your time or money" before you went somewhere, or sometimes you're going on vacation and want some insight on family-friendly things to do. We hope this blog will come in handy for you and your family. If you have suggestions for places to visit, please share them with us. Happy reading!

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Capitol River Cruises - Boat Ride on the Potomac River

I'm a huge fan of Groupon, Living Social, and any other site that offers me discounts for things to do so naturally when I saw a boat cruise on the Potomac for only $6 a person, I couldn't pass it up. (The regular price is $14/person.) Not only did I buy the deal but I talked my in-laws into buying the deal as well. We bought it at the beginning of the summer and here it was, the end of September with the coupon expiring at the end of the week and we hadn't gone yet.

Every weekend for the past two months we've tried to get our husbands to go on this boat ride and every weekend they found an excuse not to go, saying we should just go with the kids. Well they got their wish....and maybe that was a good thing. There was no school today and the kids were bored (well, not really but we needed to use the coupons) and it was a beautiful day so off we went.

The cruise left from the dock in Georgetown, a beautiful area in itself, full of shops and restaurants. The boats run every hour on the hour and the tour lasts about 50 minutes.  It cruises the Potomac passing the Watergate Hotel, The Kennedy Center, the National Monument, the Lincoln, Jefferson, and LBJ monuments, Roosevelt Island, and a couple other memorial sites. It ends at Ronald Reagan/National Airport then the boat does a U-turn and heads back in to dock. The boat itself is not luxurious by any means, but it is clean, has tables and chairs, and has a snack bar complete with alcohol (not top shelf, or probably even bottom shelf but there was Heineken, my husband's beer of choice). As we cruised along, we couldn't help thinking it was a good thing the men didn't come along but if they did, at least there was a bar to keep them from complaining. There were others on the boat who had purchased the cruise as part of their "jump on and off" package through the city and I don't know what they paid but what we got for our money was a nice outing, sitting in the shade with a breeze getting a different view of the sites we've seen so many times before on land. I don't know if I would pay more than that though or that I'd do it again but it was worth the $6.

Kid's View: "I think it was okay because we got to go out but it wouldn't be my choice of things to do. The boat was clean, which was good, but it was really boring just hearing about the monuments. The best part was getting Haagen Dazs ice-cream afterwards!"

Attraction: Capitol River Cruises  http://capitolrivercruises.com/






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