We stayed at the Dupont Circle Hotel in late October. The location was convenient to the lively Dupont Circle area. Lobby was open and aerie. It took 20 minutes to get valet service for our car. The check in staff were somewhat friendly but were not informative about where things were in the hotel and its services.
When I got to the "superior" room, I was horribly disappointed. The room was apparently too small to even fit a dresser (i.e., there wasn't a single useful drawer anywhere). The amoire could only store items length of a shirt - long jackets or dresses end up needing to be folded to fit. There wasn't shower curtain or a locking door to the bathroom. When you shower, the entire bathroom floor gets wet - so you may have to change outside the bathroom. Note they do not provide robes!
The windows only have shutters, so if you need a dark room to sleep - this becomes a problem. The hotel DOES provide eye shades as an amenity, but I found they are both uncomfortable and become displaced while sleeping. I had marginal sleep for three nights because of this.
On the second night (Friday), the liveliness of the bar and streets wafted into the lobby. When I walked through the lobby after returning from dinner, I had a horrifying experience. A woman was drunk and passed out on one of the ottoman's in the lobby - and she wasn't alone as many drunk people were also staggering about trying to get into the elevator (I emphasize trying - they literally fell into the elevator). This is definitely not a place I would take my grandchildren!
As I waited for the next elevator, a man approached me asking if I wanted to buy some drugs. Horrified, I declined and immediately went to one of the hotel's security staff. The guard shrugged and said there wasn't much he could do. I said I understood that they can't control what someone says, but they can kick people out - and then they reiterated that there wasn't anything that they could do.
Later that and the following nights, I was frequently awoken by noise in the halls. The adult activities of two (or more) neighbors could be heard through the paper-thin walls. Furthermore, their door opened and closed every half hour or so - it was almost like there were streams of people going in and out. I was too afraid to investigate, but it was like an "escort" service was running there.
The last day, as I was checking out, one of my small bags was taken. After acting a little helpful including giving me the phone number to the police, they more or less said it wasn't their fault and I needed to watch my own stuff- which I agree with. But they wouldn't let myself or the police review the lobby videos to identify a suspect thief. In the end, a thief acquired some of my dirty laundry, a coffee card, some toiletries and my nice bag (wallet was in my hands) - so I wasn't going to fuss more with it beyond a police report.
I stay in DC about once a month and this was my first visit to the Dupont Circle Hotel. In the future, I'll stick with my reliable locations: St. Regis, JW Marriott, Willard, and Ritz Carlton. The service, cleanliness, and security is signifcantly better at those locations.
hotel reviews