We recently stayed here and had either very good experiences or very bad ones.
The check in staff upon our arrival were very friendly. I used the concierge a few times, and he was also friendly and helpful. (Visit them in person as they don't answer the phone often--probably busy helping guests.) Ask him/her for a neighborhood map, which gives walk times and distances to everything around. The location of this hotel is wonderful--a 10-15 minute walk to the major things, but there are plenty of restaurants/shops within minutes of stepping outside. The museums are about a 10min walk, Chinatown is just down the street, Ford's Theater is about a 5 minute walk. The White House around 10min and then the monuments are a bit further. Bring good walking shoes!
This isn't the cleanest hotel or the best kept, but it's not the worst I've been in. However, I went to get my daughter a drink and grabbed a glass by the ice bucket. It had a white grainy film in it; it looked as though someone drank Alka-Seltzer out of it. The other glass was fine, but I set the dirty glass up and on the edge of the counter so that the cleaning staff could take it. That afternoon after the room had been cleaned, I grabbed a glass again and that dirty glass was back. The staff had just turned it back over and placed it back where it had been.
We used room service every morning. However, upon reading other reviews on here, I was not told that we could have free breakfast with the rewards club, although the front desk staff knew that we were members; he never alerted us to any "perks" we'd get while staying there (for 5 days, spending $20 every morning could have saved us $100, not to mention free wi-fi). I called down to order 2 kids' breakfasts (there is a special kid's menu). My 7 year old daughter does not care for breakfast-y food, so I ordered her a hotdog. The woman taking my order sounded frustrated that we were ordering such a thing at 10am and told me that she'd have to ask the chef if he'd make it. (There is no specific times listed on the menu on when you can order items.) I told her not to worry and that my daughter could just pick something breakfast-like. The woman sounded even more annoyed at me and put me on hold. She finally got back on the line and told me that a hotdog would be fine, but they could not give us fries. I accepted that and told her that a different side would be fine. Upon its arrival, there were indeed fries. The persons bringing room service to the room were always cordial. (Be sure to read the fine print: there is automatic gratuitity given to the person bringing you the food, so you need not include extra....unless you're feeling extra generous.) The food was okay, but there was always one mistake made with food. We would request a side and a different one would come. Not a big deal unless you're a picky eater. However, our oldest daughter does have food allergies and it could have posed an issue.
I had decided not to bring our umbrella stroller for our 1 year old because we were trying to travel light. DC is a very walkable town, and I ended up carrying our 20+ pound daughter around the entire day. The following day, I called the concierge and asked if there were any stroller rental places around. (There are no rental strollers available in any of the museums, and the Spy Museum actually prohibits them. Plan ahead!) He informed me that the hotel had a few and would set one aside for me at the bell hop. It was a god-send! I returned it after our day out, and then requested it for the following day. When I went to get it from the bell hop, it just looked at me and said, "don't know if we have one" and then shrugged his shoulders. (This was the same one who helped me with the one the previous day.) He just stood there. I was getting ready to ask him if he could check on it when he finally said, "well, I'll go see if we have one". He brought out a double stroller, did not help me with it, but stood breathing down my neck waiting for a tip as I struggled to open it and get it set up all while holding a squirmy 1 year old. Needless to say, he did not get a tip. It was as much his attitude as it was his lack of doing his job. Overall, I was extremely happy to have the use of a stroller. To anyone who needs to use one, I would definitely request one first thing in the morning from the concierge. He/she will put your room number on it.
As some of the reviews have mentioned, there is construction going on across the street. They begin work sometimes around 6:00am. We were not alerted to this at check in when we were asked if we wanted inside/outside facing rooms. Also, yes, they charge for wi-fi PER computer. My husband and I both brought our laptops and were informed that the wi-fi was only for 1 computer per room. Avoid the work out center since you have to pay for that, too. Enjoy your workout amongst the sites within minutes of the hotel. Walking around was safe, for the most part. It got a bit dodgy close to Chinatown after dark.
This is where our pretty good trip turned into a pretty sad one. My daughter has a lovey (think blankie/stuffed animal), and she left it on the top of the covers of the bed. Upon arriving back after the museums, and our room had been made up, my daughter saw that her lovey was gone. We called down to housekeeping who said that they would look and call us back, as did the front desk. We never received a phone call. We went to dinner with a very sad 7 year old. We came back and called housekeeping again. They said that they looked through our room's bag of laundry and it wasn't in there. (I saw the bags of laundry sitting out in the hallways and there were never room numbers on them. So either they have a system to know which bag of laundry comes from which room, or we were lied to.) We were told by the head of housekeeping that since it wasn't anything of value that it would not be a priority for them to look for it. If anyone who has children know how precious that blankie or lovey is to the child. My husband told her that it wasn't an acceptable answer and that something was taken from our room by them and we needed it back. She then accused us of accusing them of stealing. My husband had told her that we didn't believe anyone purposely took it (who would want a kid's lovey), and that we just needed it back. We tore the room apart looking for it. We even looked behind the curtains and in the fridge. After the rude encounter with the head of housekeeping, no one would listen to us. We told the front desk in the morning and the woman working pretended to write down our information about it as our daughter stood there crying, and she was practically rolling her eyes. That was the day we had to leave, so we could no longer pester anyone to find it. Also, upon packing up our stuff, we found that an unopened bag of Goldfish crackers were also missing. Now, had my daughter dropped the lovey in the hallway or left it in one of the hotel's restaurants, the missing lovey would be OUR problem. Since it was left on top of the covers IN (the safety of) our room, then it was THEIR problem. It was removed from our room by them, not by us. When we got home, we filled out the survey and received a blanket response from the Omaha base of Hyatt, apologizing for it. That was that. However, a few days later, we got a call from the assistant head of housekeeping who took it upon herself to find the lovey. She found it and overnighted it to us. We are very grateful to her that she actually listened to us and got back our belonging.
We have to go back to DC in the fall. I am hesitant to stay at this hotel again. The main redeeming quality is the location. I will check other places first, though.
Like I mentioned, we had either really great experiences at the hotel or really terrible ones.
If you go to Capital City Brewing Co, just across the street, ask for Ahmid---a wonderful, kind server who treated us well as we went to dinner with an upset daughter.
Room Tip: Choose a room that doesn't face the construction project across the street.
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This review is the subjective opinion of a TripAdvisor member and not of TripAdvisor LLC
