Category: Travel

National Harbor: Family Fun

Back in November, I shared that Travis and I spent a date weekend at the National Harbor. We had such a wonderful time that we decided to return with Jack once everyone was decorated for Christmas. I booked the same hotel (Hyatt Place National Harbor) and once again we ended up with a beautiful room overlooking the water.

We booked the same kind of room too – a king bed with a pull-out couch, so we had ample space for the three of us. On Saturday, we went to the Gumdrop Tavern, which was a fun holiday themed pop-up. We each got a delicious hot cocoa topped with marshmallows and sprinkles. We also got some snacks to take back to the room (totally don’t do this, it was CRAZY expensive for a couple bags of popcorn and cookies). The cocoa was great though!

Anyways, back to the room we went with our snacks and watched Christmas movies on TV. Then, at 5:30pm and had THE BEST view of the evening fireworks:

I mean… holy moly! I couldn’t have asked for a better or more comfortable seat to watch that show!

For dinner, we walked over to the Crab Cake Café for dinner. The food was good, but for the price of it I thought the ambiance was pretty terrible. It felt like a fast-food kind of place with sticky tables… but with $20 crab cakes. We grabbed some ice cream next door at Ben & Jerrys and then took it back to the room to enjoy in our pajamas while watching more Christmas movies.

On Sunday, we knew that breakfast at the hotel was going to be ‘meh’ at most, so I had made reservations for us to have brunch at Succotash. Our last brunch at Succotash in November had us basically swooning, so it was a surprise that our family meal was EVEN BETTER. We decided to do a big smorgasbord shared meal between the three of us and ordered: deviled eggs with bacon jam, pecan sticky buns, chicken & waffles, French toast, and two sides of bacon. And we destroyed it all. The three of us basically had to be rolled out of the restaurant.

From there, we decided to check out the Capital Wheel Ferris wheel. The wheel takes you 180 feet up and we could see Maryland, DC and Virginia from our gondola. It was closed in and temperature-controlled, so we didn’t freeze.

I’m so glad we had our little family overnight getaway back at the National Harbor. The decorations were beautiful, the room was comfortable, the fireworks were spectacular and the Succotash brunch was divine! Even just one night away is such a nice little refresh before we jump back into the craziness of the holidays.

Date Weekend Fun: The National Harbor

It has been over a year since our last date weekend, so I am thrilled that my parents generously kept Jack overnight so Travis and I could go away this past weekend! All our normal places were booked up for some reason, so I had to broaden the search of where we should go. We typically try to stay within an hour radius so that we aren’t spending the whole weekend driving. So, for this adventure, we decided to check out the National Harbor!

Hotel: Hyatt Place National Harbor

I checked out a few hotels and ended up picking the Hyatt Place. Our room was huge with a king-sized bed, sitting area, and a shower I wanted to take home with me. They upgraded us to a room with a view… and the view was so amazing we couldn’t stop staring outside to watch the sunset.

The view from our room:

There was a pretty intense ‘No Party’ sheet we had to sign upon checking in, but it was very nice and quiet for our whole stay. Breakfast was included, but it was not very good at all.

Dinner Favorite: Old Hickory Steakhouse

We were celebrating a lot over the weekend, including our October wedding anniversary, my review and raise at work, and having a weekend alone. So, we decided to go all out by having dinner at the Old Hickory Steakhouse. This place was amazing with probably the best steak I’ve had in my life. This was definitely a ‘special occasion’ kind of place where you don’t want to look at the bill too closely, but it was such a treat and we enjoyed every minute of it. Even when the fancy fire alarm went off and everyone politely ignored it.  

Brunch Favorite: Succotash

If our amazing steak dinner and our amazing brunch had a smackdown fight, I honestly don’t know which would win! We had brunch at Succotash, which has a southern menu by a James Beard Award winning chef. We started with a deviled egg with bacon jam, which was so, so good. For our main meals, Travis ordered the fried chicken and waffles, and I went with the French toast (corn-crusted brioche, sweet lemon curd, blueberries and maple syrup). We also shared a side of maple-glazed slab bacon.

You guys. Can food be transcendent? Because this meal took me to a whole new world of YUMMY.

We loved our time at the National Harbor and are actually thinking about visiting it again in December to do some Christmassy stuff with Jack. They have a huge tree that I’m sure will be all lit up and they also have the enclosed Ferris Wheel you can see in my view photo… and I’d love to go for a ride.

Family Travel: Richmond Fun

Over the weekend, we attended my sister’s baby shower in Richmond, VA and decided that since it’s a 4-hour drive to get there… we might as well just stay for the weekend!

I did a TON of research when booking a hotel and still kind of feel like I just threw a dart at a map. We decided to stay at The Commonwealth, which is right next to Capitol Square. The hotel was beautiful and the suite was HUGE – we had a bedroom, a large bathroom and a living room with a sleeper sofa for Jack. They do valet parking, which was nice and convenient (for $28). They were also running a “VISA Worlds Offer” deal, which gave us 10% off the hotel price and 2 breakfasts included.

With that being said, the food at the hotel was terrible and insanely overpriced. The waitress/bartender was super nice each time, but I think they were also the cook for the food… which was kind of odd. We had a late dinner there after the baby shower on Saturday and there were a total of like 8 things on the entire menu. We ended up with a Caesar salad with shrimp (me), linguine with meat sauce (Travis), a chicken sandwich (Jack) and a bowl of ice cream and it was $60. Everything was pretty bland and totally not worth the cost. We did end up going back for breakfast since we had the two free breakfasts on the room promotion… and it was $72 for a lukewarm buffet for the three of us, 2 coffees and an orange juice (before the 2 meals were comped…which I had to email them about once we got home). Sigh.

Anyways, the hotel was great. The people were great. The food was not.

Saturday was basically just the drive to Richmond and the baby shower, so on Sunday we decided to do a little exploring before we hit the road to come back home. We started by walking around Capitol Square and checking out all the buildings and sculptures.

Then, we grabbed our stuff, checked out of our room and drove over to Maymount. They have a free parking lot and the place has over 100 acres between the historic estate, gardens and wildlife habitats.

We started out by exploring the Japanese Gardens. To say that they were beautiful is a total understatement. We explored the whole area, climbed up next to the waterfalls and watched the gigantic koi fish swim around.

From there, we made our way over to the wildlife habitat where we saw two bald eagles. I think this was the first time I’ve ever seen a bald eagle in person and they were SO CLOSE to us. Travis and Jack also compared their wingspan to the wingspan of the eagle…

We finished up over by the petting zoo area where we got to pet some friendly goats!

We LOVED Maymont and wished that we were able to stay for their evening event, the Garden Glow. We could see where all the lights were set up for when it was nighttime, so it must be absolutely beautiful.

From Maymont, we hit up the Mellow Mushroom, a delicious pizza place my sister recommends. We got the Funky Q. Chicken pizza and it was great, a mix of BBQ chicken, mozzarella and cheddar cheeses and Applewood smoked bacon. Highly recommend!

Since it was kind of our anniversary celebration too, we finished our day in Richmond at Shyndigz with a huge piece of fresh fruit cake. They have an adorable little outdoor eating tent, so we hung out at a table for our cake party and then Jack tried to catch some bubbles from their bubble machine.

I wish we had a few more days to stay and explore, because there were still a bunch of places I wanted to eat and the weather was beautiful. As it was, we hopped back in the car and drove 4-hours back home so that we could work and go to school the next morning.