Capitol Hill Suites - Washington, USA 

OK, for the price the location was great. With tax, I paid $216 per night (one night stay). I did not eat breakfast at the hotel, but someone said it was a typical continental breakfast. When I checked in, the TV did not work in my small room (faced the back of the hotel). They moved me to a room overlooking the street, Much better. Flatscreen TV in the new room. However, this room (319) had no thermostat for the air conditioner. Well, it had one, but was not hooked up. The room was marginally OK. When I was there, the temps outside were in the 90's and high humidity. It would have been nice to crank down the AC at night. The hotel is old, but some people like that. I did not mind. My room was clean. One weird thing was that I did not have a cell signal in my room. It was like the hotel was sheathed in lead. Thankfully, they had Internet, but it was pretty slow. A good thing is that you can use their computers in the lobby to print files on their laser printers at no charge. That came in handy. Restaurtants are one block over so that was nice. To sum it up, if I was going sightseeing in DC, this hotel is definitely one I would consider if I could get a room for around $200. I would not pay more.

Stayed 5 nights in July 08. Short walk to Library of Congress and Metro. Can get to just about anywhere with metro in DC. Hotel was adequate. Continental Breakfast in 2nd building, okay..bagels, pastries, good strong coffee and cereal. Staff helpful, bed comfy.... 2nd building elevator and 4th floor hallway was a sauna, very hot. Rooms AC was just fine. For the money and location, would stay again. Could see light from hallway around entire door. Made for loud hallways, don't stay next to elevator. TV had nice picture except for fox, kept turning off and on. Lots of hot water. Maid knocked on the door at 8:30 am.....to clean room?? Some mornings on vacation you want to sleep in. Alarm clock/ night lamp so bright had to put towel over it. (no joke) computers with printers in lobby for use, nice touch.

This is now our second stay with Capitol Hill Suites. We stayed at the Capitol Hill Suites last during Memorial Day weekend. Everything, without hesitation, was perfect. If you wish a hotel on the Hill, this is the place. Located in a very quiet residential area, two blocks from the U.S. Capitol. We never encountered any problems. They let us check in early. We were completely satisfied. A special thank you to Mr. Jonathan Kebede for accomodating us. We will stay here again.

So, apparently the hotel has been undergoing renovations. On first view, the lobby was updated, and the room looked sharp. However, things went downhill from there. 1) very strong paint odor in hallways and room, 2) missing iron and ironing board, although the iron holder was there - noticed in the am when went to iron, 3) paint drips on the windows and floors, including paint fingerprints, 4) hair on the bathroom floor, tub, and shower curtain, 5) no cellphone/Blackberry reception in first floor room, 6) the handful of cable channels was news and sports, 7) loud constuction noise from room above past 7 pm and starting again at 7 am, and 8) most distressingly, the ground floor bathroom window had no privacy glass, shades, curtains, etc -- garbage collectors, construction workers, and people parking their cars in the lot next door could see straight in. For a single female traveler, this was not cool. Nothing could be done, all rooms full etc. Other minor irritants include a) the phone being on the other side of the room from the bed (so wake up call was tricky), b) an alarm clock so complicated I didn't know it was set until it went off at 5:20 am, and then I couldn't figure out how to turn it off, c) breakfast in a second building, and d) dismissive staff. For the price, there are dozens of better hotels, regardless of its location close to Capitol Hill.

I just returned from a weekend at the Capitol Hill Suites, and I have to report that this is one of the worst hotels I have stayed at in recent memory. Some of the horrors we experienced: the kitchen sink backing up at 1 AM and water flowing onto the carpet; the pocket door to the bathroom not moving at all; unbelievable construction noise that prevented my toddler from napping in the afternoon; the hotel attempting to charge me twice for parking. Hot water appeared to be gone after 8 AM. I neither booked nor paid for the hotel (was in town on business) and so the problems were somewhat more amusing than they might have been had I paid the $300/night the suite cost. We also got a kick out of imagining the tripadvisor review we could write (since normally hotels are not this fantastically terrible), but amusement only gets you so far and I couldn't have stayed another night. Other reviewers have discussed the construction which is ongoing- I haven't seen anyone mention the fact that the tiny breakfast room has no chairs and tables too tall for children to reach, nor have I seen mentioned that although the rooms have giant flat screen t.v.s they only get 21 channels. This is basically a badly constructed apartment building with infrastructure problems that they think can be converted into a luxury property through the addition of enough granite. But even the "renovated" areas look bad- our renovated bathroom had a crooked bath spigot and loose towel bar. The staff are nice enough- they groaned appropriately when I complained about the mysterious backing up kitchen sink and refunded the extra parking charge with no argument. But I wouldn't stay here again, even once construction is completed.