The Morrow Washington DC, Curio Collection by Hilton — Hotel in Washington

Sadly giving this a one star mainly because of the service. The hotel itself is lovely and in a great location with great dining. However this review is because I stayed for the weekend to celebrate both mine and my friends 30th birthday, and was looking to have the room decorated in advance of our arrival. As gold member HHonors member I was extremely disappointed.

I contacted the hotel via phone 3 weeks in advance to inquire about decorating and the front desk employee said he would leave a note for the team. I realized he really didn't ask me any specifics of what decor I actually wanted, so I decided to call back again just to confirm my request was made and provide more detail.

I called the hotel again about 2 weeks ahead of my arrival and they gave me the email address for their events coordinator Jewel Rizkalla. I emailed her a detailed request and outlined what I would like, and wanted to confirm if they either could do it.

I decided to call back again the following day just because I thought it'd be easier to discuss this on the phone and she was not available, but I left a voicemail where she said she'd respond in 24 hours. 48 hours comes around no response to the email and no call back. So I called back again and spoke to Bernard on her team who apologized, and he took my email and phone number and stated Jewel would be back later and give me a call(at this point we are at the week of my arrival).

This was Monday and I waited until Wednesday and received no call from Bernard or Jewel. At this point fed up I called the Hilton corporate number, they were able to get me the contact of another person Jose. After emailing Jose he responded within minutes and he said he'd call me the next day (which he did and I appreciated!).

After calling corporate, Bernard finally called me and asked for details of what I wanted and I relayed what I outlined in my email to Jewel: flowers to say our names on the bed, a bottle of champagne in the room, and balloons and if they don’t do that to just let me know. He said they could do it except the balloons and asked if I would provide that. I said sure and I coordinated party city to deliver the balloons separately. Bernard called me about 2-3 more times to confirm the spelling of our names, helped coordinate an early check-in which I requested and told me multiple times he was working with the front desk to get everything ready. Everything appeared to be all set.

When I arrived at the hotel excited to open the door…all I saw was balloons. No champagne, no flowers just the balloons that I ordered and a note saying happy birthday from Bernard. I had to hide my disappointment from my friend because I didn’t want to ruin the mood but it was extremely frustrating. We ended up having to just pop a bottle from the mini bar instead but she could see my mood was a little off so I told her the entire ordeal.

I give this one star for a few reasons Jewel and Bernard handled the situation very poorly. For Jewel throughout everything to not reach out or even respond to my email is extremely unprofessional. For Bernard to tell me everything was fine yet did not do anything I requested except the balloons that I ordered was also unprofessional and when I called him the day of to check-in I got no response.

I would like to commend Jose for being the only one of the team to actually email me back and return my call I ended up telling him that I was already working with Bernard so not to worry. I also would like to commend another employee I believe his name was Bradley. It was heavily raining and we asked the front desk for umbrellas they said they had no more and he had over heard us and went to open up what looked like a new fresh set of umbrellas which was really kind of him we appreciated it. The hotel itself was nice but unfortunately the actions of Bernard and Jewel ruined the experience I was hoping to have for our birthday celebration…you only turn 30 once I'm a new mom and this was my first getaway with a friend since giving birth so I just wanted to enjoy...

Positives of my stay: The hotel itself was great! I booked a king suite that had a nice large tub and got a great room with a view. This was perfect for my wife's birthday celebration. We visited the penthouse (PH) bar and the bartenders were very nice/fun to talk to. The view of DC is AMAZING from the PH bar. They had the firepits on during the cold season, so if you are up to it you can still enjoy the outside seating. The location of the hotel is also great, but not from a parking perspective(will get to this in the next section 😒). You are only several minutes from places like H Street, U street, and of course NOMA areas via driving. Overall, I would give the hotel stay a solid 4.5 stars.

Negatives of my stay: VALET driver hit/scraped my car on the curb right infront of my wife and I!!! 😡 This was on the first night when we were going to get dinner for her birthday. Also, he was speeding in my car just to bring it down the street less than a block.....why?!? Now I will note, the valet company is not a part of the hotel, but it definitely put a sour taste on our stay with the hotel experience because self-parking is basically none existent there and they encourage you to pay the $55/night to park your car overnight with valet. I ended up telling the front desk about the incident when we got back from dinner and showed them the dash cam video from my car when he scraped the curb (I highly suggest everyone get a dashboard camera for your car, especially with valet). The video was supposedly sent to the valet company manager from the hotel, but I have yet to hear anything from either of them!! This occurred the first night when we were happy to get there and definitely a mood killer for the both of us. The valet guy who hit my car basically mumbled sorry to me and that's all I really got from this. 😒 No additional call from management, no discount for the issue, no vouchers, you get my point....Anyways, I surely don't recommend valeting with their company or if you do, do it at your own risk. Same with self parking, it's definitely park at your own risk. Parking spots around that area is VERY limited due to the amount of residential zoning parking for the locals. The pay to park meters are only 2-hours max and start at 7am-6:30pm on Saturdays. So hopefully you are an early riser so you can pay the meter. I think I got lucky because we stayed the weekend after Thanksgiving, so I found a free spot around the corner infront of an apartment complex on Satuday and I just ubered wherever I needed to go.

Would I go back to this specific hotel? NO. Not for a "4-star hotel" with a 1-star valet service and lack of awareness...

This hotel lives in a gentrified area of DC; it reminded us of our own hometown landscape of what's being categorized as "up and coming". My family and I were visiting for a family wedding. We stayed here for seven nights. It's a nice hotel, not far from DCA (Regan National Airport), Uber/Lyft convenient. Though, I fell more in love with the staff members more than the building and what it came with. A building is just a building, people are one of a kind. The individuals I got to interact with starting from outside the entrance, to the front desk, to the rooftop associates were just phenomenal, hard working and dedicated. Almost as though they are just too good of humans, they deserve to work where they are well appreciated and compensated just by how they are, and now they treat others. Each of them have a place in my heart, and DC is memorable because of them. Especially the team working the morning into early evening shifts. A tip of suggestion for incoming guests (newcomers like my family and I with this trip): when you check-in your room, make sure everything checks off to the fundamental standards any hotel should maintain. If something is missing, address immediately no matter how late into the evening or how early in the morning. For my experience, it was three of us with a two-bed room accommodation. We only had enough towels for one person. I addressed it immediately with the Housekeeping team as well as Front Desk. Then when getting ready for bed, my sister noticed a thick chunk of stain on her duvet cover (unfortunately, it's white so there is no way out of that), and we (mother and I) noticed the same on ours though in different location of our bed. At that point we didn't want to cause inconvenience while it's a paid stay. You can tell people getting annoyed each time you ask for something/for help/for assistance (here we go again ... what do they want now … another complaint) ... didn't want that energy so we toughed that bit through. If you are someone like me who eats a dish that you didn't order or do not like on the first bite, you are not anyone's hero but rather imposing more inconvenience to yourself and your dining party. You have the right to experience the quality that matches the price. So saying to say, speak up and give others the opportunity to get it right, to remedy the mistake somehow. The wise one said a closed mouth doesn't get fed. Mistakes happen, ovesights are a given especially in a fast pace industry where you need to operate at optimal speed.

My respect and gratitude to the staff of the morning and early evening shifts. Jewels....