SkiAdcock

Hotel website:

https://www.marriott.com/hotels/trav...ph-collection/

Category 6.

"The Alexandrian, named for city founders John and Philip Alexander and built on their family homestead, embodies the spirit of celebrated Old Town. Its King Street location close to the waterfront and minutes from Washington DC by Metro or ferry is unparalleled. Inside, its 241 rooms and suites include four dual-level loft suites and three specialty suites ranging from the 629 square-foot Eleanor Suite (a brides’ favorite) to the expansive 1,600 square-foot Majestic Suite that can accommodate 20 for a wow-inspiring get-together or up to four overnight. The indoor heated pool is trimmed in wrought iron lounge chairs and the damask reception area is lively in turquoise and burgundy hues. Top-tier weddings and meetings regularly grace the 9,000 square feet of event space. Four-legged family members are always welcome and treated like royalty. Brilliant blues, yellows and reds adorn tufted settees atop geometric-patterned rugs embracing a bold dual-personality in this one-of-a-kind Alexandria hotel."

231 rooms, 11 suites.
Valet parking: $29/day

DELee

Property website is now quoting valet parking rates as $38/day as well as $16/hour or $32/day for what they call "on-site parking" - assume self?

Also website shows "Limited parking for Vehicles over 5'9"".

And they also lost one suite (now: 10).

Google street view shows an image from November 2016 that shows the property is the "Hotel Monaco" - which fits since the former Kimpton Hotel Monaco Alexandria is now listed as closed on Yelp.

David

geo1005

This hotel is the former Kimpton Hotel Monaco (and Holiday Inn Select before that...)

Currently (as of 2/10/18) the parking garage is undergoing major repair and construction and is completely closed. Work is expected to take two months. If driving, there are several City owned lots withing one or two blocks where you can self-park for a fraction of what the hotel will charge. Also note there is lots of jack-hammer noise from the garage construction that can easily be heard in the lobby and lower floors...

geo1005

Update to above garage situation: Most of the garage work is complete and the parking is somewhat back to normal. While work is not finished, the major noise and disruption is over... (posted 3/22/18)

SkiAdcock

Thanks for the update. Much appreciated.

Cheers.

plc44

I'm staying at the hotel now and am enjoying it. I find it quite nice and a change of pace from the Westin I usually stay at. The location is perfect, right on King Street, and has stops near the free King Street trolley as well as the local bus system. (I take the local bus system to the office for $1.75 each way). Coffee makers aren't standard in the room, but if you request one they'll send up a Kuerig with a few K-Cups. There are two bottles of water and are priced at $3.50 per bottle (I thought Marriott Elites got a free bottle of water or two, but that is coming from the SPG side of the merger). They provide some delicious tea, but you need to pick up the tea bags in the lobby by the coffee station.

Complaints: The fitness center is absurdly small. It appears to take up the footprint of a hotel room. I went down this morning to work out and all of the machines were taken. My other complaint are the toiletries. They are branded "Pure by Gloss" which seems to be made by Sysco. They don't seem very high-quality and I will certainly bring my own toiletries if I return.

t1c

Any recent updates on this hotel?

SkyTeam777

Does the hotel still have a free shuttle to DCA and the afternoon wine hour? Or have both been canceled since the Monaco takeover?

DELee

Uh, no.

David

jeeden

Stayed here last weekend for an anniversary overnight to Old Town Alexandrian, I'm local in the Northern VA area. I'm not usually one to sit there and worry about getting every last ounce of value out of the price I paid, but this sucked pretty bad especially for the $450 a night rate.

Overall the stay was "ok" which is not good considering this is supposed to be an autograph collection hotel and has a nightly rate to go with it. I would have expected the same condition in this hotel as an AC Marriott, but it wasn't close and found myself wishing for a newer courtyard in the middle of the night. If I could do it over again, I would book the Alexandria westin and uber downtown.


The bad:
- Showed up at 2pm for check in and room wasn't ready. Ok, desk agent took luggage and said they would call in an hour. Two hours later, no call, came back and they gave me a key without saying much about it.
- Nothing for my lonely gold status (I'm kind of used to this,so not a big deal)
- Desk agents seemed overwhelmed with two weddings going on that night
- Outdoor seating area looked nice, was closed for wedding even though nobody was out there. I'm sure they paid a lot for it to be reserved, but just seemed odd.
- The mattresses are lumpy and tired. You just sit on it and it collapses quite a bit and creaks every time you roll over, I'm not too sensitive to mattresses, but I did have a sore back the next morning.
- The air conditioner/heater is super loud.
- Flat screen TVs are nice (Samsung), but in year 2022 there are only 6 channels and no high definition cable? I like the new "Welcome! <your name here>" in the newer hotels, but this is pretty crazy. I don't usually travel to watch TV, but the MLB playoffs and college football were on while we were getting ready for dinner and it was annoying.
- Walls/doors are very thin and you can hear every person in the a hallway no matter how quiet
- Like two outlets in the whole room, one inaccessible behind bed and one behind desk. 0 USB ports anyway, was glad I brought my charger block for our phones


The good:
- Location is excellent
- Extremely clean
- Pretty nice restaurant
- Good parking garage (still $33 a day parking fee and about 1/4 of the garage is full of construction debris I assume from the renovation mentioned above) It was absolutely full as of 5pm when I ran to the car for a charging cable.

jwk899

Your review is spot on. This is a very tired hotel and it really shouldn't be part of the Autograph Collection unless it goes through a significant renovation. Other than signage, I don't think anything has been updated since it converted from a Kimpton Moncaco in 2016. The significantly better Morrison House is the Autograph Collection property to stay at while in Alexandria.

cubeman

I thought I posted about this hotel, I had a stay earlier in 2022 here and I agree 100% on it all that this place is lacking. Even on a quiet weekday no upgrade for Ambassador.

sethMCOflyer

Frustrating to hear that this place still hasn’t renovated. It’s the perfect location and has huge potential, just needs new beds, carpet, etc.

mattp1987

I stayed here 3 nights for work last week. I'd just spent two nights the previous week at an amazing Autograph Collection property in Tallinn, and this hotel was a huge step down at nearly twice the price.

Positives:
- Great location
- Hotel was willing to shorten my stay by a day at check-in, keeping my government rate intact. I'd tried and failed to do this by phone because the rate wasn't available anymore.
- Didn't charge me for parking (maybe a mistake)
- Food in the restaurant was pretty good (caveat, I only had breakfast there)

Negatives:
- No upgrade as a Titanium
- Room was tired. Screw on locking mechanism was coming out of the door.
- Housekeeping was not great. I found a hair on the shower wall on the first day. Carpet did not seem to be very well vacuumed. Coffee pods were not replaced.
- Hotel does not meet the Marriott standard of providing the member's choice of breakfast or points in lieu of a lounge. When I checked in they told me I could choose 750 points/night or a $15 breakfast credit. On Monday morning, the restaurant was closed and I was told I'd be given 750 points. On Tuesday, I finally went to the restaurant and discovered that the credit is insufficient to cover the cheapest item on the menu (yogurt parfait) and a coffee. The hotel also didn't properly credit the $15 towards that, so I'm still working to get that settled. On Wednesday I had a breakfast sandwich that was excellent, and the credit was properly applied.

Overall, this hotel has a great lobby and location leading to high potential. However, the quality of the rooms and the way they handle the breakfast benefit fall short of what I expect from an Autograph Collection property.