I lived in the D.C. area for 18 years and still have a job there. I moved to Austin in 2014, and have worked from home since then but also went into the office regularly up through the pandemic. I’m still there quite a bit, just not as frequently as before.
When I first moved away, I’d stay at the Hyatt Arlington which really is quite a bad hotel, and also at the Westin which was closer to the office but whose rates would skyrocket at times. Then I’d stay at the Hyatt Place Arlington Courthouse. Frankly, it gets boring doing the same mediocre hotels over and over.
Recently I’ve been trying to mix up my D.C. stays more. For instance, I stayed at the Park Hyatt DC in December and at the Lyle Hotel in November.
A week ago I stayed at the Viceroy DC. The Viceroy brand participates in GHA Discovery. The hotel is part of the American Express Hotel Collection (and I had a two night stay, so eligible for benefits). And they had an amazing rate – I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything as low as $163.35++ before.
That doesn’t include the $35 plus destination fee that ostensibly covers discounts on local tours and events; bicycle rentals; in-room yoga mats; complimentary bottled water (I never saw any), seasonal rooftop pool access (the pool was closed); 24-hour fitness center access; in-room refrigerators (a destination fee for this?) as well as wifi (which was glitchy during my stay).
The hotel is located in the Logan Circle neighborhood, and it has a mid-century modern aesthetic that I quite like as well as spacious rooms.
I checked in at around 6 p.m. There wasn’t anybody waiting ahead of me at the desk, and the woman working there was very friendly. Overly so, even! I gave her my drivers license and credit card, she pulled up the reservation, and said “Oh, I see we have a lot of stuff going on here!” By that she meant elite status and Amex benefits.
- Clearly American Express is a good booking source for them. She pulled out a tablet with the Hotel Collection benefits to walk me through them. One of them is a welcome letter and she said “we don’t do that anymore” (the welcome letter was replaced by her showing me a tablet) and she said that “I guess you don’t need early check-in.”
- But maybe they don’t get very many GHA Discovery elite members? She didn’t reference it specifically. She asked me whether I needed late check-in, which was a benefit of both status and Amex, but I didn’t. She noted that I was upgraded to a suite, that I had $100 in property credit to spend via Amex, and she handed me an amenity box (chocolates).
I checked out a few of the public spaces at the hotel. Here’s the gym. It was quite tiny though of course mirrors make it feel larger than it is. It’s perfect for working out alone but I wouldn’t want to be moving around between equipment with more than perhaps one other guest.
Here’s the hotel’s restaurant, which can be entered both from inside the hotel and through a separate outside entrance.
And this is a sitting area in front of what looked like a meeting room that could be used as a ballroom that guests were often using.
Then I headed up to the room.
What most people really like about the hotel is the artwork. They even have an ‘artist in residence’ and I saw her with her assistant changing a display when I went out for coffee one morning at 5 a.m. Artwork wasn’t just on the walls but adorned the main sitting area off the check-in area as well.
What I actually liked best about the hotel was the large L-shaped couch in the living room of my suite. I especially liked that the arms of the coach were flat and wide, so I could rest my laptop there even when I walked away. And though it’s an older building, I still had enough outlets.
My second favorite thing was the outstanding water pressure in the shower.
Here’s the rest of my room, 1020, at the far end of a hallway on the top floor. First up, the room’s entryway. Then the desk area.
The bed in the bedroom was super comfortable, and I had good pillows which make all the difference in the world in a good night’s sleep. I slept well here. Often in a hotel I won’t sleep well on my first night, taking awhile to fall asleep, but here I did.
There was a closet in the bedroom, and it was surprisingly deep which I liked because I could easily use the luggage rack for my back while opened and there was space to hang clothes, which I always take advantage of so they can unwrinkle on their own overnight.
The master bathroom was large and quite lovely, consistenting of tub in the window, since area, and separate toilet room and shower.
There was a second, smaller bathroom off the living room as well.
There was a welcome amenity in my room consisting of a fruit place, a bottle each of still and sparking water, and a bottle of cava.
The room had nice large windows in both the bedroom and living room.
My biggest complaint about the hotel was the wifi. It just kept requiring re-authentication, as often as every 15 minutes. The system would block me, require me to open the re-connection window (not re-enter my name and room number), and then it would re-connect. That was true both on my laptop and phone. Frustrating.
Using my American Express credit I ordered up breakfast on Thursday morning. You can call down, but it’s easiest to order via QR code on your phone. They promise delivery within 30 minutes. It took less than 20. In hindsight I probably would have ordered double smoked salmon for the bagel. The salmon was strategically placed so that it could be seen at the edges of the bagel – there was less there than it appeared. The hash brown I ordered with it was really fantastic.
On Friday I never got breakfast. They do not take orders until 7 a.m. At 8 a.m. I had to leave for the office and food never showed up. I called at 7:35 a.m. but there was never anyone picking up. Before departing, I went down to the coffee shop and it appeared open but there was no one working there. I guess I was charged for it, but it was burning what was left of my $100 credit so I just never got full value from that.
