United Airlines Flights from Atlanta (ATL) to Washington (IAD)
Orbitz is pleased to offer airline tickets on United Airlines, which operates 3 regularly scheduled daily non-stop flights from Atlanta (ATL) to Washington (IAD), departing between 6:00am and 7:08pm, and 2 additional non-stop flights, departing between 12:44pm and 1:15pm on select days of the week. The average travel time from Atlanta, GA to Washington, DC is 1 hour and 47 minutes.
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During your Washington vacation, don't miss these great establishments and attractions:
Union Station
In Washington, D.C., even the very train station where you arrive is an attraction. Union Station, built between 1903 and 1907 in the great age of rail travel, was painstakingly restored in the 1980s at a cost of $160 million. The station was designed by noted architect Daniel H. Burnham, who modeled it after the Baths of Diocletian and Arch of Constantine in Rome.When it opened in 1907, this was the largest train station in the world. The Ionic colonnades outside were fashioned from white granite. The facade contains 100 eagles. In the front of the building, a replica of the Liberty Bell and a monumental statue of Columbus hold sway. Six carved fixtures over the entranceway represent Fire, Electricity, Freedom, Imagination, Agriculture, and Mechanics. You enter the station through graceful 50-foot Constantine arches and walk across an expanse of white-marble flooring. The Main Hall is a massive rectangular room with a 96-foot barrel-vaulted ceiling and a balcony adorned with 36 Augustus Saint-Gaudens sculptures of Roman legionnaires. Off the Main Hall is the East Hall, shimmering with scagliola marble walls and columns, a gorgeous hand-stenciled skylight ceiling, and stunning murals of classical scenes inspired by ancient Pompeiian art. Today it's the station's nicest shopping venue.In its heyday, this "temple of transport" witnessed many important events. President Wilson welcomed General Pershing here in 1918 on his return from France. South Pole explorer Rear Admiral Richard Byrd was also feted at Union Station on his homecoming. And Franklin D. Roosevelt's funeral train, bearing his casket, was met here in 1945 by thousands of mourners.But after the 1960s, with the decline of rail travel, the station fell on hard times. Rain caused parts of the roof to cave in, and the entire building -- with floors buckling, rats running about, and mushrooms sprouting in damp rooms -- was sealed in 1981. That same year, Congress enacted legislation to preserve and restore this national treasure.Today, Union Station is once again a vibrant entity patronized by locals and visitors alike, all 25 million of them yearly. Every square inch of the facility has been cleaned, repaired, and/or replaced according to the original design. About 120 retail and food shops on three levels offer a wide array of merchandise. And you'll be happy to find that most of the offerings in the Food Court are not fast-food joints but an eclectic mix of restaurants. The skylit Main Concourse, which extends the entire length of the station, is the primary shopping area as well as a ticketing and baggage facility. A nine-screen cinema complex lies on the lower level, across from the Food Court. The remarkable restoration, which involved hundreds of European and American artisans using historical research, bygone craft techniques, and modern technology, is meticulous in every detail. You could spend half a day here shopping, or about 20 minutes touring. Stop by the visitor kiosk in the Main Hall.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
This museum remains a top draw, as it has been since it opened in 1993. If you arrive without a reserved ticket specifying an admission time, you'll have to join the line of folks seeking to get one of the 1,575 day-of-sale tickets the museum makes available each day (see "Holocaust Museum Touring Tips," below). The museum opens its doors at 10am and the tickets are usually gone by 10:30am. Get in line early in the morning (around 8am).The noise and bustle of so many visitors can be disconcerting, and it's certainly at odds with the experience that follows. But things settle down as you begin your tour. When you enter, you will be issued an identity card of an actual victim of the Holocaust; at several points in the tour, you can find out the location and status of person on your card -- by 1945, 66% of those whose lives are documented on these cards were dead.The tour begins on the fourth floor, where exhibits portray the events of 1933 to 1939, the years of the Nazi rise to power. On the third floor (documenting 1940-44), exhibits illustrate the narrowing choices of people caught up in the Nazi machine. You board a Polish freight car of the type used to transport Jews from the Warsaw