My husband and I stayed 3 nights over Easter weekend at the StR Washington, hoping for a nice leisure respite amidst my nearly 5 weeks of consecutive business travel. My husband specifically flew out to meet me here, and we were hoping for a nice luxury stay together. Unfortunately, the hotel didn't quite deliver. This was quite a disappointing St. Regis experience for us. 

My Ambassador had previously found a lower rate ($340) for the entry level room, saving me almost $200 per night. I also had used 3 SNAs to try and upgrade our room to a suite. The SNAs cleared 1 day prior to our arrival for a Metropolitan Suite.

The hotel looks glorious (and a bit Old World) from the exterior:

Check In

My husband arrived before I did, checking in and getting to our Metropolitan Suite room 801. I was still en route by train from Philadelphia. I arrived a few hours later and went straight to the room.

Room

The Metropolitan Suite room 801 was curious and not particularly spacious. There was a long entry hall with a closet:

The living room was narrow and felt extremely cramped. There was space on the end because they tried to arrange the seating area to fit near the window, but the result wasn't particularly successful:

There was a large TV...though we couldn't understand how a TV could be free standing and not mounted on the wall--since the resulting lack of cabinet would have offered far more space in the narrow room.

The bedroom was quite spacious:

As you can see, there was plentiful closet space in the bedroom, and the corner location allowed plenty of natural light.

The bath was not particularly spacious, however:

As you can see, the design of the bath was something out of the mid 2000s...and clearly is in dire need of a refresh. If the hotel was renovated in 2008, I'd say that designer needed a refresher course, too.

The furnishings all showed plenty of wear and tear, and the whole look of the suite was heavy and dated. The narrowness of the living room was so dire that there were scuff marks on all of the furniture--made obvious as to the cause when every room service cart knocked into the furnishings on every attempt.

The ownership needs to refurbish. Stat.

Service

The grand old dame still could have impressed... but the service was not impressive.

On our first evening, the air con went out. That is a cardinal sin for me, and not something to be expected for any St. Regis property, particularly in Washington in mid-April. I called to complain, and the front office manager and other staff seemed unable to handle the problem. They sent a team to fix it in the morning while we were at breakfast...and then the air con went out again in the afternoon. I was now angry.

After the air con went out a second time, I was apoplectic--as I despise heat and prefer my room colder than 68 F at all times. The temp reached 73 F for quite some time before the hotel engineer managed to fix it. In the hours between, however, the management team seemed incapable of finding us another room with air con or in any way trying to accommodate our issue. They really seemed incompetent, to be honest.

We already had had a room service lunch fiasco with a 45 delivery minute time after a promised 30 minute delivery time. They didn't even get the order right! The front desk didn't seem to know how to handle that one, either...but agreed to comp the order after some prodding. 

A manager known to me from the St Regis San Francisco happened to be on site--obviously assisting the management team. They need it. Once he got involved, the situation improved quickly. For the first time, it felt like there actually was a manager who knew how to handle things in a luxury hotel. The contrast was shocking. (No wonder that the StR San Francisco is my favorite city hotel in the USA!)

Even then, however, we received no turndown service on the second night. After all that had gone wrong, I was stunned.

The StR SF manager apologized profusely the next morning when I mentioned that ridiculous oversight. 

Then we had service issues for Easter brunch. Even with the StR SF manager accompanying us into the dining room for seating, the assistant manager for the restaurant seemed to think we didn't have seating available. Then the restaurant manager not 5 seconds later showed us to our seats. The communication breakdown was stunning.

Then we had issues with Easter brunch itself. The lovely caviar spread was missing sour cream, which I mentioned to the restaurant manager. Another 10 minutes later, there still was no sour cream. I finally had to complain again. We waited some time before a server took our order...and then coffee refills were nowhere to be found. I got up to look around...and saw plenty of servers standing around, talking with each other, not bothering to pay attention. I therefore went back to find the StR SF manager, who apologized again and comp'd our brunch. 

The service misses at this hotel were galling and consistent. The only area where the hotel service was tremendous was with the concierge team--which was fantastic. Otherwise, this hotel is in dire need of a service spanking...which is almost certainly why the StR SF manager was there in the first place. He seemed to be the only manager who knew how to get things done and to settle the matter when things went wrong.

In summary--the service here was atrocious for a St. Regis. It reminded me of the disaster we experienced most recently at the StR Dubai. 

Dining

Food was good to great. It was the service delivery that was so sorely lacking. 

Our first night, we dined at the Decanter restaurant in the hotel and had a fanastic meal:

Easter Sunday brunch was a beautiful affair (if you forget the service lapses at the start and until we complained):

The lovely caviar spread:

You can see my husband in the curtained booth in the background. Our booth was nice:

My delicious waffle:

Room service quality was pretty good, too--even if that one order took way too long. I never had that issue again.

Food was great. Service was lackluster or problematic.

Location

The hotel was very well located, just a block or so from the White House and a short walk to the WWII memorial and the African American History and Culture Museum, both of which we visited during our stay. We also had dinner one night at nearby minibar by Jose Andres (a short 10 min Uber drive). 

Concierge

The concierge team was the one area where the hotel really stood out. They were FABULOUS.

I had emailed the team months before our stay to get a reservation at minibar by Jose Andres for the Sat night. They got it and emailed me the necessary credit card guarantee form. They also worked with me when I thought I had to change the number in our party--but didn't in the end. They were extremely helpful in all ways, even calling in advance to find the temperature of the dining room so I could dress appropriately (in a short sleeve collar shirt since it was 70 F!). 

The team also secured us 4 tickets to the African American History and Culture Museum for Easter Sunday. Despite those being timed for 3:15 pm, they accurately advised us that we could enter whenever we wanted--as we did at 1 pm. What a great museum and experience.

The concierge team was fantastic. They should manage the hotel, perhaps.

Overall

Overall, we had a decent but highly imperfect stay at the St Regis Washington DC. The air con failures, the management response failures to those, and the repeated food/beverage fails combined with the lackluster and dated decor to leave us unimpressed. The hotel has location and a great building in its favor...but needs a refurb now and a vastly improved service experience. We would not return until both occur.