Westfields Marriott Washington Dulles — Hotel in Chantilly

This is an absolutely lovely property. It’s in a fantastic central location close to almost everything from the Air and Space museum to Dulles Airport to I-66 and 28. Yet, it’s secluded away on beautiful serene grounds in the woods.

There is plenty of parking - but valet is available for only $20 - and the lobby is absolutely grand. The service and staff here are absolutely impeccable. The facility itself is spacious and well appointed, easy to navigate, and welcoming during all seasons.

So, why three stars? As someone who spends about 100 nights a year in hotels and has stayed here 4-5 times now as a business traveler, read on and let me explain.

The Marriott Westfields is primarily an events center, and it’s a great one at that. But what it’s not especially good at is the whole “hotel” part of the equation. It seems like the general “place to sleep and home base after a long day” is not what this place is going for.

The rooms are relatively small, and while they have recently been re-done, there’s a certain dankness to them on humid days in the summer.

The towels in the bathroom are embarrassing - scratchy, small ones that look about 20 years old and wouldn’t feel out of place in a Motel 6. You only get two of them so make sure to ask for extras if you’re like me and don’t like drying off with a soggy towel in the morning.

The pillows on the beds are absolutely atrocious - and this is unforgivable for a hotel of this class. Every night I’ve spent here has been choosing between a sack of potatoes or a boulder to put my head on. I learned quickly to go down to Target and buy my own if I want a good night’s sleep.

You’ll notice signs all around about quiet hours. While this might be a side effect of the hotel’s event center focus and people at events tend to drink and party, I think the other side of this is just the fact that the rooms are not sound insulated at all. You can hear EVERYTHING in the halls in your room. I tried taking a nap at 5pm and it was futile. Everything from doors slamming to housekeeping carts echoed through the halls into my room.

And you can’t turn on the HVAC fan to drown out the noise - recently they’ve gone full “green” with the top-of-the-line Verdant ZX AC controls which can’t be overridden. The fan comes on and off when it wants to, and your temperatures are restricted at that. Hotels focusing on “energy saving” is always a bit of a red flag to me. It’s sold as an eco-friendly thing, but it’s always clear when greenwashing is to save money.

Overall, it feels to me that this is likely an expensive place to run, considering the property and location. My guess is the focus on events means the hotel services need to be skimped on a little to make ends meet.

A shame, as it could be fantastic with these minor improvements - towels, a few pillows, maybe some strategic appointments on the walls to drown out noise, and a little less of a restrictive climate control.

Will I be back? Probably. But I’ll bring a pillow, a towel, and a white...

HOTEL/ROOMS - The building, lobby, and grounds exude a sense of elegance, but the rooms themselves are a bit dated. The hotel layout is massive, so you will do a bit of walking around in a maze.

There is a Verdant thermostat in the room but it was non-adjustable. Even though the setting was "automatic," the room felt like it stayed 60 degrees all day and night. Good thing I bought layers and a jacket to wear...indoors! :\

The bathroom had a weird layout where opening the door caused it to brush against the toilet seat, but a plus were the full shampoo/conditioner/body wash dispensers in the shower.

There is a mini fridge in the hotel room, but no microwave. The coffee machine did not function properly either, but this was not a deal breaker as I purchased coffee and tea elsewhere.

NOISE - Perhaps my neighbors during my stay were not as rambunctious, but I did hear people walking and talking in the hallways and heard doors opening and closing consistently as people went about their day. Nothing too disruptive, though.

PARKING - There are lots of parking spaces in the complimentary lots around the hotel, but be mindful that you may have to make multiple trips to and from your car as the lots are a bit of a walk away from the hotel entrance. They do offer valet parking for $20/night.

AMENITIES - If you intend to use the gym and pools and don't want to walk all around the hotel, try to request a room in the East wing as this is where these amenities are located.

The fitness center is one of the nicest I've seen with plenty of treadmills, elliptical machines, bikes, dumbbells, and a few leg machines. There are towels for patrons to use as well as wipes to clean equipment. The gym and equipment were very clean and functioned well. There is a two lane indoor pool and hot tub located adjacent to the fitness center. Locker rooms with showers and restrooms are also located near the fitness center and pools.

Tip for accessing the fitness center and pools - after you enter the blue door marked "Fitness Center," and are faced with an emergency exit and little white gates blocking stairs going down, push those gates open and proceed downstairs. You will feel like you are trespassing, but once you use your card to unlock the unmarked door at the bottom of the steps, you'll see white marble floors...keep walking straight ahead.

I did not order from the in hotel restaurant, Wellington's, but the menu looked like it offered some pretty good fare. Starbucks coffee is also served in the mornings.

LOCATION - The hotel is located near a business area, so there is not too much surrounding traffic. It is easy to access the major highways and is close to the airport and a lot of things - Korean area of Centreville, restaurants with varying cuisines, coffeeshops/cafes, shopping, etc.

Overall, my stay here was pleasant. The hotel could use a bit more updating, but the positives outweigh the...

Last weekend we stayed a night at this hotel since we are Marriott rewards members. We were attending an event at the expo and this was very nearby and around restaurants and amenities. The grounds are beautiful, and the design of the hotel is thoughtful and elegant. The room was clean and spacious. This is probably the extent of the positives. Our view was a wall and windows into the rooms across from us. The service was satisfactory except for when we had issues parking. When we first pulled up, there were many spots available in the front but blocked off by cones and the doorman would not let us park there for a few minutes so we can check in and drop our stuff off. So we had to inconveniently move in the parking lot and drag all our things to the lobby where we were told our room wasn’t even ready. We had to attend the event so we just left our things with the desk.

When we returned around 7 PM they gave us a room on the third floor pretty far away from the elevators, which was OK. The problem was that with two medium size parking lots and four weddings occurring on the grounds that day, and God knows how many other hotel guests, there was absolutely no parking available from 7:15 pm onwards. We finally got the spot of a wedding guest who was leaving and we made our way to check into our room finally after a long day of traveling, attending our event and then rushing to dinner reservations. As we were waiting for our Uber, other people were pulling up complaining about the lack of parking. At this point the small courtyard was completely full, an they were literally letting cars park along the entrance and road, blocking incoming vehicles; mind you they would not allow us to check in for 10 minutes in one of the actual spaces at a less busy time several hours before. The attendants were also pretty short with those guests and tried to gaslight them into believing there was a plethora more parking, although we experienced it for ourselves. For us to have gold and platinum membership you would think that we would have spots reserved for guests. They didn’t have valet available either. Another issue was that pretty much all night into the morning loud wedding guests were stomping through the halls speaking loudly. Again, we were far away from the venue space but that didn’t stop people from being really disruptive to our sleep. I was really disappointed that the hotel condone this type of behavior. It is truly a lovely hotel and we got a great price for the night, but due to the parking issues and the calamity of all those events occurring, I don’t think I want the same experience. I didn’t even bother to bring this up when we checked out because she never asked us how our stay was and she was pretty abrupt and cold, saying she would email us...