Hop-On Hop-Off Old Town Trolley Tour Washington DC

Knowledgeable tour drivers take you around DC. Great way to get an overview of the city. Hop on hop off service. Two days are recommended.

Having lived in DC years ago, I've seen lots of the sights, and been asked to play tour guide for friends and relatives. Usually, I'm a "city-walker." I love to hoof it through the DC and see things on the ground level. I just got back from taking a friend and her daughter to celebrate the daughter's high school graduation. My friend recently recovering from foot surgery, we decided to take the Orange Tour of the Old Town Trolleys. What a great way to see the city! Our guides were fantastic - Godiva, MJ, Mr. E, Sooner Steve - they were all kind, polite, helpful, funny, and stuffed full of interesting stories and trivia about each and every attraction we passed. The trolley was clean and breezy on a stifling hot day. The schedule is so well managed that we never waited more than about fifteen minutes and usually less than five. We saw a lot more of the city than we would have ever managed walking. My only regret is that we only had the one day - I would have liked to have the two-day pass and really spend time at every stop. As it was, we managed to see our most important sights, even if we had to skip others. Fun and informative. I think even kids over twelve would enjoy the narration.

This was a great tour. Gil was our driver, and he was very friendly, knowledgable and entertaining. We drove around and saw many sights from the trolley, as well as making three timed stops where we could get off the trolley. The first was the Jefferson Memorial. We had about 25 minutes there, which was fine for most reasonably healthy individuals, but because we had to park a ways away, my elderly mother in law didn't have much time at the monument, what with using most of that time to walk back and forth. Gil timed the visit perfectly, though, and we watched the sunset from the Memorial. The next stop was the Iwo Jima memorial. We had only about 10 minutes there, but parked very close so it was plenty of time to see it. The last stop was for the Lincoln Memorial, Korean and Vietnam War Memorials. We again had about 25 minutes, which was not long enough. We had read the reviews ahead of time, we knew this might be an issue, and we also knew the Vietnam Memorial is not really well lit at night, so we only attempted to visit the Lincoln Memorial and Korean War Memorial, and there was enough time for us to see both. Overall it was a great tour, but I would have preferred a little more time at the stops. The boarding process for the tour, unfortunately, is another story. There were hundreds of people waiting out in front of Union Station to board, and no clear indication of where to go. We asked people who were lined up what they were waiting for, found the correct line and got in it. There was only one Old Town Trolley employee working the line, and he would take one party at a time and send them to the waiting Trolleys at the pick up/drop off island. But there were lots of other parties who would see the trolley and go straight to it, so the employee would have to go get them and send them to the back of the line, which really slowed down the boarding process. After a while, a Union Station employee told us to split the line into two, so a bunch of people broke off into a second line. But the OTT employee kept taking people from the first line only. People in the second line were getting very upset when people who had been behind them had now passed them and were being boarded before them. The employee suggested the second line join the end of the first and nearly started a riot! (I don't fault him, though, he was doing his best in a crazy situation). Finally the second line just merged back into the first and boarding continued. A few suggestions for Old Town Trolley. 1. Clearly mark your waiting area. This should include a sign identifying your company and saying "line up here". It should be 7 or 8 feet tall so new people coming out of Union Station can see it over the heads of people already lined up. 2. Rope off the queue area, snaking it back and forth. This would reduce the mess of people blocking doorways and walkways. 3. Give that poor guy some help! You really need at least 2 or 3 employees out there to deal with such a large group of customers.

We waited 45 minutes for a trolley to arrive only to be told it was full but another would be coming in 15 minutes. After waiting another 30 minutes we took a cab to our next destination. We tried to board a trolley at a later stop but again it was full. My wife sarcastically said to the driver, "You have a real scam going here," and he replied, "Yeah, I know." This company is so bad it borders on outright fraud so save yourself money, time, shoe leather, and stress and go with any tour operator other than this pathetic excuse for a business.

We had a layover between Amtrak trains and wanted to put the time to good use. We did 2 routes in about 3 hours. We were able to get our tickets in Union Station and catch the trolley in front of the station. Our tour narrators were both good. We did not get off at any stops due to limited time. We had a group of 9 and everything worked well for us. We rode route 1 to the route 2 connection. When we got back to the route 1 connection we could have used a bathroom break but the trolley was there and we needed to get back to Union Station. It was a quick trip back to our starting point. I would do this again if I had time to get off at the various stops.