2201 Arlington Blvd., Arlington, VA, 22201, 703-525-0300,
Rates: $70 to $130 a night, depending on room size and season. Some rooms are discounted 15 percent if you book online and pay in advance. Free parking.
Stay here if you: want some of the cheapest room rates in the Washington area and don’t care about quality.
It’s close to: Arlington Cemetery and the Pentagon, both about 2 miles away. The closest metro stop is a 9-block walk, or you can take the hotel shuttle, which runs once an hour between 7 a.m. and 8 p.m. Most D.C. attractions are within 4 to 6 miles.
The rooms are: old but clean. Judging by the vintage tile and ancient fixtures in my bathroom, this motel was built in the 1940s or ’50s. Furniture, carpet and wallpaper have been updated, but the noncosmetic stuff such as plumbing and electrical wiring don’t appear to have received the same attention. There was only one unused electric outlet in my room, and it was falling out of the wall; and the faucet on the bathroom sink was stripped and didn’t turn off properly.
They put all of the money into: nothing.
The bottom line: This motel is so appalling, it’s amazing that Days Inn allows it to continue operating. Its only advantages are that it’s cheap, clean and has free Internet. The problems began shortly after my late-night check-in, when I tried to brush my teeth and only a trickle of water came out of the sink. Too exhausted to deal with plumbing issues, I brushed my teeth in the shower and climbed into the lumpy bed. At 2 a.m., I was awakened by a noise so loud it sounded as if an 18-wheeler had driven into my room and was idling next to the bed. I called the front desk; over the crackling phone line, the clerk said the noise was caused by the air-conditioning system in the basement but would soon stop. He also told me that many of my unfortunate predecessors in room 140 had reported the same problem. What he didn’t tell me was that the noise would start again and continue the whole stop-start routine throughout the night. The clerk offered me another room, which would have entailed my walking across the dark parking lot in my jammies to get the new room key. I declined but in the morning reported the noise to the manager, along with the lack of water in the sink. He told me the motel was trying to fix the problems and offered me a $25 discount on a room that normally costs $88 — pretty paltry considering I was unable to do two of the main things you rent a hotel room for: sleep and wash.
Vicky Uhland
