My family just returned from a quick weekend trip; and we stayed at the Paradise Pier hotel. We got a $120 rate on Travelocity; I booked at last Thursday for arrival the next day 8/24. We had a room on the "parking lot" side of the hotel and there was a view of the pool & spa; it looked small to me. I'm almost certain the GC has a better pool!! However, we never heard any park noise. We were 2 doors down from the elevator, and there was a window with a view of DCA in the hall there.
We asked for a dbl but got a king-bedded rm with a sofa bed; this was OK as our 7-yr old slept on the sofa bed and they provided a pack-n-play for our 18-mo old. I did hear a front desk clerk tell someone checking in that the hotel was sold out, so I'm sure that's why we didn't get the dbl room. The room was big and it had a refregerator, and the closet was big enough to park the stroller in.
If you walk out the back of the hotel, you are a 3 min walk from the monorail station.
If you walk out the front of the hotel, you are a 3 min walk from the "Paradise Walk" - an entrance into DCA just for PP hotel guests. There's a gate you use your hotel room key to open, and you walk down a path and there's a park entrance just for you. You are by the Mulholland Madness ride when you get into the park.
The hotel has 2 gift shops + a pin trading cart, a coffee bar that doubles as the lobby bar, and 3 restaurants (I think). We only did room service & the food was fine.
Beware the 5.75 resort fee - the front desk clerk who checked us in didn't tell us a thing about it, and when we got our statement the day we checked out I called the front desk & they took it off. It's supposed to cover the cost of your coffee, newspaper, use of the pool & spa & fitness center and self parking, but we paid $12/day for valet!! And I'm sure my husband would have used their fitness center, if we had known we were paying for it.
Hope this helps!!
