Capitol Skyline Hotel

My wife and I stayed at the Skyline for 5 days. This hotel was clean, the atmosphere was friendly and the service from the staff was (mostly) good. The rooms themselves were rather plain and outdated, but it was no big deal. However, everything this hotel did in terms of service ended up leaving a bad taste in our mouth. The location is odd, because it?s south of the freeway and there is no easy way to walk to the National Mall area. Fortunately, they have a free shuttle bus for guests which take you around the Mall. Unfortunately, the shuttle?s times of departure are from 7am through 9:30am (before any of the museums on the mall are open) and again from 7:30pm to 9pm (after all of the museums have closed). During the summers, the hotel has DJ parties in the outdoor pool area. Not only does the pool become inaccessible to hotel guests (they charge you about $10 to get into the ?party? during these times) you better hope that you are not in a room which faces the pool, otherwise you will have to endure 3 hours of loud techno music that rattles your windows every Thursday and Friday. We requested to move rooms because of this and the hotel was very kind in letting us do so. You can request that the front desk call a taxi to come pick you up. Unfortunately, it?s a gamble. You will either get a taxi, or a black sedan service which costs twice as much. We ended up getting one of these sedans, which said ?Skyline Hotel Sedan Service? in the window. It cost us $30 to get to the airport in that, whereas a taxi costs about $15. We felt a little ripped off, since the front desk specifically told us that we didn?t need to call a cab, we could just take the sedan. You really don?t get a choice of a taxi unless you stand out front and try to flag down one of the passing taxis, which don?t come around as often as you would think. One nice thing about the location is that it is about 4 blocks from the Metro station and it?s really close to the Nationals ballpark. The neighborhood around there is going through a sort of revitalization and the walk to and from the Metro seemed pretty safe. We never had a problem or felt uncomfortable. You can tell that the area used to be pretty bad, but all of the new condos going up, along with the ballpark, will ensure that this area will soon become pretty popular. Unfortunately, there are not many options for food or drink around the hotel. The nearest thing is a McDonalds across the street. Other than that, you are stuck eating at the hotel?s restaurant, Lapidus, which has nice food and good service, but isn?t worth eating at more than once. Overall, the hotel was okay and we got used to it. I would have rather stayed those nights at the Hyatt Regency, since it is closer to the Mall and not that much more expensive. Still, the Skyline possessed a sort of charm that you don?t often find in hotels now. It was low-key with a lounge atmosphere. Its location forced us to explore the DC area and enjoy ourselves in a way that we may not have known about had we stayed closer to the downtown area. If you stay here, try to plan ahead and be as self-sufficient as possible.

Pros: Quaint atmosphere

Cons: Location is somewhat inconvenient,

Posted 05/31/09