I stay at a lot of hotels around the world and I have to say of all of my travels, this is one of my worst stays.

I would recommend that people avoid the JW Marriott on Pennsylvania Avenue at all costs.

First, there's no parking. With the construction work taking place, the valet parking is close. The alternative: an underground garage a block and a half north that shuts down early and opens late. If you need to drive or park your car in the evening, be warned!

Second, because of this "construction", only 1 and sometimes 2 elevators are operating. Considering the hotel is currently sold-out, this is a tremendous inconvenience for guests. Allow yourself 20+ minutes to get from the lobby to your room ...or upwards of 40 minutes during "rush hour" early and late in the day. There are signs warning guests to allow themselves extra time to get up/down the hotel --they aren't kidding.

Third, with the room rates rather high here, you think this would be a destination primarily for business travelers. However, most of the guests seem to be young families. I enjoy being around kids, but I've never been in a place where there's so many 2-8 year olds roaming the hallways/elevators yelling and screaming at all hours of the day/night. Even at Disney resorts or Hawaiian hotels, I haven't heard the same amount of kid-generated noise as I do here.

The guestroom door isn't snug around the edges --as such, light and noise from the hallway flood the room. There's also a polished sill at the base of the door --there's a decent gap there, so I can actually see the reflection of who's in the hallway just by looking down at the doorway in the exaggerated sill. (And scary, I'm sure people can see my reflection back at them too.) But the door does nothing to block noise/light and general privacy from the outside.

Once you can block out the noise/light, the bed is comfortable enough to quickly fall asleep. However, at a little bit before 4am today, a woman ran up/down the hallways yelling "rape". Hotel security came to the scene ...and rather than diffuse the situation, they decided to have the alledged rapist and victim stand next to my door and be grilled. The security agent would then repeat everything that the victim said into his walkie-talkie ...only for the other side of the conversation to radio back what was said. Apparently, the woman was hired to visit this person's room. Once in the room, the guy wanted her to perform various "illegal sex acts." She refused but he insisted ...and I guess he insisted with force/power. The police came (rather quickly ...within about 15 minutes of her first screams), but I thought hotel security did a horrible job of the situation. Rather than question them in the hall, additional security people should have escorted the alledged victim/criminal separately and discreetly away to the police. After the late-night drama, it was a bit difficult to go back to sleep.

As far as the construction, there are closed-off areas in/around the lobby area. Other than those closed areas, I saw no construction crews or heard any construction noise.