Hotel Reviews

[Attendee7000 18]

How were everyone's hotels this year? It's always useful knowledge to pass on as everyone looks to reserving rooms for 2024. And there's always details of a hotel that relate uniquely to something like Otakon.

 

Embassy Suites:

It's about a block and a half away from the convention center.

I hadn't stayed at an Embassy Suites in ages, and completely forgot their rooms are all suites (the bedroom is separate from the bathroom/kitchenette/living room). This turns out to be really good if you've got people in your room who go to sleep or wake up at completely different times, since everyone can avoid disturbing anyone sleeping while getting a costume ready, having a bite to eat, taking a shower, or whatever.

I also forgot Embassy Suites does a bunch of perks. I believe each guest gets a free drink in the evening (I don't drink so I didn't check on this). But they also provide a free breakfast in the morning. And not just powdered eggs and cereal. They had eggs, fried potatoes, sausage & bacon, french toast, hot & cold cereals, baked goods, fruit, and made to order omelettes! When Otakon was in Baltimore I used to stop at the breakfast cafe across from the BCC so being able to have a complete and free breakfast in the morning was a huge perk for me.

As I mentioned earlier, the rooms are slip into two with the beds separate from everything else. The kitchenette has a coffee maker, mini-fridge, microwave, and even a sink. The bathroom is nice, albeit a tad small. There's enough space for someone to do bathroom things, but several people in the room can use up the counter space quickly.

My neighbors were fine fortunately. But the walls were a little thin (I think more specifically, the vents were carrying sound) so I could faintly hear one of the rooms by me.

It has one of those little overpriced convenience stores in the lobby. But there's also a CVS less than a block away (and with the kitchenette, I brought a bunch of food & drinks anyway).

The elevators were kind of annoying. You have to scan your room key to go to any floor except the lobby, and most of the scanners were kind of touchy. So I'd have to wave the keycard around a dozen times until it accepted it, and hit the floor number quickly before the elevator started moving without my instructions.

The hotel has no connected parking garage, which is a minor pet peeve of mine. So I had to park and bring all my stuff in from 2 blocks away.

 

Honestly, this is a really nice hotel for the price. The rooms are nice, and the suite layout works out really well for conventions. And the free complete breakfast is a huge bonus which if you've got four people in the room means your getting about $80 worth of free meals each day.

 

 

[Clutch 64]

Marriott Marquis:

Good

• Staff is very friendly.
• Has an underground connector to the convention center which helped avoid the heat/rain.
• Requested to check in early, which helped planning some afternoon activity for the Thursday before the convention.
• Conditioner, shampoo, and liquid soap (body wash) are provided in pump dispensers in the shower if you care to use them.
• Beds were comfortable, and the hotel provided a small bottle of lavender spray to mist the pillows to help you sleep. Nice touch.

Bad

• Wi-Fi is no longer complimentary. They want you to register for a "free" Bonvoy account to access it, otherwise you are charged some amount per day, $13 I think. The Otakon hotel page still has it listed as complimentary. I would suggest that be reviewed and updated for the future.
• The hotel staff don't seem to monitor the hallways/rooms at night. Plenty of loud shouting in the halls. There is a couch in the hall on some floors and that becomes a party spot. Almost ripped the door open this morning to confront someone screaming near my room after waking me up. It is after Midnight, jerk. I feel sorry for those airline crew who are staying during the convention. Can't imagine they get good sleep during Otakon.
• Not much noise insulation in the rooms. Voices, T.V., etc. carry through the walls.
• I don't know if the other hotels in the area get the throngs of photographers doing cosplay shoots in the lobby, but the Marriott Marquis seems to be inundated with them. The elevator bank to my room was located at the end of a hallway, with 2 elevators on opposing sides. Some photographer is having a person with a 5 foot sword slung over their shoulder, with their arm outstretched, to take their photo. This is the public elevator space for the one side of the building. I walked through the guy's shot and really didn't care. They should not have been there in the first place. The convention center has plenty of open space to take photographs, and you don't need photographers blocking stairs, paths, and hallways to take photos. I wish the hotel would crack down on that.

I had more thoughts, but can't remember them right now.

Edited July 31, 2023 by Clutch
spelling

[KyoKyo 41]

Renaissance (soon to be Westin) which is Otakon's official co-headquarters hotel.

