HotelChatter

What is even more amazing is that Kimpton, the proprietor of Hotel Monaco, went for it. A smart move because once you have stayed in a room supplied with leopard print bathrobes, there is simply no way a hotel experience can ever be complete without them.

In fact, there is so much good to say about Hotel Monaco that it's tough to decide where to begin. The decor is heavily eclectic and more than a little garish (a young acquaintance's first reaction was "Why doesn't anything match?"); stripes and polka-dots and seemingly random colors and styles are all jumbled together, but there is no denying it is fun.

The hallways are cleverly decorated to enhance the feeling of length, leaving you with the same impression that you got with the hallways scenes in The Shining, that is if the set director of The Shining had been the kind of guy who liked leopard print bathrobes.

You don't expect large rooms in a boutique hotel, and you don't get them. But neither do you get Manhattan-cramped living space either. You get a full bathroom, a usable workspace, and room to turn around.

At the restaurant, Poste, the service was a bit confused -- they ran out of menus and suggested that if we didn't want to wait to order, we could go look at the menu posted by the entrance -- but the food was marvelous.

The location is prime; the area is known as Penn Quarter, with plenty of fine restaurants nearby, a metro station across the street, and The Mall four or five blocks away.

The key amenity touches are all in place -- FREE wireless throughout the hotel, a laptop sized in-room safe, and turn down service. Plus, there are extras. In the afternoon, the friendly folks at the front desk put out FREE chocolate chip cookies for anyone who's interested and there are also happy hours in the lobby where they give you FREE wine and snacks.

And there is FREE sushi. OK, not really. But upon request they will deliver a goldfish to your room as a companion for the duration of your stay. How you use it up to you.

The employees are all alert and attentive. When we needed a printer to print out our boarding pass for the flight home, the desk clerk didn't make us seek out the business center. "If that's all you need just step around behind the desk and use our terminal." Nice. The effect of all this is to make you get all Sally Fields with yourself and cry, "You like me! You really like me!"

Here's hoping that all foreign leaders that visit Washington DC stay at Hotel Monaco. After spending a few nights in laying about in leopard print bathrobes and discussing weighty diplomatic issues with their companion goldfish, world peace would most certainly be at hand.

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· Hotel Monaco reviews [TripAdvisor]