Washington, DC is a great vacation destination for big families. I highly recommend this great city to your family. There’s plenty to do to fill up an itinerary for a 3, 5, or more day trip!
Recently my family of six stayed at the Residence Inn Arlington Ballston. We loved our stay at the three-year-old hotel.
Location
This big family-friendly hotel is a $25 UberXL (great for families of 5 and 6) ride from Reagan National Airport and a quick 5-mile ride or $17 fare to the White House. Use this link to get $20 off your first ride with UberXL.
If you choose to ride the Metro into DC, the Ballston – MU Station or Virginia Square Metro Station are a short half mile walk from the hotel.
Two bedroom suites can accommodate families of up to eight. The suite was spacious and allowed us to spread out after a full day of touring DC. Our suite was a corner unit facing east with views of the Washington Monument in the distance.
2-Bedroom Suite
The master bedroom had a king size bed and full bathroom including tub. The second bathroom had 2 queen beds and another full bathroom which was very helpful with my 3 teen girls. The showers are nice but boast the water-saving shower heads that actually make you use twice as much water because you shower longer trying to get the shampoo out of your hair.
The main room included a sofa sleeper in the sitting area (full sized at the most, quite small – my 6’2″ boy was longer than the mattress) and a full kitchen with dishwasher, full sized stove, and refrigerator.
Indoor Pool
The indoor pool had a lifeguard on duty. It would have been nice to have a hot tub to soothe super sore muscles from walking 5-7 miles each day.
Full kitchen
I had planned on using the grocery delivery service to buy supplies to make at least one meal in the kitchen. However, I discovered that there weren’t any baking pans for the oven. If I wanted to use the oven, I would need to buy aluminum trays with my grocery order.
Needless to say, that was all that was needed to squash my motivation to cook a “homemade” meal. We ordered pizza from Brick’s Pizza, picked up sandwiches from the Jimmy Johns located next door, and placed an order for Chinese from Sichuan Wok.
Free Breakfast
Breakfast was fantastic. So much to choose from: Bagels, toast, cereal, 3 hot proteins – chicken sausage, Canadian bacon, and scrambled eggs, hard boiled eggs, yogurt, cheeses, oatmeal, and a waffle maker. Along with 4 juice choices and of course coffee. A breakfast this big would have cost my family $80 or more at a restaurant.
An evening reception called The Residence Inn Mix is available 3 nights a week in the lobby. However, it was not offered the week we were there since it was Thanksgiving.
We were very pleased with our visit at Residence Inn Arlington Ballston and would recommend it to other big families.
Check out our 3-day itinerary for visiting DC.