Good

• The entire hotel is finishing a big renovation. All the rooms are brand new with new bedding, showers, furniture, ambient lighting, plenty of power adapters etc. Rooms came with a coffee maker, mini fridge and a very big 55 inch flatscreen.
• Second-closest hotel to the con if you couldn't get the Marquis
• Quiet- The main lobby is busy but the halls are quiet and free of late-night parties and cosplay photoshoots that make the Marquis noisy.
• Starbucks in the lobby
• The lower level ballroom area down the escalators is filled with business rooms and little mini-work rooms which are great for photo ops or a quiet place to rest provided there are no other events. Hardly anyone was down there and it was a nice place to read manga or just relax.
• Parking. The massive underground parking complex has always been the selling point for me over the Marquis since the latter fills up so fast. I like being able to unload my car and take the elevator right up to the lobby. Hotel guests also have in and out privileges from the moment you check-in until 5pm the day you leave. They will also include your parking fare into your final room bill. Guests pay $36/day, valet is $50-something
• Friendly and cooperative staff

Negative

• No more free wi-fi
• Currently no sit-down restaurant during the renovations although the bar was open

I've always enjoyed this hotel and it's a good choice over the Marquis if you want a hotel that's close but is a little more quiet and has convenient parking. 

Edited July 31, 2023 by KyoKyo

[xenoglossy 1]

After several years of staying at the Morrison-Clark, I stayed at the Hampton Inn this year because I wanted a hotel where I could get breakfast without having to wait on very slow table service. I liked it! It's definitely a lot more crowded than the Morrison-Clark, but it either isn't much of a party hotel or has good noise insulation, so that wasn't a big deal. It's a five-minute walk to the convention center, and it's shaded most of the way, which was nice in the hot weather. It was good to have a microwave and minifridge. And this might be a weird thing to note, but the pillows were really nice. I had a lot less neck pain than I usually have at hotels.

The only major minus was that we had the same elevator issues that @Attendee7000 mentions the Embassy having. I was on the 7th floor, so it was mostly fine for me, but I saw a lot of people on the 3rd or 4th floor struggle to get the card reader to scan properly in time to actually get to their floor. 

[Attendee7000 18]

3 hours ago, xenoglossy said:

And this might be a weird thing to note, but the pillows were really nice. I had a lot less neck pain than I usually have at hotels.

 

It's funny you mention that. I actually bought a Hampton pillow earlier this year after finding out how forgiving they were to my neck.

[xenoglossy 1]

Oh, wow, I didn't realize you could buy them! That's very good to know.

[Clutch 64]

I was curious about the Cambria Suites. Has anyone stayed there in the past who can provide their feedback?

[windseeker 80]

16 hours ago, Clutch said:

I was curious about the Cambria Suites. Has anyone stayed there in the past who can provide their feedback?

I would avoid it, its known for being a skethy hotel overall, in the past few years there have been reports of break ins and human trafficking there.

 

 

[TomDent 16]

Comfort Inn Downtown DC/Convention Center

We stayed at this place for the first time this year since we couldn't get a room at the host hotels. It was on the (relatively) cheaper end at something like $650 for Thursday thru Sunday. If you don't mind a little stroll, it's about a 10 minute walk to the front entrance to the WEWCC.

The location wasn't too bad, but it seemed like all the eateries immediately around were kind of expensive and a lot of those places either opened up later in the day or closed kind of early. Some convenience places nearby, such as a formerly 24 hour CVS, weren't open too late and weren't too convenient with their stock (I needed some body wash the first day since I forgot to pack it, but it was under lock and key at the CVS and they were understaffed like most places).

The hotel itself was on the older side and pretty small. The main entrance had stairs, so anyone in a wheelchair had to use a side entrance. The lobby was tiny and the room was very small if you had 4 people or a bunch of luggage, such as cosplay stuff. Even the elevators were really small. Another thing that was annoying, but probably couldn't be helped because of being short staffed, was that no one ever came to the room to collect trash, make the beds, swap out towels...the kind of things you expect at a hotel. We had to go to the lobby to request towels and it took a while to get them. However, the room (even being in need of some updating) was very clean and cozy and the staff were super nice and as accomodating as they could be. The place also had free breakfast, but we never ate there (we tended to sleep in a bit each day).

