Latest Reviews for District Of Columbia

The summary first; ";yer pays 'yer money....";.
Scheduled flights (BA) from LHR to Dulles. Flights on time and comfortable.
By ";Shuttle"; from the airport to our hotel on Conneticut Ave about 5 stops from the Metro Centre on their absolutely superb Metro System.
Hotel very much like a Travel Lodge this side of the Pod. Booked via Octopus Travel on-line. Reasonable rate. Only one problem; We'd booked a 'Triple' room and ended up with two double beds. Well; we're all good friends but not 'that' close if you get my drift. Eventually a 'roll-away' was organised. Meals were taken out-and-about. Breakfast was consumed at a large diner/cafeteria two blocks away.Line up, fill your tray with all manner of delicacies then step forward to the scales to have your purchases weighed. You are charged accordingly. Splendid idea but I can't see it catching on at Matt's Greasy Spoon on the A1 south of Sheffield.
The customary sights are awesome. We did The National Mall, Washington Memorial, Guggenheim etc etc. All free of charge!
Evening entertainment was 'downtown'. The choice of eating houses is vast. Over four nights we ate Italian, American and Irish.

Our star find was the Capitol Brewery which has a microbrewery in the old Head Post Office within spitting distance of the Capitol Building. They brew veritable nectar here.
The head brewer learned his trade at McKewans in Edinburgh. They have on offer, IPA, Bitter, Porter and Stout. Those who decry Ameican beer; don't; look for one of these microbreweries (most cities have one) and soak in a really decent pint.

We also visited the George Washington National Masonic Memorial which is about 20 minutes away, once again by Metro.
Although a 'Lads'short break we didn't do serious shopping which would have been the case had we been accompanied by our respective better halves; we were aware that most retail items represent excellent value given our current rate of exchange.
We came back with more money than we had anticipated.

We would all like to return and widen the area of activity a little, further out into Virginia perhaps.

We all recommend Washington DC as a good place for an interesting city break.

I ended up at this hotel for 3 days after winning a competition - yes it really does happen.
By just walking into the lobby and reception you realised it was really a 5 star hotel - all marble and gold!
The hotel is on one of the main busy streets in D.C with shops and restaurants all around. It's also only a few minutes walk to the underground tube - very safe, clean and cheap.

The rooms although a little small had 2 king size beds, fridge and mini bar, satellite tv and dvd player, heating/air con and walk in wardrobe. the bathroom was fantastic with a body dryer - a bit like a hairdryer, underfloor heating, hugh marble vanity unit, loads of clean fluffy white towels, free shampoo, body lotion etc and bath robes.
On 1 day we splashed out and afternoon tea in the hotel, expensive but sheer indulgenge and definately worthwhile.

All in all probably wouldn't have booked a 5 star hotel but definately worth it if you can afford it.

As for Washington itself - if you want shopping ask the locals how to get to the out of city hugh shopping malls as they are much better and cheaper than the ones in washington itself. Worth seeing White House, Arlington Cemetry and all usual sites. We stayed 3 days and wasn't long enough.

Flew with British Airways and couldnt fault flights at all even if it was BA223 that was grounded on numerous occasions after for security reasons. BA offers free meals and snacks, free drinks including alcohol and free movies, headsets etc. Even economy seats were very spacious - would be no need to upgrade!