This is the remodelled and completely refitted successor to the Doubletree Washington DC in Rhode Island Avenue, by Scott Circle, off 16th Street, all NW.

Previous thread here:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/hilto...-dc-us-dc.html

I had a few days here this weekend, and I thought I'd launch the thread with a few pointers from me.

Location: good for my purposes. It is 10 minutes walk from McPherson Square metro, on the Blue line from DCA Reagan Airport. Use the White House exit, but once on street level go the opposite direction to the White House up 15th St.

Welcome / staff: Consistent good to superb across the board. All staff fully engaged and welcoming. Water and popcorn offered. Breakfast vouchers and wifi code too.

Room: No upgrade offered, sought or needed. No room map on the App or Hilton.com anyway. First room (729) overlooked a noisy a/c turbine outside the window, so I asked for and got another room, which was a bit quieter (335) but still subject noisy room a/c - loud enough to be heard from adjoining rooms. However living as I do where a/c is never required, my tolerance of this is probably extra low! Room 335 was fine, beautifully equipped, comfortable bed, small bathroom but good shower and not too pokey. High standard of fittings.

Vicinity: A couple of blocks away is a good variety of shops and restaurants, and a Whole Foods as well as a 7-11. P Ave by 14 St area.

Wifi: Didn't test for speed but fast enough for everyday use. Probably not sufficient for video streaming at higher specs.

Breakfast: Oh dear. Oh dear oh dear. I thought I had met my match at the Vegas Tropicana, but step forward The Darcy for offering the worst breakfast option I've just to come across even by the sorry standards of US Hiltons. In the case of the Trop I can understand it, if you're giving rooms away at $44 then there is little space to even give a money off voucher. The Darcy has no such excuse. Here is the sum total of what you can have: just 3 items and orange juice: cut fruit (2 of which are melon), yoghurt, Danish. The tea and coffee are complimentary for everyone. No cereals, no bread, no toast, no bananas, no cheese, no cut meats. You are allowed a small pot of jam on your croissant, but not butter.



Bagel? Well yes, but that is on the hot breakfast option ($28 compared to nominal $14 for this Continental breakfast, no subsidy for Diamonds). Now the staff looked a bit worried if you stole a bagel from that table (don't ask, don't tell principle) but that was the level of parsimony at play here. I haven't yet encountered a continent where this could be called a Continental breakfast.

I did raise it at check-out. The agent immediately grab a sheet of paper and hid her face in embarrassment as soon as I uttered the words "Diamond breakfast" - before I got to the points raised above. So they truly know it's not good. She did say they were "about to" open a new restaurant concession next door in "a few days", called Lil'B Bakery. The only trouble with that is that my Diamond colleagues were told exactly the same thing last week and separately the week before. So, make of that what you will.

She also said that there are good breakfast options near by, which at weekends is true in terms of the brunch options mid morning onwards. In terms of a breakfast at 07:00 hrs for us wage-slaves, there is nothing in the immediate vicinity. She did apologise but she did admit she had to offer this apology quite regularly.

How to wreck your reputation by cheese paring. If there was cheese to begin with, that is.