Washington Suites

The hotel is pretty basic, just okay, and the shuttle being free is nice. But on all three pickup calls, the driver was late: 10 minutes, then 20, then 30. After the last wait we found out he’d gone to get takeout that looked like it was for half the hotel. That was frustrating. No tip from me. An older gentleman there was great, but the younger guys weren’t so good.

The neighborhood is terrible, and the hotel is noisy. We heard people in the halls and other rooms, traffic, city noise, and garbage trucks. The room AC also worked inconsistently. The pool was decent, but it was almost entirely in the shade by early afternoon. My three-year-old fell off a chair and hit her head on a table, so an ambulance took her to the ER. She needed four staples. The staff seemed annoyed about having to clean the blood in the room. When we came back, she was still in a hospital gown, and nobody asked how she was doing. They didn’t ask at checkout either.

After a week here, I was very disappointed and won’t stay again on future trips to the DC area, whether for myself or my team. The rooms were comfortable, but badly needed cleaning: the carpets needed shampooing and the walls patching and painting. Other guests’ cooking smells were overpowering. It was in the 70s outside, but the AC didn’t work. The only suggestion was to request a box fan, which is completely unacceptable at $200+ per night. The furnace/AC filter was so dirty it had collapsed in on itself. Very disgusting. There was one front desk person per shift. They were friendly and helpful when they weren’t on the phone, which was ringing constantly.

The room had dirt on the refrigerator, crumbs throughout the hallways, and something sticky on the kitchen counters. There’s also a strip club in the parking lot, despite the place calling itself family-friendly, and a parking spot reserved for VA State Troopers. Is that necessary? The bigger issue was that we arrived around dinner, went out to eat, and came back to a hot suite. We turned the thermostat to its coldest setting, but nothing changed. Other guests said they couldn’t sleep in the heat either. They’d been told to open the windows. It was August in Virginia, and raining. My husband called the front desk and the man said he’d look into it. Then the house phones were disabled, so we couldn’t call back to check. I called the main number from my cell, but the person who answered couldn’t help. The desk clerk eventually offered another room, then gave us a key to one that was already occupied. That’s terrifying. Who knows who might have been given a key to our room if we’d stayed? We had nowhere to go and drove back to New York at midnight in a thunderstorm. Our four-day vacation was over. This was one of the most appalling hotel experiences I’ve had. If it’s your only option, stay home.