Last weekend, I traveled to Washington DC to speak at the Family Travel for Real Life conference. While there I stayed at the Holiday Inn Washington Dulles Intl Airport, so I thought I’d give a brief review
- Family travel conference this week (introduction)
- Dan from Points With a Crew: Panning for Gold in Category 1: Hotel Tips, Tricks, and Steals
- Trevor from Tagging Miles and Kenny from Miles4More on Creative Ways to Earn Miles and Points
- Jeff the Wanderer on getting the most out of your miles
- Haley Bach on Disney Debunked: Making Friends with the Mouse
- Rich Kerr on Asian Destinations with Families
- What you missed by not attending #FT4RL this weekend
Holiday Inn Washington Dulles Intl Airport location
The Holiday Inn Washington Dulles Intl Airport is right off the Sterling Boulevard exit of Virginia 28, just north of Dulles Airport. The Holiday Inn Washington Dulles Intl Airport hotel does have a free airport shuttle, though I didn’t use it myself (after my conference, I flew out of DCA).
Holiday Inn Washington Dulles Intl Airport front desk and room
I arrived after a long day of driving starting off with my horrible experience at Dollar Rent-a-Car DCA and finishing up with a drive through Eastern Virginia and Southern Maryland.
Originally, I was planning on meeting up with some of the FT4RL crew near Tysons Corner, but since things took a bit longer than I intended and the night was getting a bit later, I decided to just stay near Dulles and make my way to the Holiday Inn Washington Dulles Intl Airport.
I checked in with no problem, and the agent at the front desk recognized me as a Platinum member (who isn’t?). I tried a little bit of DYKWIA and asked if there “were breakfast vouchers available for Platinum guests” and he did score me a voucher, which was appreciated.
I was given a room on the ground floor right next to the lobby, which was a bit disappointing, since it was super loud both from the parking lot as well as the elevator / lobby. The hotel did seem fairly busy as there were 2 legions of “Honor Flights” as well as a author’s convention there at the hotel.
The room was nice, much nicer than the very very blurry picture I took 🙁
Man that is BLURRY!
Holiday Inn Washington Dulles Intl Airport amenities
The Holiday Inn Washington Dulles Intl Airport has pretty nice amenities as far as the pool and exercise room go
It has a full-size pool (though the door I was trying to go through was locked, which is why I had to take it through the window). Also the exercise room had several different kinds of weight machines in addition to treadmills, bikes, and other cardio machines.
Holiday Inn Washington Dulles Intl Airport breakfast
The breakfast at the Holiday Inn Washington Dulles Intl Airport was nice, though as I mentioned it is not included in the regular rate (I believe it was ~$12 for the buffet). I did manage to get a voucher as an IHG Platinum member but it was not offered to me up-front (I had to ask at check-in).
The breakfast was good (the regular source of cold and hot fare, though the hot food was definitely a step up from the types of hot breakfasts that you might find at a Country Inn and Suites or a Holiday Inn Express. Still, while it was worth “free”, I wouldn’t have paid for it.
When I checked out, the associate at the front desk did NOT ask me how my stay was (I would have told him that I did not like my room assignment)
link to ihg accelerate not showing up
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
Kudos to you for scoring that comp breakfast — that is a hard thing to do.
Congrats on scoring that breakfast upgrade at the HI Dulles. I’ve stayed their several times, and not once had that offered. (think I asked too)
About that pool, it by far is the biggest indoor pool I’ve ever encountered at ANY hotel…. (and they have a lifeguard in it when its open — bizarre) Surreal too when doing a backstroke to look up through the sky windows and see an Air France 747 almost land on top of you…. 🙂
By contrast, if you’re ever in the area again, the Crowne Plaza at Dulles is by far my favorite. Their pool isn’t “quite” as big, but for IHG platinum members, they’ve always upgraded us to executive level floor (which includes lounge access/breakfast — and on weekends, the regular buffet is comped instead)
My secret fav. Dulles area IHG property though is the one in Manassas (at Battlefield) — includes buffet and prob. because I like the rooms with the whirlpools. (too far though to have an aiport shuttle)
I DID notice your routing…. through Virginia countryside on your county trek. (I’m in Albemarle) Hope you were spared that decades old nasty fund-raising scheme that operates just north of Culpeper and on up to Gainesville, with the most unbelievable center-lane speed-traps that have nailed soooo many friends. (some go to their graves muttering about it) tis how it’s done he’uh in vuhginyah….. fleece the hapless travelers of their “tourism” dollars. (and that’s before we rail about the proliferation of traffic lights on the once pleasant “seminole” trail)
Yes thankfully no speeding tickets, though a cop did tail me for an inordinately long period of time a bit east of there. Eventually I slowed down enough that he just passed me
Thanks for the tips. The pool at the Holiday Inn Chicago Countryside was pretty big too (at least comparable to this one if not the same size)
Hey, I’ve stayed there! The pool is really great for kids. They have a closet with pool noodles, a few toys, and floaties. Not your ordinary HI pool, but they also have certain hours for water aerobics classes (community) and hours for lap swims. Our room wasn’t great during our stay either, but it was just a quick stopover before a flight.