The Beacon Hotel, on Rhode Island Avenue, was the base for our stay in Washington DC. Comfortable and centrally located (a key point for us), our stay was not without its incidents.
We had booked through booking.com but when we arrived and registered with reception, I was told that payment for the room would be taken from my debit card. I pointed out I had already paid for the room but the receptionist insisted this was not the case. We decided to sort it later. We then went to our allocated room only to find it was not made up from the previous occupant. I returned to reception to complain.
I was met with an immediate apology over the payment. They accepted the room payment had been made. And they were very apologetic about the state of the room. They offered to upgrade us at no extra cost to one of their best rooms on the top floor. It would be churlish to turn it down! So we gathered together our stuff and moved to the new room.
Except that we left behind in the first room a guidebook. And my passport had been used as the bookmark. We did not realised the mistake until the next morning. There was no way it could be recovered. The hotel staff were very helpful and we even did a search of the initial room but the guidebook and passport were gone, almost certainly into the rubbish which had left the building. The staff helped me contact the British embassy. I can't fault them.
Meanwhile, our stay in the hotel went down well. Despite the mistakes about payments and unprepared rooms, I'm happy to recommend staying there.
We had breakfast only once in the hotel. On the three other days, we ate out. That's a deliberate policy. We want to widen our experience when visiting a city. Nevertheless, the food at the Beacon was good quality.
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