I tried a search but found nothing to give guidance to a son and his family living in RIC - which we are treating to a cruise to the Galapagos. The best same day connection is for them to drive up to DCA, leave their car, and fly RT DCA-MIA-GYE-MIA-DCA.

I've done the Google search and visited the airport website and understand the long-Term Economy Lot parking is $10/day. They would arrive on a Sunday morning (in June).

Do any FT posters have any caveats for me or anything to add? I'm just a father and doting grandfather doing 'due diligence', hoping to make sure that the trip is as memorable as possible without unforeseen glitches.

Call and make certain they have spaces. the lots do fill up since Sun Park went highrise. there is a number on the dca website.

I have always considered the airport lots at dca to be safe. they can be a long time(30 min) away from the terminal building.

Allow plenty of time--- even if the dial-in parking info number says there are spaces, they can sometimes be hard to find. Take that with a grain of salt; I fly from DCA almost weekly and can count the number of times I have had problems finding a space in Economy on one hand, so it doesn't happen that often; but when it does happen, it's really ugly. Also budget for having to resort to Daily parking "just in case." Again, pretty rare circumstance but it does happen. The shuttle service is really speedy at some times of the day and less-than-speedy off-peak, particularly early morning.

I fly out of DCA on Sunday's all the time - I've never had an issue with parking at DCA. But, I guess it's better safe than sorry. One option, as they're driving up from RIC, would be to see if any local hotels have a Park & Fly rate where they could stay the night before. Not that you'll have issues, but it would suck for there to be a bad accident on I-95 or horrible traffic at the mixing bowl or near Potomac Mills...

With most Park & Fly rates, you get a week or two worth of parking also.

Your son could do a park and fly package at the Crystal City Marriott at Reagan National Airport. In June, the rate is $139 plus tax, and it includes 7 days of parking. Additional parking will cost $16/day. The hotel shuttle to DCA takes about 15 minutes because they stop at other Marriott hotels to pick people up.

http://marriott.com/hotels/travel/wa...ional-airport/

Very hard to find if you have never been there. I would do one of the park-n-fly hotel options as already suggested.

DCA parking availability (# of spaces remaining) is available at:

http://www.mwaa.com/reagan/parking_t...on_4/parking_2

I've never had any problems finding parking in the economy lots.

I tried to to get written directions on all of the web map services, e.g. but was unable to get them to accept the Economy Parking Lot as as Destination. I was also unsuccessful in carefully trying to visually find the route from Term-B on the maps. I even checked it out on the Google Earth.

Last weekend my wife and I decided to drive down to the DC area and take in the Blossoms, the new (to me) exhibitions at Mt. Vernon, and the expanded Air & Space Museum at Dulles.

I decided to personally check out how to get to the Lot. As I drove up the Parkway I could clearly see it as I passed. So I went in to B and then looped back following the signs to "Virginia Exits South". Then I saw signs "Economy Parking". Then I saw signs "Exit Only" and Route I-66 and US-1. I couldn't believe I should leave the airport. So I didn't, got lost and found myself in places I shouldn't have been.

I tried it again and this time did exit; and, lo and behold, I saw the Economy Parking signs again which I followed back to the airport buildings, turned right and drove south beside the buildings to the entrance to the Economy Lot.

Needless to say, I have written this out for my son. Tazi, thanks for the heads up!

You are welcome. Even once you find the lot, as mentioned above, it can be very difficult to find spaces if the lot is almost full. I tried to use the lot once and just gave up and used daily parking .... quite expensive.

I just checked this site, and if accurate, 124 of 3026 spaces are available at 10am. I would consider that (3%)to be right next to nothing, and would worry about spaces at my chosen hour of arrival. I also do not know how much confidence I would have in that 124 number, as it has not been changed in the past 10 minutes.

got the 10 am upgrade. 3 of 3901 in the daily garage, and 106 of 3026 in the economy garage. must be fun trying to find one of those 3 spaces out of 3901. wonder how they count the handicapped spaces.

economy lot spaces dropped to 4 at about 1115. as I recall, when they think the lot full, they deny entry.

OK, since my son will be departing DCA at about noon on a Sunday in June, I'll start checking availability on that day/time of the week. Thanks again.