L'Enfant Plaza SW

Planned a visit to the International Spy Museum in DC. On street parking was full in the immediate area so after a quick search located ACE Parking at 480 L'Enfant Plaza SW Washington, DC 20024 Just behind the museum !! WHAT a find I thought. ! Pulled up to get my parking ticket (after a circuitous route to the lower level parking garage that was a trip in and of its self. ...lol) and the sign stated vehicles over 6 FOOT not recommended to enter. Well thought my 75" height Chevy Silverado 1500 custom "should" fit... parking garages always have a little "wiggle room" WELL... was able to park (the spaces are tight and small) and enjoy the museum. No damage done but my truck antenna was not happy with me. BUT they are NOT KIDDING. Sedans compacts maybe mini vans and small SUVs can do it but DISREGARD if you have a pickup truck or full size SUV. Fire sprinkler pipes AT 6 foot. I also saw several spaces where other pipes and duct work were below even 6 foot.

STAY AWAY. I would have given zero stars if that was possible. Parked here for an afternoon trip to the Spy Museum with the family. Parking for 2+ hours is $26 (a fortune but that's not the issue). Stayed 3 hours so paid $26 at the kiosk adjacent to the elevator as we returned to the car. Got the family situated and fed in the car which took about 20 minutes. Once at the exit kiosk, my ticket was scanned and I was required to pay an additional $15. Confused, I called customer service from the exit kiosk and was told that staying more than 15 minutes after paying results in a $15 penalty and that that information was posted at the garage entrance as well as at the kiosk by the elevator. I calmly explained that if such information was posted, it was not clear/visible. However, the rude CS rep would have none of it; pay the $15 if you want to exit. To avoid having myself, my family and our ride home held hostage, I paid their ransom. Not only is this policy horse shit, it's a lie. This 'penalty' information is not posted at the garage entrance, the elevator kiosk nor on the exit kiosk. Further, I paid $26; that covered my parking through midnight. So, I could have stayed another 9.5 hours and paid nothing extra (as long as I exited within 15 minutes of paying). STAY AWAY. There are plenty of other public garages nearby that don't extort tourists.

We were in DC during a road trip and stopped into the plaza before hopping onto a trolly tour. Boy did it suck. The signage sucked so we had to ask strangers where things were. The CVS store inside was convenient so we patronized it. I went to find shoes to purchase and the shoe store only carried fake Adidas! Boo! I definitely wouldn't recommend a shopping trip to this place.

There's so much contradicting information. Online information and signage when you're exiting in your vehicle say they're 24hr. Not 100% accurate. At the elevators to leave on foot they have different information stating that pedestrian exits close at 11pm, only extended an hour when there's evens when asking security. The last time I parked there, two security ladies thankfully let me in and were extremely nice about everything as they were putting new signage up stating the pedestrian entrance was locked. Even if you're a few minutes past their "closed" time you end up paying the overnight parking price. I was parked for four hours in the garage due to outside of typical working hours and they charged $56 like I had been parked there all night and I was picking up my car the next morning. The extremely nice security ladies made up for part of the hassle with how kind they were but never parking in this garage again due to the conflicting information about the garage hours

We love the convenient stores and food stalls they have here. This really makes the commute a lot nicer. Beware though most businesses are close by 5:00PM.

Convenient garage however the people who run it are unhelpful to say the least. If ypu have a monthy pass it'll save you money but the schmucks running it make you go in person to the offoce to get a invoice for the pass so that your employer can pay you back. Went today (where office hours are posted 9-5) at 4 and was informed the office clerk just left. I left work an hour early to take care of this so i'm losing an hour of pay and still not getting reimbursed for the pass. When ive gone in previous months and gotten an invoice it takes them sometimes 20 minutes just to figure out how to do that. The problem is this garage has tons of space and ive never had an issue finding a spot however it is soon becoming not worth the hastle.

It's insane to review a parking garage right? Not when it sucks this bad. Seriously, don't park here. We got in fine, had the pick of the lot in terms of where we wanted to park. Some spots were oddly blocked off in seemingly no pattern but it was fine, since almost every other spot was empty. It's within easy walking distance to the Wharf so that was a plus but honestly we should have parked somewhere further away. When we tried to leave was the problem. Neither exit gate would read the ticket (this seems like a frequent occurrence given other reviews), and after multiple attempts we finally called for assistance. The attendant comes over, tries the ticket on both machines exactly as we had just done, and no surprise, it still doesn't work. So eventually he's like "ok give me $15 and I'll open it" and we kept asking to pay with credit card but for some reason he says that paying with credit card is $20. So okay, we hand him over the cash and he lets us through but this fiasco took almost 20 minutes. So not worth the short walk to the Wharf.

Too many unsupervised 13 something brats roaming and whining. Avoid the future millennial crowd.

INSANE, I think someone else included in their review. Fully agree. Worst underground parking fiasco ever encountered. Unbelievable, huge waste of time, money... really... people pay for this more than once?! Not to mention the pain of just finding the entrance below ground after striking out on the Promenade, but the underground signage is poor, it is not self-service, you need to wait for one of the red shirted attendants to open up a tight parking bay and give you a receipt. (The gentleman was nice, but place understaffed). Then when you leave, track them down again, to move cars to get to your stacked car... I think, I say, as I left after about 20 minutes waiting for the attendants to sort things out (others waiting in and outside cars) and I could only imagine lost time duplicated when needing to leave. No thanks. Paid the $10 and was glad to leave. Make sure you escape through the right gate, as not all exits are created equal / nor work, in this pitiful set up. Circled the Promenade a few more times and found an inexpensive, $4, 2 hour slot. Whew.

Parked here using parking panda but their scanner wouldn't read my bar code when leaving. There were at least 15 other people having same problem. No one could find anyone to help so I ended up having to pay for parking 2x - $20 each time. What a scam.

The parking attendant on duty was very very rude ....so rude that I did not feel comfortable parking/leaving my car there.

Little complicated to find the entrance, but lots of good signs, just follow them. Spaces are tight so SUVs beware.

Super convenient parking as it is connected to the plaza and metro, but the set up on the garage is very confusing and it took forever to find parking on a Wednesday morning (hence the 4 stars). But for $20, it's much cheaper than other garages in DC!

Update on the earlier review: Today I parked here again and found an untaken spot on a different side of the garage. I was able to use my Parking Panda codes at the scanner on the way in and on leaving. (the problem in the original post wasn't the Parking Panda scanner, it was the entire gate and no attendant present). Today an attendant and trainee were at the exit gate so if I had encountered a problem it would have been sorted. Thank you Alexandria for your reply and I did notice a big difference today. I upgraded the rating accordingly as I appreciate active customer service.

Hard to get into, REALLY hard to return to on a Sunday. Hint, there is an hidden door right next to the CVS. Parking garage itself is clean and well lit.