I stayed at the Renaissance Mayflower Hotel (part of the Marriott chain) for three nights at the end of May 2008. It was fabulous!

Even though my room (624) was a little small, it was clean, comfortable and had that fabulous Marriott bed. This room was at the end of a hallway, with two windows overlooking 17th street where it was surprisingly very quiet.

Room service comes within 25 minutes and the staff were extremely friendly and professional, as were the bell and front desk staff.

The Mayflower feels like a much smaller hotel than it is. It is a beautiful historical site and if you stay there, take about 5-10 minutes to view the electronic slide show of the hotel and the events and history that has occurred there. It's located in the main hall way, down from the lobby on the right side wall before all the conference rooms.

The Mayflower is within walking distance to great shoppoing and dining. I recommend walking about two blocks west to Famous Luigi's for a great italian dinner or pizza. I have been there twice and I loved it both times.

When venturing further out from the hotel, the the Red line metro is a few steps to the left of the hotel and the Orange/Blue line is about 3-4 blocks south. The metro-rail in DC is a great way to get around. It is affordable ($1.35 to $1.65 to most locations one-way), clean, has frequent trains, the colored system is easy to understand and I have always felt safe on it - no matter the location or time of day I am travelling.

On your next trip to DC, check out the Mayflower. It is my new favorite hotel in Washington.

For a family of 5, our Deluxe room was just that. 2 Double beds and a roll away ($20 a night) was perfect. There were plenty of places to store our luggage. Our bathroom had 2 sinks with plenty of counter space...the best part was a separate shower and bath/shower. (If you have teenaged daughters, you can appreciate this) Yes, this room may have been located by the air conditioning units but here's my twist to this. You are out walking for what seems like forever, you get to your hotel room ready to drop.....do you want to hear sirens and traffic? No, the white noise this provides you is priceless. As for the view, we got that walking and exploring the capital.

We also found many different types of restaurants in the area. From McDonald's (2blks) Subway (1 1/2 blk) Fudrucker's (1blk) to Mortons (across st), McCormick and Scmick's (2blks), Bar/grill type (1blk) Luigi's (2 blks) So whoever didn't find anywhere to eat, certainly didn't look very hard. Of course room service will be priced high, it's a hotel...they aren't known for their cheap food or drinks. I must say, their service in the lobby bar is excellent. Robert was FABULOUS. You can't even count how many times he says "Yes, sir." in a night.

The front desk people, valet people, and bell men are all very friendly as well. The only down fall we encountered on our stay here was the maid service. We requested extra towels, even with a note, never received. And she didn't restock our in room coffee, we had to call for extra. She made beds and cleaned up the bathroom, but did not clean the floor at all.

The location is great. We had rented a car for our weekend, valet was within 15min. However, be warned......it costs $35 a day for this. You are allowed to get your car as many times in a day as you wish though.

I would love to stay here again.

Stayed two nights at the Renaissance after getting it on PL. Saturday night was extremely noisy as others have suggested. We did not have the AC unit but instead had a room with the little "hallway" and two rooms off of it. Not even extremely noisy neighbors but could hear them talking and lightly laughing until after 2 am. This was mixed with the loud music we could hear at street level - apparently some music deal going on. Not much sleep that night.

Sunday night - much better. No neighbors, no music, no noise - slept perfectly!

Did not eat at this hotel but did have drinks in the lobby bar. Very expensive, but we found all of Washington DC to be on the expensive side. We walked down to the Dupont area as others have said and found places to eat.

Nice rooms, comfy beds, but need to do something about the noise situation.

Beautiful old building that is beginning to show that it needs refreshed. We're another couple that got one of the rooms right next to the huge air conditioning units. The hotel was full, so we couldn't move, and these things are noisy. Also, we couldn't see anything outside of our windows except for these huge machines. Whatever you do, when you make a reservation, be sure and specify that you don't want a room anywhere near these monsters.

The room itself, though, was great. It was big, and had a separate sitting room and bedroom. They couldn't possibly charge you for a suite, though, with all of that machinery outside, especially given the lack of any view.

Concierge lounge will set you back $40/day. Probably not worth it here. The drinks that they serve up there are NOT included in the costs, and the hors d'ouevres are fairly lame. It's also only open until noon on Friday and closed on Saturday.....makes no sense. And don't touch the minibar; it's one of those computerized ones that charges you the minute you move anything inside it. I put a bottle of water in there, knocked over a few things, and later found out that I had a minibar bill approaching $50. They took care of it, but still, be careful.

The bar in the corner is great, by the way. It's a famous old hotel bar, and it fits the bill, for sure.