DC Suburbs (Rockville) Hilton Rockville Executive Meeting Center

[CrazyOne]

One night weekend stay here in late April 2012 was more than acceptable for the $45 bid price. A few notes:

Hotel is located in Rockville along Rockville Pike (MD Rt 355), and the Metro red line (Twinbrook station) is behind the hotel with an easy roughly one-block walk. This is still pretty far out from downtown Washington DC, but with a deal like 45 bucks it might be worth it.

Parking in the hotel garage costs $15, something you might not expect from a suburban hotel. But here's a tip: The 3 streets of the hotel block that are not the main road Rockville Pike all have metered street parking. Meters there are only collected Mon-Fri and if I remember correctly it's 8am-6pm max even on those days. Arriving on Saturday afternoon there was no trouble at all parking out there, and nothing bad happened to my car. The Metro lot is also free on weekends but technically you are not supposed to park overnight there, so I wouldn't chance that. But the street parking is fine. The one street has meters on both sides. Since not much else there is open during the weekend that would require the street parking, it's pretty likely you can use this and save 15 bucks.

This hotel has an interior atrium design. Many rooms have doors and windows towards the atrium, but some rooms have windows only to the outside of the building. The lobby which is at the front Rockville Pike entrance is on the third floor, and there are guest rooms on the first and second floors as well as the restaurant and bar down there, etc.

I initially arrived at around 12:30pm and asked about checking in. The helpful front desk agent said she could only put me in a room on the first and second floors at that time. It was clear she was suggesting that these were not desirable. She even admitted they were noisier. Didn't seem to have any problem allowing even me with a lowly Priceline res to have a better room up higher as long as I could check in a little later. I thanked her and went out to get lunch (driving around, not walking at this point). Came back around 2pm and got a room up on the 5th floor (535) that faced the outside. According to reviews elsewhere, this is desirable due to the noise that can come in from the atrium area. I forgot to ask for outside room but was assigned this by default. It did look like the atrium-facing rooms had thin single-pane windows. Our room faced Rockville Pike and was only 2 stories up from that ground level, but there was no noise from out there.

Room was updated, not sure how recently, but certainly seemed modern enough to be within the last 5 years. There was a flat TV at least 37", not a ton of channels but some. This room had a king bed, seemed rather plush and they used the duvet-style linens. Carpet and furniture seemed newer. Drapes clash with the carpet. ;) Table lamps on the nightstands and desk had outlets built into them, a handy feature. This is common on desks these days but still sometimes lacking at the bed area. In addition to the desk and desk chair there was also a side chair with ottoman, and a little side table for that as well. The HVAC unit was pretty noisy and old though had a modern wall control. Was a decent-sized room, although it probably would have felt less so with two queen beds as some of these may be configured. Bathroom had modern vanity, curved shower rod, decent amount of light. Towels better than average. ;) The wall sconces on either side of the mirror looked like they may have been reused from the sides of the bed or something, though. Looked out of place in the bathroom. The tile on the floor and tub wall looked newer and clean (all 1ft square tiles). The same tile continued into the entry way of the room, instead of having all carpet there.

I ended up not using the internet service on my computer at all there, for the first time in ages. I had my iPhone, and they wanted 10 bucks for the WiFi so I skipped it. The WiFi is provided by AT&T so if you have an account with them you may be able to use that. I believe it's free in the lobby as well, but I didn't try it. There didn't appear to be any wired connection for internet in the room any longer. That could mean that if you have two laptops in your room, they might want to charge you for both. Why they're clinging to this as a profit center I'm not sure, because they can I guess. For me, especially on such a cheap weekend where I was trying to cheap out on everything (park on the street, etc.) it will just drive me to find other ways of using the internet.

This hotel is in what could be considered pretty much a suburban sprawl area. And yet, as long as you aren't bothered by busy Rockville Pike, you can easily walk to some restaurants and shops. The two places we went to were both on the opposite side of Rockville Pike, but all the intersections have crosswalks and pedestrian signals. We had dinner at Mosaic Cuisine and breakfast at Silver Diner. Would recommend both readily. There are a number of other places within a few block walk including grocery stores (Trader Joe's and Fresh Market).

I've certainly stayed at far worse places for far more money than this cost. A good deal even at a higher bid than this. I just got lucky in that it was a particularly dead weekend.