The Royal Sonesta Washington DC, Dupont Circle

The location was unfortunately the only positive aspect of our stay. While I understand that construction can create temporary challenges, it does not excuse the level of service issues we experienced. During our stay, the elevator servicing the first floor was unavailable for one night due to construction, and no assistance was offered with luggage. On another night, our room had no hot water. By the third night, housekeeping failed to provide fresh towels. My biggest frustration was the lack of transparency prior to arrival. We booked through Capital One Travel and were never notified that active construction could impact our stay. At a minimum, the hotel should have sent a separate email before check-in so guests could make an informed decision or cancel if needed. To make matters worse, I was initially told that resort fees were being removed from my bill as compensation. I later learned those fees were not actually included in the grand total I had already paid through Capital One—they were simply charges the hotel would normally deduct from the security deposit, which made the “compensation” feel misleading. Based on our experience—and after seeing similar recent reviews mentioning the same issues—I would strongly recommend looking elsewhere until these problems are addressed.

Major construction is ongoing. This meant no elevator access to the first floor. Checking out I pulled my back and damaged my suitcase carrying it down two flights of stairs with no staff assistance available. The stay was not worth the injury or the damage to my belongings. Also the temporary lobby, check in area, and restaurant are all converted conference rooms.

My wife and I stayed at the Royal Sonesta while visiting D.C. The staff there are both friendly and helpful. We were greeted with a smile each time we walked through the lobby. Our room was spotless. Very comfortable, with a great view.

This hotel is easy to miss as we couldn’t even see it when we pulled up in a taxi!The entrance hall is underwhelming and the carpet not great but the staff are great and very welcoming.Out room was fine .We had dinner there the first night unfortunately as I am dairy free all I could have was a plate of chips which was disappointing.The room was fine and clean.The staff were all very nice and helpful.The location was a short walk to DuPont circle underground (about 8 minutes)which was great.It was also about 25 minutes walk to George Town which was fabulous in the evenings.

Seriously… if you are renovating your hotel, don’t you think you need to tell people that. When you approach the hotel you think you’re in a disaster zone. Then you walk into a homemade lobby until they finish said renovation. The people checking you in our belligerent because they’re expecting you to be quite annoyed by finding out their hotel is under renovation. The furnace in my room made horrible noises. They fixed it, but said they’d have to turn the whole line off tomorrow in order to really fix it. My toilet ran all night. Drilling seem to start at 7:30 this morning. There are so many choices in Washington DC, I would never have chosen this if I knew they were under construction.