My wife and I are going to Washington DC for a vacation...we leave on Saturday are are going to be gone for a week. We have tried to plan a pretty busy schedule but we do have some time remaining and I was looking for things to do to fill it. One thought I had was to take a tour of the BEP. Has anyone here toured the BEP? Is it worth doing and about how long did it take? I'm not sure that we will have time but if it is really cool...I might shuffle some things around.
I would say that it's definitely worth doing. I toured the facility in Washington DC many years ago, and more recently the sister facility in Fort Worth. We took about 25 cub scouts through the FW building. Many of the workers that saw us (we're behind security glass, for obvious reasons!) even waved or gave our scouts a Scout Salute. I think when I took the DC tour it had a tour guide, while the FW building was self-guided and took about 45 minutes.
Enjoy your trip! Hope the weather says decent but it's supposed to snow around here again on Tuesday. Maybe that'd be a good day to go to the BEP
I was there prior to making this post. What I really want to know is...is it worth doing. So far, it sounds like I'm getting some positive experiences.
It is worth it. Depending on the time of year and the day of the week you may need to get there much sooner than 8:00 for a ticket. I was in DC in 2008 doing research across the street at the BEP Historical Resource Center. I tried to get tickets on three days in August but they were out before I got to the front of the line each day. The problem with scheduling is that you may get your ticket at 8:15 but your tour may not start until 2:30.
We're going to be there next week. I will try and get tickets because it sounds fun...but I'm not sure if it will work out. I'm hoping to go to the Holocaust Museum but I have heard it can be REALLY hard to get tickets...so this was kind of a backup idea.
You probably need to read the fine print about the tours too... at the FW location there are no cameras, cell phones, basically electronics of any kind allowed inside. And they don't offer lockers so you would need to find a place to store your stuff ahead of time.
Hmm, based on what I read online about the DC location is that you could carry them with you but you couldn't use them. But, I will do some additional research.
Interesting that they have different policies. I wonder if because the DC site is in such a "touristy" place it would be hard to find people who didn't have cameras.
That could have something to do with it. The FW facility is out in a field northwest of the city. Not much else going on, so if you go there you're only going because you want to take the tour. I mentioned earlier that we took our cub scouts there last summer. (It's a free tour, and we're always looking for cheap entertainment!) I had several parents tell me later that it was the best thing we had done all year. Plus it was bonus points because it counts as visiting a government facility, which is a requirement for several different ranks.
Fascinating and disturbing at the same time. I collect notes from the camps and was aware of the history but I was unprepared for how overwhelming it was.
