The Rouge is one of those oh-so-hip-and-ironic-it-hurts hotels. The furnishings are straight out of Mad Men, but the staff are straight out of Fawlty Towers. The Rouge seem to have forgotten that it is the service that makes a hotel what it is. The woman who checked us in made us feel as though she was doing us a favour and that we were two tramps off the street. When we asked upon checking in to change the room from one looking onto the car park, she practically snarled at us.

Every room service order was wrong. At one point, my husband looked up from the delivered tray and sighed, "How can you f*** up an order of two coffees?" They also tried to charge $4 for milk to go with the coffee. Trays weren't cleared from breakfast until about 10pm and the bed was made with croissant crumbs still on it. On top of this,

I really wanted to like this hotel. I wanted to have a wonderful time and write a wonderful review. There was a guy called Chase who worked on the front desk, who did try his best to help, but he was swimming against the tide.

Funky rooms do not make a great hotel. They just make a hotel with funky rooms.

The front desk was amazing. I was having trouble printing and they were so helpful and sweet. They were always ready to give directions, smile and help. The room was very large but I do have to say...red gets old.

Decent hotel in a fairly decent seemingly "out of the way" location -- a six block or so walk to the edges of Dupont Circle.

When you order ahead for a "feather free" room, which I did for my wife (and they confirmed it was non-feather when we arrive), you have a 50-50 chance that the pillows are indeed down feathers. As it was this cause. This can cause quite an inconvenience when you arrive later in the evening, and the housekeeping staff has gone, so the manager has to rifle around and figure out what a nonfeather pillow is.

Otherwise, great staff with a free wine hour. Continental breakfast (which we got comped because of the feather crisis) was rather ugh.

All in all, a good place to stay, though. Nice "rouge" read room with an overgrown mirror laying on the floor as decoration.

very nicely renovated pre-war hotel, with large spacious rooms and beautifully decorated in nice kimpton style; minibar well-stocked (and $10 voucher a nice perk) and lots of outlets for charging gadgets. one big thing missing is coffe/tea kettle in rooms; served in lobby in morning, but would be so much handier to make your own any time you want. a bit of a walk from nearest train.