Washington DC is, in many ways, a cheap place to take a short holiday. Most of the best museums (and Washington has some amazing museums) do not charge an admission fee. Indeed, even famous landmarks like the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington monument (which is a must-see) do not charge a fee, a particularly impressive feat for the latter given that it allows you, albeit by use of a timed-ticket, to go up 500 feet and have an excellent vantage point of DC.
The one downside though is that accommodation in DC is ridiculously expensive. Which is why I was pleased to have stayed in the State Plaza Hotel during my recent trip there. When I first arrived at the hotel, I found it somewhat low-key and inconspicuous (had to take a second look before I could even identify it!). Be that as it may, the stay was a wonderful one.
For one, the room was ridiculously large. I don’t know if it were only my good fortune, but my room came with its own kitchen (complete with stove and full-size fridge), dressing room (literally, a room for you to preen yourself in front of the mirror!) apart from and on top of the conventional hotel room and toilet. The location was good as well – being close to the heart of DC and only a few minutes walk away from Washington Mall and many of the key landmarks that have come to be associated with DC (e.g. White House, Washington Monument et al).
Service was wonderful as well given the price I paid – to state one example, rather than charge inordinate prices for storage facilities (which is what some budget hotels do after you’ve checked out but still have a few hours to burn and you’d rather not be lugging a heavy back around), they were kind enough to offer to hold on to my bag and even enquired as to whether there was anything valuable in the bag so that they can place it in a more secure location if that were the case. There is a complimentary wired internet connection in each room as well, so that affords the busy student / business traveler / busybody Internet surfer to keep himself/herself logged on to the many distractions of the world wide web whilst staying in the hotel.
If I had any complaints, it was merely that I wish that the Internet connection provided was wireless and that the check-in time was a somewhat-oddly-late 3 pm. All that said, for a mere $100 or so a night, ridiculously low by DC standards, the accommodation was good and I would definitely recommend it to anyone looking for a relatively affordable place in DC for a few days’ stay!