I wish the coffee shop in the lobby opened earlier than 6:30 a.m. but that’s not unusual. I also wish it was better staffed. And I’m torn about the hotel overall. The suite upgrade was great, and the stay was a great value – just not as good a value as it was supposed to be since I was stuck going without breakfast my last morning.
The service recovery was poor, in my opinion. I mentioned what happened at checkout with the front office manager. She handed me her business card and told me that if I booked the hotel again to e-mail her and she’d give me a credit to use to make up for not getting breakfast. That wasn’t much help, and I have to go back to get a make good? I’ve never been in a service recovery situation with a property that’s part of GHA Discovery – maybe it’s not common to offer points in the program as an apology, since they’re more of a loose confederation or perhaps the program just isn’t top of mind? $50 Discovery Dollars and I probably would have just happily let the whole thing go.
So would I return? They upgraded me to a suite and on such a cheap rate, the value was undeniable. I enjoyed the room very much. I might not want to park a car here at $59++ per night but I would return, simply attenuating my expectations a bit. As with my other recent stays, it was refreshing to try out something new and different – and an upgrade over the properties I frequent closer to my Arlington office.
Hey Gary, it’s a little creepy to post pics where people’s faces are visible, especially if it’s a single person such as the Asian woman sitting in the lobby. You have demonstrated experience in using AI image generation tools. These tools can also take a pic you’ve captured, a prompt (like “blur this person’s face”) and return a pic that is less invasive to the privacy of your fellow travelers. I appreciate your consideration.
Further, your pics make evident that your phone is not an iPhone. When it comes to WiFi authentication often Android and Windows devices have problems whereas iPhones, iPads, and Mac laptops are fine. Just another win for the integrated hardware-software ecosystems maintained by Apple. Apple products are now so mainstream that I would consider it unfair to assess tech infrastructure on non-Apple products.
Erect, you have to zoom way in to see the woman’s face at all — what a weird complaint.
And then you state that Gary shouldn’t expect wifi because he’s not using an Apple product?
Unreal.
It goes to show you the markup Marriott or Hyatt extracts for a property having its flag out front. The hard product at that hotel is easily better than any Marriott property in D.C. save for the St. Regis and the two Ritz-Carltons in D.C. proper. I think it’s better than the Ritz-Carlton at Pentagon City. It’s certainly better than the Westins, Marriotts, or JW Marriott. Though the bathroom’s shower floor looks in bad shape. I would say the hard product is also on par with the Park Hyatt, which admittedly is kind of tired. The only differences are the iffy F&B and the lack of staff. They seem to be staffed more like a Courtyard than a full-service hotel. Still, for $163, that’s a great value. If that was a Marriott, it would be $250-$300 Sunday-Thursday.
@Erect – I work in IT and use a Mac specifically because of the WiFi features, but I’ll tell you, that’s not correct. If he was using a Mac, I’d think the MAC address randomization feature could be biting him in the butt as a “privacy feature”, and that was a feature Apple was a leader on. It’s a real PITA for situations like this and while it usually “just works,” it makes edge cases like Gary’s harder to deal with, not easier.
For anyone wondering why their connection is so slow and using a Mac, hit the OPTION key + click on your WiFi icon in the menu bar. That’ll at least give you a decent idea whether it’s the WiFi network itself vs something else like the internet provider, firewall, etc. Look at the TX rate and you’ll start to notice patterns (like my home is 1200Mbps right now, but at my local airport it used to be 1Mbps…).
I zoomed in on the seated woman and couldn’t tell if she was Asian or European or Australian or South American or North American. If she was Asian, of course the where in Asia becomes relevant. North Asia like some Russians? South Asia? The Middle East part of Asia? East Asia? Southeast Asia? I suppose that software could clean up the photo somewhat. I don’t think a jury could use that photo for identification.
Gary sure is shilling for GHA Discovery these days—that’s fine, those guys need all the help they can get. Besides, with Marriott, Hilton, Hyatt, and IHG running almost everything, it’s good to try to bolster up additional competition. Alas, for $163, we cannot expect much these days in a major American city. It seems you received ample value with or without breakfast. Bah!
@Erect — Welcome back! It seems you have a ‘hard-on’ for Apple products. Please keep returning for more puns!
@erect the chick was in a public place no expectation of privacy. Plus i like to take a look! Apple sucks, whonis giving you a handy to push their products. Pathetic.
Gary is displeased. As usual.
Gary – I really like that you’re covering a different chain in this review. I do think that perhaps a little background information about your status and how you obtained it as well as about GHA would be really helpful for context. What I’m getting is that you used Amex FHR to book a room at an unusually good price and may or may not have gotten elite benefits from a program many of us are unfamiliar with and we have no idea how to attain status or what normal benefits we can expect from elite status. That’s a lot of gaps.