Colonial Parking

Parked at 5 p.m. and pulled my car out at 11 a.m. the following morning and got hit with a $ 40 fee, not the $ 20 stated on the sign. Since the whole operation is automated, I couldn’t discuss it with anyone. Major ripoff!

These guys are crooks who have misleading signs, rude service, tiny spaces and even tinier…
morals.

The place is a rip off. $ 35 to park overnight.
The parking spaces are absolutely tiny, and I have a normal sized sedan. The columns make it almost impossible to park anywhere but middle spaces.
There’s always an attendant, so that’s nice. The place is safe and well-​lit, but it’s honestly not worth paying huge prices for tiny spots.
UPDATE: I recently had to pay for a monthly pass. After the miserable experience of getting my pass from the corporate office in Georgetown, I finally tried to use my pass for the first time. It didn’t work. The daytime boss was completely gone and came back 10 min later with Starbucks talking on his cell phone. He continued to talk on his cell phone for 15 more minutes while I repeatedly asked him to stop talking so that he could help me get out of the lot cause my car was trapped in. He refused to get off the phone. So rude. I was 20 min late to work because he didn’t want to stop laughing with his friend on the phone.
The only bright side of this hellhole is the nighttime attendant. He is SO nice! He even gave me a reserved spot on a Friday so my car wouldn’t be at risk of being scratched. He should be the boss instead of the other guy.

Good for parking for some nights, if you are OK with paying 20 $ per day. We parked for 2 days and everything was fine. There was always a service employer present for helping. Also paying in cash or credit card was possible. It was much better than other people described here. The space of a parking spot is indeed small but it is OK for normal cars. Maybe a SUV needs two slots…

Credit card feature at the pay station as well as the exit stand was down and, in order to exit, you had to have $ 20 cash to hand to the attendant. I seldom carry cash as do most people since you can almost always swipe your credit card and pay that way for convenience sake. I was stuck in this parking structure for almost an hour. You would think that since it’s their fault, they would at least accept responsibility and take $ 10 so you can get on with your life, but nope! You had to walk to an ATM somewhere in Adams Morgan, withdraw cash, come back, pay the attendant, and THEN, you were allowed to leave. And we are talking about hundreds of drivers that, without a warning, had to do this at 3am! I live about a mile down on U street corridor and I got home almost two hours later. Next time, I’ll give this $ 20 to a cab driver. I’m never parking in this structure or any other colonial parking structure for as long as I live.

Your only option in Adams Morgan. Spots are super small.
If you park here at night, know you don’t get 24 hours. Have to be out by early morning.

We only park here as there’s so little street parking and we don’t want a parking ticket and have gotten used to the horrible $ 20 we pay here for a tiny hard-​to-​drive into parking space for the couple of hours we are trying out a restaurant in Adams Morgan during the weekend. The EZ pay parking machine will only take credit cards as it looks like they don’t want cash in it as it looks like it has been gouged open a few times with a crowbar and robbed a few times. But it will take credit cards and there is an attendant (in a Colonial labeled uniform!) present. The lot has Handicapped spots available but they are always filled (not necessarily with handicap parking permit cars, natch!).

Who reviews a parking garage? Well when this one stands out as being the worse parking garage you ever been to in the world, I think it deserves a shout out!
I pulled in and was asked how long I would be staying. About 4 hours I said. He said to park on the second level. I asked how much the parking costs, he pointed to a sign in the far corner as he was walking away and that was that. I couldn’t make out the sign from my angle; oh well, I’m sure they’ll tell me the price when I leave.
I proceeded up the ramp to the second level and immediately had a standoff with an SUV. It turns out there isn’t enough room for a car to go up and another car to come down at the same time. No matter how you angle your vehicle, it just can’t mathematically be done. So we stare at each other. The guy rolls down his window and leans out.
«What’s it going to be Skippy? I can’t just disappear. Am I backing up or are you?»
Enjoying the title of Skippy I pointed straight ahead making it quite clear that I am not backing up. He backs up and I get around. I proceed to the spaces. My goodness. These are designed for those toy cars that you drive around when you are 4 years old. I found a free space and arranged to park my car in it and still be able to get out of my car. Amazing.
When I came back later, I picked up a door ding, and it took about 4 passes of backing up and pulling forward to get out of the space without hitting any other cars.
Cost for this memorable experience, $ 17. WOW! DC parking sucks!!!
0 stars.

Signs are plastered all over AdMo advertising Cheap Daytime Parking — Yes, in Adams Morgan! $ 2 for 2 hours 7am to 6pm. If only that were true.
Being convinced that owners of parking garages are evil, I still asked the attendant if parking was in fact $ 2 despite the fact that the receptionist at Flow Massage Studio assured us and despite the fact that there was a sign right in his window that said $ 2 for 2 hours, and he nodded yes. Perhaps, he misunderstood my question and thought I asked, «Is this a parking garage?»
For you UMCP students past and present, you thought the spaces on campus were tight?! Well, you ain’t seen nothing yet. My guess is that the spaces are designed so that you can make a convenient exit from your car through your moon or sunroof. And in most garages, the spaces adjacent to pillars are relatively roomy but not here: the pillar is placed right in the middle of two spots. We came in at 15:21 and thankfully the garage was empty but if it’s crowded and you care about your car, you may not want to park here.
When we left at 17:18 (the time stamped on our exit receipt), a different attendant charged us $ 7. When asked why it wasn’t $ 2, he told me that it wasn’t working. When asked why it wasn’t working, he showed me how he does his job: put parking ticket in, push discount code, and VOILA! $ 7! I reluctantly paid the cash and left there with yet another data point on the evil that is parking garages.
I attempted to call Colonial Parking today, and used the # found on my receipt, and basically got transferred to every single Colonial Parking garage in the city. After tiring of playing Parking Garage Tag, I sent the company an email and am awaiting a response.
For those that park in Adams Morgan thinking that you’ll only have to pay $ 2, beware! Despite there being plenty of street parking ($ 1.50/hour) available at 3pm on a Saturday, I parked in the garage since it was cheaper ($ 2 for 2 hours) and ended up paying much more.
I hate parking garages. And like Bobby Boucher’s momma would say, Parking Garages are the devil!