Washington Hilton

Guests DON'T Sleep, for FREE!

We stayed at this beautiful hotel from the 4th-5th of July. Imagine our excitement when we first entered the impressive-looking building with its stunning decor and sophisticated staff, we were simply ecstatic. The front desk staff was extremely helpful, friendly, and efficient upon check-in. There was a huge outdoor pool and the location was simply perfect for enjoying the fireworks in DC.

We noticed a very large group of young, professional-looking students dressed to impress in chic business attire staying at the hotel. Upon speaking with a few of them, we learned that we were happily sharing our Hilton experience with members of the Key Club. This is a high school volunteer organization committed to helping the community. The "Vision" of this group on their website is as follows: "We are caring and competent servant leaders transforming communities worldwide."

Unfortunately, this particular group chosen to represent the Key Club did not live up to their vision, although they did "transform" the hotel community (not in a good way). Granted, we expected quite a bit of noise after the fireworks and figured it would die down by around 10 or 11 since these were high school kids, excited to get a taste of the big city. We even counted upon older people arriving home from the bars later to be somewhat loud. What we didn't take into consideration was that several roving groups of young Key-Clubbers would ride up and down the elevators, screaming back and forth to one another, literally as loudly as they could. We also didn't realize they would choose to sit outside of their rooms laughing and screaming loudly on a continual basis until about 3AM.

Eventually we spoke with them, very gently explaining our situation and asking them if they would kindly either tone it down or take the noise to their rooms since at the time it was around 11pm and people were trying to sleep. They eagerly showed off their "leadership" skills by sassing back angrily that they "didn't have to do anything" and nobody could make them. They were right, because despite a call to security this group of teens, along with others, continued to keep other guests awake well into the wee hours of the morning. One need not be asleep to hear them running up and down the hallways, some with slurred speech and several with defiantly loud voices, showing everyone just who ran the show.

In the morning, we spoke with two chaperons about the issue. The first one, a kindly-looking fellow, seemed apologetic but with a "kids will be kids" attitude. The second one was in an elevator with us and a group of students, some of whom looked rather tired from their late-night activities. He was an older man with gray hair and we were hoping that would translate into more of an authority figure for the children rather than a drinking-buddy mentality. After describing the incident to him, he rolled his eyes and smirked to one of the students, who also rolled his eyes in return. I wondered to myself if some of the kids had been drinking, as there certainly seemed to be absolutely no constraints on them whatsoever, but I hope that wasn't the case.

We spoke with the front desk manager at the hotel and she was absolutely wonderful about the incident. We shared with her how other patrons had complained bitterly to us but likely felt it would be fruitless to pursue the incident with the hotel itself. It seemed that the Key Club children were simply too powerful for anyone to control. The manager explained that this was the Key Club's first visit to the hotel, and I informed her it was ours also. Both my boyfriend and I have traveled extensively and neither of us has encountered anything like this. I got a better night's sleep at a Motel-6. I would love to stay at this hotel again, but only if they implemented a policy where disruptive guests would have to leave if they continually disturbed guests. Perhaps it was naive of me to believe they had something like this to begin with.

So, if you want to stay at a beautiful hotel and lay awake all night, look no further. This one apparently comes with a "Guests DON'T sleep" policy, for free!