ghetto to Treblinka and hear recordings of survivors telling what life in the camps was like. This part of the museum documents the details of the Nazis' "Final Solution" for the Jews.The second floor recounts a more heartening story: It depicts how non-Jews throughout Europe, by exercising individual action and responsibility, saved Jews at great personal risk. Denmark -- led by a king who swore that if any of his subjects wore a yellow star, so would he -- managed to hide and save 90% of its Jews. Exhibits follow on the liberation of the camps, life in Displaced Persons camps, emigration to Israel and America, and the Nuremberg trials. A highlight at the end of the permanent exhibition is a 30-minute film called Testimony, in which Holocaust survivors tell their stories. The tour concludes in the hexagonal Hall of Remembrance, where you can meditate and light a candle for the victims. The museum notes that most people take 2 to 3 hours on their first visit; many people take longer.In addition to its permanent and temporary exhibitions, the museum has a Resource Center for educators, which provides materials and services to Holocaust educators and students; an interactive computer learning center; and a registry of Holocaust survivors, a library, and archives, which researchers may use to retrieve historic documents, photographs, oral histories, films, and videos.The museum recommends not bringing children under 11; for older children, it's advisable to prepare them for what they'll see. You can see some parts of the museum without tickets, includingtwo special areas on the first floor and concourse: Daniel's Story: Remember the Children and the Wall of Remembrance (Children's Tile Wall), which commemorates the 1.5 million children killed in the Holocaust, and the Wexner Learning Center. There's a cafeteria and museum shop on the premises.Holocaust Museum Touring Tips--Because so many people want to visit the museum (it has hosted as many as 10,000 visitors in a single day), tickets specifying a visit time (in 15-min. intervals) are required. Reserve as many as 10 tickets in advance via Tickets.com (tel. 800/400-9373; www.tickets.com) for a small fee. If you order well in advance, you can have tickets mailed to you at home. You can also get same-day tickets at the museum beginning at 10am daily (lines form earlier, usually around 8am). Note that same-day tickets are limited, and one person may obtain a maximum of four.
United States Botanic Garden
The Botanic Garden re-opened in late 2001 after a major, 5-year renovation. The grand conservatory devotes half of its space to exhibits that focus on the importance of plants to people, and half to exhibits that focus on ecology and the evolutionary biology of plants. The conservatory holds 4,000 living species; 26,000 plants; a high-walled enclosure, called "The Jungle," of palms, ferns, and vines; an Orchid Room; and, outside the conservatory, a First Ladies Water Garden, formal rose garden, and a lawn terrace. You'll also find a Meditation Garden and gardens created especially with children in mind. Call in advance to arrange for a free, 4-minute tour. The USBG sometimes offers entertainment, like the live music and tours it hosted last summer, staying open until 8pm on the first Tuesday of each month.Also visit the garden annex across the street, Bartholdi Park. The park is about the size of a city block, with a stunning cast-iron classical fountain created by Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, designer of the Statue of Liberty. Charming flower gardens bloom amid tall ornamental grasses, benches are sheltered by vine-covered bowers, and a touch and fragrance garden contains such herbs as pineapple-scented sage.
Jurys Washington Hotel
This hotel gets high marks for convenience (it's located right on Dupont Circle), service, and comfort. Open since 2000, the hotel is favored by business groups especially, who like its reasonable rates. Each of the large rooms is furnished with two double beds with firm mattresses, an armoire with TV, a desk, a wet-bar alcove, and a tiny but attractive bathroom. Decor is Art Deco-ish, with lots of light-wood furniture. All guest rooms offer free, high-speed Internet access. Despite its prime location in a sometimes raucous neighborhood, the hotel's rooms are insulated from the noise. Rooms on higher floors offer the best views of the city and of Dupont Circle. An Irish management company owns this hotel (along with two other properties in Washington, D.C.), and the comfortable and attractive hotel pub, Biddy Mulligan's, proudly features a bar imported from the Emerald Isle. Its American restaurant, Dupont Grille, opened in spring 2003, and a welcome addition it is to the hotel and the neighborhood (see review, chapter 6). Check the hotel's website for guaranteed lowest rates.
