Doubletree Hotel Crystal City

The hotel is a good location to be sure, but honestly the whole stay is exactly why we avoid Hilton properties whenever possible to do so. The front desk staff was rude. The elevator was rickety and loud. Our room was laughably dated and in bad shape besides--leaky faucet, banged up/scratched up doors (looks like a previous Fido got left in the bathroom and was not happy), seriously dated furnishings and a subtle but unrelenting mildew smell. Not enough lighting in the room so it always felt cave like. NO coffee in the lobby. A lot of the fitness center equipment was broken and rusty. We were shamed for asking for bottled water. We were skipped for housekeeping despite specifically asking for it at the front desk. Too many other choices in the area to not look elsewhere. Read less

From the get-go, this hotel reminded me why I don't care for Hilton, with exactly one person checking in guests at 8:45 in the evening. If that's all she'd been doing, that might have been okay, but apparently she was also on concierge duty and had the responsibility of hunting for packages delivered for guests and stored entirely somewhere else, hunting for which out of sight of those waiting to check in was the task that consumed most of her time. I could picture having one person in the middle of the night; not so much in the middle of the evening. After having waited too long, I went through the online check-in, which ultimately only slowed things down, because of course I did not get the electronic key until long after I'd accessed my room by conventional methods, and my having done the online check-in apparently threw the clerk off when it was finally my turn. Still, she might have mentioned that I was in a particular tower (they have a north tower and a south tower), so that I wouldn't have needlessly gone up to the seventh floor of the north tower only to discover that my room was in the south tower. She also said not a word about breakfast, leaving me to inquire the next morning. I did however receive the usual sugary garbage dispensed by this hotel brand on check-in, which I discarded immediately. If nothing else, it serves as a reminder that there are no individuals at Hilton, a one-size-fits-all hotel. I didn't receive it on the other nights, for reasons unknown to me, but didn't miss it. On two of a total of three stays, my room turned out to be situated as close to the elevators as any room in this hotel, the exact opposite of what my profile states as my preference. And on all three stays, the room was 1980s at the latest. But the shower in the bathtub, the absence of any handheld shower head and the wholly unnecessary presence of a second sink were not the only quaint features; there was also no light switch anywhere near the door to the room, so that entering at night required an unusual effort in the darkness to get things illuminated. Hilton Honors diamond members shouldn't expect much - you get a 15$ food and beverage credit, though staff will usually not tell you this. You can spend it in the hotel's mini-market, or at least try to. At times the line there is very long, and on my first stay I was never able to use the credit as a result. Had I been informed of it during check-in, that would have been better, as there are shorter lines in the evening, but of course the whole point is to avoid the need to give anything away, so as noted, it is unlikely the privilege will be pointed out to you in the first place. But even if it is, Hilton insures itself against the need to give too much away, namely by charging exorbitant prices, so your 15$ food and beverage credit will not go too far under any circumstances. All in all, this is a hotel I didn't care for, and the only reason I don't give them one star is that someone there was nice enough to store my luggage overnight in-between stays. It probably doesn't say much about the place that literally the only thing I liked was something that actually contravened official Hilton policy. Read less