Our family of six had a wonderful stay here. When I was checking around before deciding on the Washington Suites I knew that I would have to have two rooms with their being six in our family. This was the only place that I could find that we could all stay in one room. We stayed in the two bedroom penthouse for only one dollar more then the regular two bedroom. The difference in the two are a balcony and a sitting room with the two queen beds, so my husband and I took the two queens and we sent the kids to the king bed and the sofa bed. There are windows along the whole front of the suite which gave a wonderful view from the ninth floor. After checking other hotels I was glad that there is free parking and a great continental breakfast. The other hotels charged any where from 16 to 25 dollars a day for their parking and we had two cars, and I could not even think how much we saved from their free breakfast which we had a tray in the room so we could go down and get what we wanted and then come up and eat and read the free news paper looking out the windows before starting on our sight seeing in DC.
Their shuttle service was great, we never had to wait more then ten minutes for them to show up. But we did learn on our first day to wait until 9:30 to take the metro and then you can get an all day pass, they said because rush hour is over then.
This is not a luxury hotel, no pillow top mattress and goose down comforters. This hotel is very practical and in every way met our needs. After reading some of the other reviews I was a little worried because I am a luxury hotel type of person. Yes, this hotel is older, but they have done great job of making it comfortable. two bedrooms a sitting room, a living room, two bathrooms, three TV's, a dining room, table, a desk, and a full kitchen and the balcony had sliding doors that went into the dining room and the two queen bedroom.
Free parking, free breakfast, free newspaper and a free shuttle service to take you to the metro at the Van Dorn station or anywhere with in a two mile radius, what more could you ask for. But please don't be deceived by what the outside of the building looks like. And I don't think it was the safest of neighborhoods at night, but you feel very safe inside. Anyone with a family, this is the place to stay. Also, if you are tired of walking, take a tour bus, it cost $32 a person and was well worth it, we took a air-conditioned tour bus and they came to pick us up at the hotel in a van, just make sure when you are calling around to ask if the person giving the tour speaks clear English, although we could understand him most of the time and got the gist of what he was saying, it would have been nice to have a clearer speaker. The staff was very friendly and on our last day my son missed breakfast by five minutes, I went to the front desk and they sent us on our way with a little bag with yogurt and pastries.