Sheraton National Hotel Arlington (Virginia)

The Sheraton National Hotel Arlington was much better than the Hilton Crystal City for duty at the Pentagon and Metro access. Although the government paid for most of the nights we were in DC, they had a great weekend rate of $107 per night if we were able to stay through the extra days, which would be a great value for a 3-star hotel in the DC area. The location is actually misleading from the name: you are pretty far away from National Airport compared to the Crystal City area, but there is still good shuttle service between the hotel and the airport which does not require getting on the I-395 freeway (critical during rush hour). The hotel is a 16-story monstrocity in a small residential area (see foreground of photo) overlooking the Pentagon, the Navy Annex, Arlignton National Cemetery, and the fields of suburban DC in Northern Virginia.

The hotel is well-maintained and we had no problems with anny of the ammentities. The bed was extremely confortable and the selection of various-sized pillows made for a very comfortable stay. I knocked my head into the eye-level soap dish in the shower, but it was a good shower with descent water pressure. The sink area is outside the bathroom, but this seems to be a trend in 3-star hotels nowadays.

The best part of the Sheraton National Hotel Arlington was the shuttle service. We could call the front dewsk and get a shuttle directly to the Pentagon, and they would even pick us up on a 15-minute wait from the time of our call, just enough to walk outside to the pick-up area. The phones seemded to get busy around 0600 and it may take a few tries to reach a guest services person to schedule a ride on the busy mornings, but we never had a problem catching the shuttle to the Pentagon. They also have regularly scheduled service between the Pentagon City Metro Stop/Pentagon Row Restaurants and the hotel every 30 minutes until 11:15PM. This makes getting to downtown DC a breeze via Metro and provides several options for food and shopping.

Overall, we thought it was better than staying at Crystal City where we had to walk several blocks to the Metro just to ride it for 2 stops to get to the Pentagon. The Sheraton National Hotel Arlington has large banquet facilities, a bar, restaurant, room service and helpful bell hops. There's even a WiFi and computer kiosk area for guest use.

Great place to stay when duty calls!