Hotel Review: Hilton Washington Embassy Row

In the past I have been strictly a budget hotel type of girl. I've enjoyed many B&Bs in my time, but when it came to a standard hotel, I didn't even dream of paying hundreds of dollars a night. I was all for the nearest Econo Lodge. But recently I had occasion to stay at the Hilton Washington Embassy Row near Dupont Circle in Washington, D.C., and now I'm a believer. I don't know if I'll ever be able to tolerate a budget hotel again!

The location. Right off of Dupont Circle, meaning a short walk to the metro, restaurants and shopping.

The room. It was larger than my first apartment. It contained a desk with a chair, a king size bed with two nightstands, a couch, a flat screen TV on a dresser, a walk-in closet with iron, ironing board and luggage rack, and a decent sized bathroom, and there was still plenty of room to do jumping jacks. Not that I did any, of course! One wall was a bank of windows with both drapes and sheers and the windows actually opened. Temperature control was via a thermostat on the wall, there were plenty of lamps and a radio with an MP3 player hookup. Everything was clean.

The bed. Oh, I miss that bed - it was the most comfortable one I'd ever slept on. According to a card they left in the room, it was a Serenity Bed by Serta, with Serenity Pillows by Pacific Coast Feather. There were six pillows of varying firmness, and the sheets felt like silk.

The bathroom. It was a two part room, with a door between the toilet/bathub area and the sink area. The hot water arrived instantly and didn't run out. The toiletries were La Source by Crabtree and Evelyn, and I must admit to putting them all in my luggage everyday so that they would stock new ones. They didn't provide a hairdryer, which I thought was odd. The towels weren't anything to write home about but they were adequate.

The TV. I actually wasn't too thrilled about this. They didn't have full cable, and since I was looking forward to watching HGTV, that was disappointing. They had all the news channels, and the networks (PBS, NBC, etc), a few basic cable channels like TNT and the Discovery Channel, one premium movie channel (HBO) and two pay-per-view channels offering the same four movies over and over again. The TV always started on one of these two channels, and by the end of our few days there, I was ready to scream if I saw the "Blades of Glory" preview even one more time! The TV itself was nice - a Sharp flat screen - but the brightness wasn't great and we couldn't figure out how to adjust it.

The amenities. We actually didn't use any of the following, but just so you know that they do offer them: room service (quite expensive, i.e. $14.95 for a hamburger), a pool, a fitness center, a restaurant, wireless internet and valet parking.

If you're ever in the Dupont Circle area of Washington, D.C., and you don't mind paying $159-$179 a night, I recommend that you check out the Hilton Washington Embassy Row.

Contact Info: 2015 Massachusetts Ave. N.W., Washington DC 20036. Phone: 202.265.1600, Fax: 202.332.4870. http://www.hiltonembassyrow.com/