In summary, it was a clean hotel that wasn't too far away from the WEWCC and was on the cheaper side. The staff was super nice, but understaffing caused some issues. I would only suggest it to smaller groups (2-3 people at most) who don't mind walking a bit and don't have a lot of luggage.

[Ikano 17]

Anybody have any input/anything to say about Residence Inn? We are curious about it...

Well anyhow...We've been at this [after-mentioned] hotel the past few years but I guess I should try to stay on topic...

Courtyard Washington Downtown Convention Center

It's entrance is literally across the street from the Convention center (particularly if you exit from the doors under L street bridge then face the direction the Marquis sits you can see even before exiting). It actually shares the same "building" as Residence Inn so that may cause some confusion when you see the name above it's door. Honestly I'd argue that this hotel feels closer to the Convention center than the Marquis if you aren't afraid of "going outside"....but if you're comparing distance to the front door [and the added benefit Marquis has with the underground tunnel] then Marquis wins I guess...

We had a double-bed room. Average-size. Enough space to wheel in and place maybe...3-4 large suitcases without people tripping over them in a struggle to get around the room. The bathroom is decently large so -THEORETICALLY- 3 people could be using the bathroom at once: (ie: shower, toilet, using sink)....I said THEORETICALLY use at the same time....Closet is pretty good walk-in size....maybe 2 adults could hide in there if they were playing hide-and-seek (wait...do people even care about the closet like this? lol). I think the closet included iron + ironing board in there and maybe an extra comforter?....honestly I barely opened the closet besides throwing a rain poncho in there on day 0 then reclaiming said rain poncho when packing up to leave.

TV is flat screen mounted against wall. Our TV had issues so we had to call front desk but because I was trying to figure out what was wrong with it I found the TV can actually come out and swivel around to some degree plus HDMI ports. I probably could've easily plugged my gaming system in it for playing on the big screen. Well, I was too busy in the end to end up gaming anyway...

The room itself has various USB ports built in (though reliability is questionable like most public USB charge ports are) and outside of one long table/counter that extends in front of/below the tv that connects/merges into drawers etc. There's just one more coffee table and 2 sofa-chairs.

What bugged me the most is the two sofa-chairs are on the opposite sides of the small coffee table and then immediately next to coffee table is the bed. So basically one sofa-chair is trapped between the coffee table and the bed while the other sofa-chair (which are pretty heavy to move...I tried but I gave up) is opposite this sofa-chair but happens to be close to the "desk chair". It's a little hard to describe but basically there's 3 chairs in close proximity to each other in this one "corner" of the room while the other side of the room --which I expected would have a bench in any other hotel-- had nothing. It basically came down to making me look like I had a monopoly on all the rooms chairs since I claimed that side of the bed.

Um....other than that, room comes with a personal safe and a Refrigerator -which only stays on 2-hours at a time AT most every time you hit the button inside it SO if you have something that must stay cold all the time else it spoil quick- Good Luck. If you want to use a microwave there isn't actually one in the room BUT there's one in the main lobby behind the check-in counter on 1st floor (where they sell self-serve snacks)-- though I never see anyone else use so I wonder if it's mostly unknown.

Um...if anyone else has any other questions feel free to ask. Don't know what else to say...

Edited August 14, 2023 by Ikano
minor grammer/spelling

[Zelkova 0]

Cambria Hotel

Was a mess with them, not only were they unwilling to print out a reciept at all for me. They also tried to triple charge me for parking. The valet himself was rarely there at all so you could not even get valet parking (I often was finding him just standing in a hallway that you wouldn't normally know about just goofing off). They tried to charge me for towels when I hadn't asked for any towels (I brought my own just in case). Then they tried to change how much it was going to cost me to stay there despite me having a print out of my reservation (I had confirmed the one price on day 1 and they tried to change the hotel price on day 4). The place also smelled of weed even in the lobby despite the majority of the hotel being non-smoking. I heard from the people staying next door to my room also say that various items were missing from some peoples rooms on the floor including PS5's and things bought at the con. So someone was breaking into the rooms and taking things. Also the place is incredibly overpriced. I could've stayed at the Westin for half the price I stayed at the Cambria and the Westin is closer to the White House so it should be more expensive.

I do not recommend anyone ever staying here. This on top of its prior problems it had with theft and human trafficking does not make it worth the risk.

The only positive I can give it is that its right next to a Giant.

Edited October 1, 2023 by Zelkova