My spouse and I stayed at the Holiday Inn Washington Capitol
for two nights in early January 2020. We reserved our room online. We are IHG
(InterContinental Hotels Group) Rewards Group Gold Elite members, but we do not
feel that we received any special recognition.
The Holiday Inn Washington Capitol is located south of the
Mall just 0.1 mile from the Air and Space Museum. Although the hotel’s name
includes “Capitol”, it is about 0.8 mile southwest of that famous building. The
hotel is located near the offices for the Smithsonian Museums, as well as near
other governmental offices like the Department of Education and the Office of
Special Education. This means that the area is busy during the workweek/workday
but is a bit desolate in the evenings and on weekends. It also means that the
few meager restaurants within a block of two walk of the hotel are more geared
toward office workers grabbing a quick self-service casual lunch than hotel
guests looking for a more relaxing full-service evening meal. There’s a
McDonalds, Quiznos, deli, and Starbucks in the same block as the hotel, with
varying hours of operation. A CVS pharmacy (which sells other sundry items) has
mostly daytime hours. Fortunately, the hotel offers two full-service
restaurants called the 21st Amendment (see our separate review) and
the Capitol Bistro, as well as a more casual grab-and-go daytime Coffee Kiosk
and an adjacent Starbucks. The hotel is located just a block from the L’Enfant
Metro station, so it is easy to reach other areas of the city, although taxis
and ride services (Uber, Lyft) are also readily available.
Hotel public areas include a large lobby, seasonal rooftop
pool (which we imagine is a hit with vacationing families in the summertime),
fitness center, business center, and guest laundry. The hotel offers
self-parking for a fee of $45 per day. This hotel has conference and event
space, which is why we stayed here; my spouse was presenting at a work-related
trade show in the hotel.
The hotel offers 536 rooms spread over eight stories. We
booked a one-bedroom suite, but it was not particularly conducive to a relaxing
stay. Although our room was technically located on the second floor, due to the
elevation of the land, it was actually on the ground floor/street level because
our rooms faced an interior outdoor courtyard. Because we visited in the
wintertime, that courtyard was relatively unused, but we could see the tables
and chairs that office workers and guests must occupy in the warmer months,
which would provide no privacy for our suite of rooms if the curtains were open.
Upon entering our room, we immediately encountered the bathroom, which was long
and narrow, with an expansive vanity (but only a single sink), shower/bathtub
combination, and toilet. A long hallway led to the cozy living room, with a
small loveseat, TV, mini-refrigerator, and counter with a wet bar and coffee
maker (our room had no microwave). The bedroom was spacious, with a king-size
bed and nightstand on each side, a desk and rolling chair, a second TV, and a
padded bench suitable for holding a suitcase. We were assigned a
handicap-accessible room (even though we try not to occupy such rooms because
we have a mobility-challenged relative who truly needs one), so the closet in
the bedroom had a low hang bar, which was too low for some of our clothes. The
bathroom area near the toilet and the bathtub contained the required grab bars,
as well as a shower chair that could be attached as necessary. The other
accommodation were long plastic handle pulls on the draperies so that someone
in a wheelchair could open and close them more easily. Our room had lots of
windows, but we were not totally comfortable having the curtains open, nor did
we have any sense of security that someone from the outdoors could not access
our room. However, our main issue with the suite was the heating system; it was
very difficult to maintain adequate temperatures on the very cold week
(probably the only one this winter) that we visited. It seemed that the unit in
the large bedroom was always blowing cold air, whereas the one in the small
living room was overly hot.
Unfortunately, we really did not enjoy our stay at this
hotel; we did not like the location, and we did not find our room comfortable.
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