A Tale of Two Towers
Wow - what a mixed bag this hotel is. We have been members of the Marriott Rewards Club for over 20 years and have stayed in Marriotts all over the country. We checked in to the Wardman Park Marriott at about 2 pm for a weeks stay. Our only request was a quiet room. The staff was unfailingly polite, but surprisingly inefficient with some requests. Anyway, after asking for a quiet room when checking in during the early afternoon we were given a room that was right next to the ice cube machine - you could hear every cube hit the container. How hard could it be to find a quieter room than this - It was like they said gladly to our request and then completely ignored it. When we asked for another location, they put us in "the other tower". As with previous reviewers, we found these rooms completely unacceptable for a Marriott (or almost anything else for that matter) They were extremely small, dated, and the air conditioning was not keeping up. My wife took one look and said "there's no way I can stay here for a week" When we requested another room we were told none was available. My wife asked "are you telling me that at about 3 pm there is absolutely no other room available in this huge hotel and was told that that was correct. After much further discussion, a wonderful staffer named Yvonne Cole called about 1/2 hour later and told us they had another room. Thanks to her, our trip went from horrible to great. This room was great - nice, cool, and met all of the Marriott standards. We were extremely comfortable for the entire stay. My biggest frustration with all of this is that we had to become very persistent complainers to get an adequate room. This is really not our nature - I can't recall another time in the past 30 years that it has taken this much effort to meet our requests. We are not the type of people who complain about little things. Actually, reading this review makes me think I sound like a complainer here. The old room they tried to give us was that awful - I could have done a night or two, but not a week with the air conditioning not keeping up. I have stayed in Motel 6's that were nicer. I can't see how the Marriott Company allows these rooms to be passed off as Marriott rooms. Also, there were dogs all over. I have never seen a big hotel with so many people with dogs of all sizes. I like dogs, but not unattended and barking in the room across from me. 
This hotel is really the best of times/worst of times depending upon which room you get or which staffer you get. 
Breakfast was nice - it had the usual amount of overpricing that hotels have, but no more. Staffers are always polite, but very greatly in competence (it's like there are good ones and evil ones. This applies to concierge services, spa services, and housekeeping). Some of the best and most incompetent people ever. I would return to the room we had in an instant, but would never consider staying in the older tower no matter what the price or circumstance.