One Washington Circle Hotel
Built in 1960, this building was converted into a hotel in 1976, making it the city's first all-suite hotel property. The George Washington University purchased the hotel in 2001 (see its other property, the George Washington University Inn, above), closed the place down and totally renovated it, reopening in 2002. One Washington Circle gleams now, from its double-paned windows to its contemporary new furniture. Five types of suites are available, ranging in size from 390 to 710 square feet. The one-bedroom suites have a sofa bed and dining area; all rooms are spacious and have walkout balconies, some overlooking the Circle and its centerpiece, the statue of George Washington. But keep in mind that across the Circle is George Washington University Hospital's emergency room entrance, which is busy with ambulance traffic; even with the installation of those double-paned windows, you may still hear sirens, so ask for a suite on the L Street side if you desire a quieter room. Ninety percent of the suites have full kitchens, each with an oven, microwave, and refrigerator.Clientele is mostly corporate, but families like the outdoor pool, in-house restaurant, prime location near Georgetown and the Metro, and that full kitchen. Call directly to the hotel for best rates and be sure to mention a GWU affiliation if you have one. The well-reviewed Circle Bistro, serves bistro food with a Mediterranean influence.Facilities: Restaurant (traditional bistro with Mediterranean flair); bar; outdoor pool; on-site fitness center; concierge; room service (7am-midnight weekends, 7am-11pm weekdays); coin-op washer/dryers; same-day laundry/dry cleaning; 5 rooms for those w/limited mobility, 1 with roll-in showers. In room: A/C, TV w/pay movies and Nintendo, 2-line cordless phones, full kitchens (in 90% of suites, w/oven, fridge, microwave), coffeemaker, hair dryer, iron, free high-speed Internet access, CD player.
Hotel Helix
The Helix doesn't so much invite you in, as intrigue you in. The giant, peacock-blue English lawn chairs and the Magritte-like painting out front are just the beginning. Your steps across a mosaic-tiled vestibule trigger an automatic swoosh of curtains, parting to let you inside the hotel. The small lobby is spare, its main furnishings the illuminated "pods," or podiums with flat computer screens for check in. The guest rooms have a minimalist quality to them, too, which is an odd thing to say about a decor that uses such startling colors: cherry-red and royal-blue ottomans, striped green settees, bright orange vanities in bathrooms, metallic-sheen walls, lime-green honor bar/armoires. But rooms are uncluttered and roomy, due to a design that puts the platform bed behind sheer drapes in an alcove (in the king deluxe rooms), leaving the two-person settee, a triangular desk, and the 22-inch flat screen TV on its stainless steel stand, out in the open. Deluxe rooms, without alcoves, feel a little less spacious, but otherwise look the same. Roomiest are the 18 suites, with separate bedroom and, in the living room, slate blue sectional sofas. The Helix, like its sister hotels (see the Madera, Topaz, and Rouge), offers "specialty" rooms which play up particular themes, in this case, "Eats" rooms, which include Italian cafe tables and barstools, and a fully equipped kitchenette; "Bunk" rooms, which have a separate bunk bed area where the TV has a built-in DVD player; and "Zone" rooms, equipped with a plasma screen TV, high-tech stereo system, lava lamp, and lounge chair. Every guest room has a five-disc CD player, complimentary wireless Internet access, and Web TV (for a charge).In room: A/C, TV w/pay movies, Nintendo, and Web access (for a fee), CD player, 2-line phones w/dataports, minibar, hair dryer, iron, free wireless Internet access.
Need help booking your trip?
Book online or call
1-800-504-3248(toll free)
Need help booking your trip?
Book online or call
1-800-504-3248(toll free)
Need help booking your trip?
Book online or call
1-800-504-3248(toll free)
Need help booking your trip?
Book online or call
1-800-504-3248(toll free)
Other direct flights to Washington (IAD) on United Airlines
