Construction nightmare
OK. I think I have a pretty high tolerance level for things going wrong at hotels. But really. Embassy Suites in Friendship Heights just struck out. Strike One was when I arrived last Monday to find the Chevy Chase Pavilion shopping atrium (attached to the hotel) swathed in plastic and construction corridors all around, through which I was supposed to find the right elevator from the metro to the check-in level. It's evidently been under construction for months, and yet nobody thought to inform me (or my travel agent) as we were making the reservation. The workers didn't start working until 8:30 a.m., but it was hardly a relaxing ambiance when they were pounding and grinding away during breakfast.
Strike Two: $14.99/day for wifi. Seriously. Who charges for wifi these days? I managed to convince the front desk to comp me on that because of the events leading up to Strike One.
Then, Strike Three (Four, Five, and Six) was the ease with which my keycard lost its info and repeatedly refused to open the suite door. No matter how I tried to protect it from magnetic fields, it failed four times in five days.
We're up to Strike Seven: Power washing the Military Road entrance -- the only way to get in from street level -- at 7 p.m., when guests are returning to the property. Cascades of water pouring down onto the entryway. Nobody stationed there to direct confused, potentially soggy guests to the safe way into the building.
Strike Eight was the people washing my sixth-floor window -- loudly and sloshily -- with again no warning from the management about the potential peeping Toms outside my windows.
We are now up to an entire inning of strikes. The management is going to hear from me about this stay. The suite itself was fine, but for what they are charging my company to have me stay here, the degree of inconvenience exceeded my generous patience. All of these things could have been managed much, much better. I am very disappointed.