After reading the mixed reviews here, we decided to go ahead and take a chance on this place because of its location (close to friends in College Park) and reasonable prices. It was fine, mostly, but the combination of problems we had - ants in our room, various other small room problems, and a ridiculous fee tacked on at the end - have pretty much guaranteed that I'm not going to stay there again.

The first room we were given was supposedly a nonsmoking room, but it reeked of smoke and some kind of awful air freshener that I guess was supposed to cover up the smokey smell. We opened the window and settled in anyway. Then, in the bathroom, I discovered a bunch of ants swarming on the floor. We went to the front desk, told them about the ants, and requested a new room. The gentleman at the front desk apologized and upgraded us to a king suite free of charge, and this was a much nicer room - no ants, cleaner, and better smelling. Hooray!

But then there were other irritating things - little things, really, but irritating, you know? We couldn't get the internet (wireless or wired) to work. One of the lamps was burned out. The vending machine gave me a 16-oz bottle of crappy water instead of the 20-oz bottle of Aquafina that it advertised. None of this would be a big deal on its own, but together with the Ant Room episode, it didn't really contribute to my good feelings about the hotel.

And then it came time to check out. An invoice had been slid under our door the morning of our departure, and I noticed a new charge on the bill: 99 cents per day for a "safe charge." There was a safe in our room, but we didn't use it, and no one had mentioned this charge before. Here's how the conversation went when we went to check out:

Me: Hi, we're here to check out, room XYZ.
Front Desk Guy: Ok. [doing stuff on his computer]
Me: Say, can I ask you what this "safe charge" is? [Showing him the bill.]
FDG: Oh, yes, that's for the safe in the room.
Me: Even though we didn't use it?
FDG: Yes. If you had asked me about it before, I could have taken the charge off the bill, but I've already checked you out, so now I can't do anything about it. Next time you come, you should ask about it in advance and then we won't charge you for it.

Heh. "Next time I come." Right. This was really the icing on the cake of ridiculousness - a charge for something I didn't use, that you didn't tell me about in advance, and which you *could have* removed if only I had posed the question thirty seconds earlier? Really? Really?

Individually, I could have overlooked any of these problems (except maybe the ants, which sound like they're a persistent problem at this place, if the earlier review on here is correct). All together, though, they're just too much. I'll spend the extra $20/night and stay someplace else next time I'm visiting D.C.