The Gateway Arch — Attraction in St. Louis

My sisters, husband, and I are in our 60's and had never experienced a ride to the top of the Gateway Arch. When a family wedding had us traveling to St. Louis for the weekend, we decided to add The Arch to our itinerary. We are SO GLAD that we did. It was an incredible experience.

It is best to get tickets online before you arrive, especially if you will be visiting during popular hours. We were coming from the Cincinnati area and arriving in the afternoon, so we chose a 5:50 PM reservation. I don't think the afternoon slots are as popular as the early or mid-day times, although all 8 elevator cars on our trip up seemed to have people in each.

We arrived well before our scheduled trip to the top. We had been concerned about how to spend all that time...until we took the elevator/escalators downstairs and discovered an awesome museum. It tells the story of the westward movement and the settling of St. Louis, along with lots of information about the construction of the Arch. There is SO MUCH information and interactive displays that I wish we'd had more waiting time.

There is also a large gift shop. We checked it out before going up, getting ideas for purchases but saving the actual purchases for when we came back down. We didn't want to add more stuff to the tight elevator space than was necessary.

The elevator cars look like little barrels, with five seats squeezed inside. It can be a tight fit if you are a tall or large person. There is an example of the car on display in the entrance lobby. Try it out beforehand. We made adjustments in the seating after we experimented with our group in the lobby, placing the smaller, more agile family members in the back, entering first. We reserved the two seats just inside the door for our taller family members and those with mobility issues. The opening is only 4 feet tall so there is bending and stepping up needed to get in. My sister kept bumping her head on the top of the "barrel" after she was seated. If you are not comfortable with steps, notify the attendant. They assign cars 1 and 2 to those with mobility issues. Less steps are needed to get to and from these cars at the bottom as well as at the top.

The ride up and down is NOT scary. It's fascinating. You can see outside your door, noting cables and hardware that make the ride work. The story of the design and construction helps you to appreciate everything that went into making your ride possible.

At the top, North riders are separated from South riders at the midpoint of the arch, but there is plenty of room to move from window to window to get different views. (If both elevators are full, five riders in each of the eight cars on North and South sides, there would be 80 people at the top at the same time. It sounds like a lot, but keeping the sides separate doesn't make it feel crowded at all.) Be sure to get up close to the windows for a direct "straight down" view.

There is limited time to experience the top, less than 10 minutes, as the next load of people will arrive 10 minutes after you did. Get your views and pictures as quickly and efficiently as you can. The attendant announces "loading in 2 minutes" to give you notice for any final pictures. It felt like adequate time to me. Down cars are loaded 3 cars at a time beginning with #8. The ride down is fairly smooth with little movements of the car to adjust to the bend in the arch. I was worried that it might be like a roller coaster drop, as gravity moves it one minute faster than the ride up, but it does not.

We parked at the Stadium East Parking Garage, 200 S. Broadway, 63102. Download the iParkit app, and order you pass before you leave home. The cost of the garage is listed as $30, but when you order your pass through iParkit, it's cheaper. Ours was $12.00 for 5 hours. Try to estimate your arrival time and order your pass accordingly. We didn't figure in the hour time difference from Cincinnati to St. Louis, so we would have arrived an hour too soon. Each half hour outside of your reserved 5 hours is $6.00. We killed time in...

Fun visit. We purchased a timed entry ticket to get up to the top of the Arch and a movie about construction of the Arch.

There is also a national part store inside. For those who collect national park stamps and the sticker, the stamps are all located upstairs when you enter. However, for those who like to get the stamp, I’d wait until you go downstairs to purchase the stamp and then add the stamps after. Not all of the stamps are downstairs so I went upstairs to add the stamps.

As a heads up, if you are claustrophobic, there is a sample car that shows the size the seats and car that you can see to the left when you enter the building.

After you go through security screening to get to the lower level, which is required by all, there is a free museum that was interested. It discussed colonial St. Louis, more about the Lewis & Clark expedition, which left from St. Louis, the riverfront era when steamboats transformed St. Louis along the Mississippi River, the growth of railroad system and impact on St. Louis, and building the arch. Personally, I found the exhibit about building the arch the most fascinating - I had no idea it was a contest to determine which monument would be build and the challenges in building it. The movie shows movies while building it, and frankly the view was incredible and terrifying and I can’t imagine people building it at that height.

There is the north and south cars to go up to the top of the arch. We lined up and given a plastic card with a number, that corresponded to the people in the specific car you’ll ride up to the top. Almost all groups were alone with their party. There is a short film that reminds me of the 1970s that plays before you get to the cars. While the cars are small, it was a short ride up and down - 4 minutes up, 3 minutes down. At the top, we had 10 minutes, and they are good about giving directions and reminders of how much time left as we need to get on same car down as one group leaves when we arrive, and one group leaves halfway.

They also have a cafe.

If you have trouble with steps, I would not recommend going to the stop of the arch. There are numerous steps in the way to and from the tram, including a large step into the tram, and big step into enter the tramp, and multiple steps to both enter at bottom and...

I am visiting family in St Louis for the first time for the holidays and had no idea that you could go to the top of the arch! This was a really cool experience. This is a national park, museum, and experience all in one place.

We first did the documentary film. It was, I think, about 30 minutes or so and showed the creation and building of the arch, which was really neat. After that, we had a ticket to go up to the top. You take a 5 seat sort of tram to the top that operates like a tram and ferris wheel since you are traveling on the outer side of the arch. If you are claustrophobic, that might be something you have an issue with. It was roughly 3 minutes up and about 2.5 minutes coming back down. You get to look at the view from the top for about 10 minutes. We got lucky as the day before and after our visit were very low visibility days, and we had a really nice day on the Sunday (Christmas Eve) that we went. Our tour guide at the beginning of the tour was very friendly and super informative. Tickets were $4 for the movie and $19 to go to the top.

After completing our ticket items, we had some food at the cafe and then walked around the museum. The food was ok, but the service was very friendly! Food was about $10 to $12 per item, and we got the pretzel and pulled pork sandwhich, which were ok. The museum was also really cool. There was lots of historical information about the arch and Missouri and St Louis in general. I live for museums, so it was nice to see that this was included with our ticket price. After everything, we checked out the gift shop and bought some items for ourselves as well as gifts. Everything was a reasonable enough price, and the service was very friendly and pretty quick.

Anxiety inducing questions I had that will hopefully help you: As a curvy woman, how tight is the tram to the top? - It wasn't too tight. We had a party of 5 people and I felt comfortable in the space. It was a little scary to me going up, but it was cool.

Is there parking? - As this is downtown, this is definitely like big city parking. There are garages nearby that you can pay to park in and walk to the arch. They aren't far, but if it's cold, it can seem...