Stay at the Watergate Hotel

4. and 34. Visit the Watergate

What better time to complete a shared goal than our anniversary? It’s not a cheap date, but we pulled together some extra earnings and gift cards and reserved a room at the historic hotel, which was at one time the hottest spot in Washington (with an office building in the Watergate complex that would eventually be involved in one of our nation’s biggest political scandals).

We wanted to stay at the Watergate in 2008 because of its reputation, naturally, and convenience to the location of our wedding party at the Kennedy Center, but at that time, the hotel had just closed for renovations. Nine years and $125 million in improvements later, it’s back!

We assessed our room’s features, like the robes (the most comfortable robes in the world), multiple shower heads, and large tub, toasted our arrival, ate a few strawberries, then headed to the indoor heated pool, sauna, and hot tub where we relaxed for about an hour.

Afterward, we went back to our room and got dressed for the night. And by night, we mean for the hour we were in the gorgeous whiskey bar. Everything is very expensive, so to cut costs, we only ordered one drink. We also didn’t eat at the bar or the restaurant on site. Instead, we ordered food to be delivered through Grubhub to take back to our room.

One of the great parts of the renovation is though everything is modern, they paid homage to the ’60s and ’70s. Plus, they don’t shy away from the Watergate scandal, but embrace it in cheeky ways. For example, when you’re placed on hold on the phone, one of Nixon’s speeches plays.

We had some time to kill before our food arrived, so we explored a bit.

We had intended to go up to the rooftop bar, but it was closed for the night due to bad weather. That was a bummer, but at least we got to see this view from our deck as we were scarfing down our burgers.

We had a wonderful time. It was one of the nicest hotels we’ve stayed in because of all of the apparent extra touches.

It was worth the nine-year wait.

Kris and Lyssa