Crowne Plaza Crystal City-Washington, D.C. by IHG — Hotel in Washington

I will try to be balanced with this review, since as a Diamond Ambassador Elite member, I am fortunate enough to be able to make comparisons between IHG hotels.

Starting with the positive issues, first, not all staff had a bad attitude, and one lady on the Front Desk had an excellent attitude. If the General Manager reads this review and is serious about even basic let alone superior customer service, I hope this person can be named in private correspondence (as reviews are anonymized), so they are looked after with an employee award. Not least, because her excellent attitude was somewhat unrepresentative of certain other staff (including two Duty Managers) that my wife and I (plus guests) had dealings with.

Second, the rooms are nice. Third, the breakfast was fine (as were the restaurant staff members’ attitude). Fourth, the hotel is conveniently located near to the National Airport, plus the metro for travel to/from Washington.

Turning to the negative issues, a question remains after this stay. That is, why do certain (not all) staff members feel the need to provide awful service and even lie, and I use the term ‘lie’ purposefully (as I will outline shortly)?

Follow-up questions are relevant for this review, like is the hotel understaffed and so this is a management issue that IHG is not aware of? Alternatively, do some employees simply have an awful attitude, so it is an employee recruitment/retention issue?

Furthermore, do management know about the problems, and if so, do they condone such service issues contrary to IHG’s standards?

These questions are pertinent since I contacted the person named in the welcome email, who when I checked their profile on the Internet, is the Area General Manager for a firm that I assume owns the Crowne Plaza Crystal City. While the possibility is that this person is away (with no ‘out of office’ on her email), I received no reply to an email after a few days bringing positive and negative issues outlined in this review to her attention. This raises customer service concerns in addition to the way hotel staff are potentially cared for by management.

I stress that each incident hereafter on its own was no big deal, but rather put together with the lies told, the totality made customer service a clearly concerning issue at the hotel among some (not all) staff that certainly impacts customers reading this review.

Incident 1 – the courtesy shuttle driver to the airport (used to collect a rental car) correctly dropped my wife and I at the bus stop to catch the bus from the airport to the rental car pick-up location, so no problem with this. In contrast, he was talking loudly to someone sitting next to him on the passenger front seat (who he appeared friendly with) about dropping him directly at the rental car location, so that person did not need to get the extra bus. Indeed, that person stayed in the shuttle after other passengers were dropped off. It therefore appears friends of the shuttle bus driver may get preferential treatment vis-a-vis paying customers, or an explanation is required where this person was going on the shuttle bus that is supposed to only travel between the hotel and airport. This was especially pertinent regarding the later incidents 2 and 4.

Incident 2 – after dropping off the rental car that night at the airport's return area, the hotel's courtesy shuttle from the airport to the hotel did not turn up as advertised, whereby, the Duty Manager (who I can identify but will anonymize for this review) gave 3 separate explanations (at least 2 lies if not all 3). This attitude was unacceptable, in addition to leaving customers alone/vulnerable late at night, plus potentially incurring a ride share cost, until resolved the next morning by a member of staff with a positive attitude (and who could tell the truth).

Excuse 1 by the Duty Manager was that my wife and I had not read the times correctly. We first reluctantly accepted this reason (as we may have been wrong) until we stepped into the lift and took a picture of the sign clearly stating a different time to the last pick-up he stated. This lie was therefore offensive to paying guests.

We therefore returned from the lift to the Front Desk to show the Duty Manager the picture of the advertised shuttle times, leading to explanation 2 being the shuttle driver having finished his shift early for personal reasons (rather a difference in less than 5 minutes). We asked for our ride share cost to be refunded given our offence to the Duty Manager’s attitude.

The immediate change to explanation 3 was that this refund was not possible as the Duty Manager had seen the shuttle driver recently, so as far as he was concerned, the shuttle driver may have been to the airport. Hence, an investigation was needed to check the driver’s logs by the person in charge the following morning. This raised the questions about why explanations could change so quickly, why the Duty Manager did not have the time logs (who held these – and why was he passing the matter to staff working the next morning), and was he covering for a colleague, hoping my wife and I would drop the matter?

The following morning, the Front Desk agent agreed that shuttles are indeed supposed to continue to the time in our photo from the lift but she could not comment on which explanation by the Duty Manager from the night before was valid, and refunded the ride share cost. My wife and I were happy to let matters drop until we checked out. This was despite the fact all 3 explanations from the Duty Manager the night before could not be correct, so I purposefully use the term ‘lies’.

Incident 3 – on check-out, the person on the Front Desk could not be bothered to ask how the stay was, which is a basic customer service issue, and perhaps indicative of some (not all) staff members’ attitude. My wife and I were prepared to let this go even though we were still annoyed by incidents 1 and 2 (so incident 3 was further evidence of bad service), as it was trivial in the grand scheme of things.

Incident 4 – after checking out, the courtesy shuttle did not turn up. We spoke to the Duty Manager (my wife and I have that person’s name but believe it should be anonymous for reviews) who had an appalling attitude. In fact, the Duty Manager’s attitude was so bad it tipped my wife and I over the edge, leading to this review after being ignored by the Area General Manager.

If the Duty Manager was correct with her explanation, the courtesy shuttle (this rationale being repeated about 3 times) is simply a courtesy so does not contractually need to turn up as advertised, namely, as a feature of the hotel that customers expect. Instead, the shuttle had been diverted to take a different customer to the partner hotel to do their laundry, meaning my wife and I (as paying customers) had to wait, as did guests at the airport whose schedule was negatively affected. Additionally, as the shuttle is only a supposed courtesy that the hotel does not need to provide as advertised, we were not entitled to having a ride share cost reimbursed if we took that option.

The Duty Manager at first refused to tell my wife and I the name/email address of the hotel’s General Manager. It was rather insulting to be given a card with a generic email address of the Front Desk contact. This raised the question of whether the General Manager is on witness protection so their identity cannot be disclosed, or the Duty Manager was so ashamed of her behavior, she did not want my wife and I to contact the General Manager. To be fair, in the end (and I stress after lots of arguing), a name was given, that may not be true given we had no confidence in the Duty Manager’s attitude.

After retuning from taking someone to the laundry, the shuttle left the hotel very late not 10am as scheduled, with no regard for paying customers having a flight to catch by a certain time. Indeed, the shuttle driver had seemingly been warned about us being upset with him dropping off someone to undertake their laundry rather than keeping to his schedule, because he was almost non communicative.

The impact for paying customers is first, to establish whether the shuttle bus is a courtesy or an advertised expectation. As such, will the shuttle arrive at all, and if so, at what time? Second, can paying customers be left late at night in vulnerable circumstances (and does the hotel have a responsibility in respect of warning guests about this)? Third, can customers expect to pay an unexpected ride share cost if the shuttle does not turn up? Fourth, what faith do paying customers have in explanations from Duty Managers given this review? Fifth, if someone is a friend of the shuttle driver, can they expect special treatment vis-a-vis paying guests, where the latter must deal with the consequences of an unreliable service and bizarre explanations from a...

This hotel is absolutely beautiful, so close to the city, and like 1/3 of the price of the hotels closer to the mall. It was a cheap ride share to the city, definitely worth saving the money to stay here.

The beds are very comfortable. It is self parking in a garage, which does cost money, but it isn't as exorbitant as the places closer to the mall. The front desk person was fantastic. As a platinum member I was offered a complimentary upgrade, and the suite was beautiful.

The only downside of this hotel: breakfast. They have a restaurant that has a buffet for $22. The buffet looks exactly like Holiday Inn Express buffets I have had for free. We chose to have a seated meal and order from the menu instead, as I prefer my food made fresh. The servers seemed irritated at this. The server did not write our orders down, but when my son tried to order a meal with eggs and potatoes and fruit (which I had literally just ordered), he goes, "No, you don't get both, you can have potatoes or fruit." He's like, "What? Why?" He says, its eggs, meat, and one side. Uh, no, the menu says its eggs and two sides and meat is one of the choices. It doesn't say eggs meat and one side. He was like, "Oh, you don't want meat?" No, obviously not or we would have ordered meat. It also says it is served with toast. The meal came and there was no toast. I pointed this out and the expediter says, "Well, there is toast in the buffet." I just looked at him and he asked, "Do you want me to get it for you?" What the heck? This isn't a holiday inn, and I'm not getting this meal for free. I'm going to pay a hefty price tag for it. Way more than just an ihop or something. Yes, I want you to get my toast, so I can eat my meal. 10 minutes later, my toast came.

The party of four across from us waited like 45 minutes for their food. Two of them got up and went to Starbucks instead and asked them to cancel the order and the server got livid.

Don't eat at this hotel. Stay here, for sure....

I rated good and would do excellent, but I encountered Ms. Gwen at the front desk upon early 6am check-out. As I approached, Ms. Gwen remained seated looking forward at her computer screen; I had to acknowledge her in order to be assisted. After I greeted with a welcoming "Good morning" and smile, I informed her that I need a receipt with my actual last 4 digits of my card due to my job reimbursement policy. She immediately, interrupted and informed me that the hotel does not give out receipts with card numbers. I explained that I bring students from Florida every year and never had a problem getting it. She again told me she did not know how to do it. I asked her for the contact number for Guest Services, and then she said to let her try it. She ended up printing it out and while looking at the computer screen, placed it towards me almost on counter but I grabbed. I said thank you and she just nodded her head while continuing to look at her computer screen.

This is ABSOLUTELY horrible to have to deal with rude attitudes first thing in the morning at the start of a customer's day AND at guest services desk. Gwen does not belong at the counter, especially greeting guest in the early morning. I truly hate that this was my encounter at the ending of my stay, I have been using for years. It really upset me to know that people will take a job in customer service and represent a business as such. Shame on you Ms. Gwen! :(

On the other hand! Everyone else was very pleasant. We love the breakfast, the cleanliness and the ambiance of the hotel. Great area. Love the restaurant and Starbucks in the hotel. Great stay! Music starts playing every morning at 5:30am and it can be heard on the 2nd floor, but my students across the hall (on the side of the elevators) could not hear it, but students on the even # side (across from elevators) could hear it. It played every morning, same time. This would be the only thing I would change and of...