Kathy, I called the hotel for you (301-773-0700) since it's a local call for me. They say they are 1.7 miles from the New Carrolton Metro station, and run a free shuttle every half hour. He should just inform the desk when he wants to go. They do not run a shuttle to BWI (which is 30 miles away) but they say people most often use SuperShuttle for that trip (800-258-3826.)

The hotel is right off the Capital Beltway (I95/495) in a business park and I'm sure he'll be OK there. That being said, I would join with others in recommending against walking to Metro or indulging in his running habit in the nearby area.

Largo is next to Landover, if you can find that town on your map, and the hotel is close to Fedex Field, the Washington Redskins stadium. I've heard it to be popular with people coming long distances to games or other events there.

The rate I was quoted was $99, so it looks like he is getting a good savings on Priceline, although I had noted on BiddingforTravel that people had been getting this hotel in the low $40's. Perhaps tourist season has made a difference.

Since he is starting at the New Carrolton station, he will have one train service on the Orange Line to the following stations (Smithsonian museums to which this station is the closest Metro stop in parentheses): L'Enfant Plaza (Air and Space); Smithsonian (Smithsonian Castle and several others, most central stop); Federal Triangle (American History.) He would need to transfer at L'Enfant Plaza to the Green Line for Archives/Navy Memorial station (National Gallery of Art, National Archives) but if he is a walker, he will probably prefer to just walk between all the museums he wants to see after he gets off Metro.

Kathy - if he has to get to the Doubletree from BWI, on a weekday I would take a MARC train http://www.mtamaryland.com/schedules...c_schedule.cfm (look for PENN line schedules) which will stop at New Carrolton. The MARC/Amtrak is next to the Metro station, a safe walk - and he can use the (free) hotel shuttle from there. If during the weekend, or too late for a MARC, a discounted Amtrak from BWI or Baltimore/Penn may cost close to Supershuttle (many Amtrak stop at New Carrolton too).

"johncharles" -- nice of you to check with the hotel for "KathyM"

Thanks to all -- especially johncharles (who always comes through...) I'll report back to let everyone know how it comes out! Thanks again!

It's interesting that they have a shuttle to New C. since that's NOT the closest metro station to Beltsville. However, at that station you can also pick up Amtrak and MARC trains. The Penn line of the MARC train runs through New C and on to BWI Airport before ending up to Baltimore. Web site is mtamaryland.com I think. They may only run during week days - not sure. (I take the Camden line, not the Penn.)

Beltsville is not glamorous, and not close to Metro, but not a BAD or UNSAFE place. (I live 10 minutes away.)

oh sorry - didn't see the post about the MARC train before I posted! Just ignore my post...

Roothy123, the Doubletree Club Largo is near Landover and not Beltsville. KathyM just mentioned Beltsville in terms of the bidding area the hotel was in on Priceline, an area which extends all the way to Hyattsville, I think. If the hotel was in Beltsville or Greenbelt (and Roothy, I love Old Greenbelt, the Old Greenbelt Theater and the FDR Plaza,) I don't think KathyM's husband would be getting the same cautions about running or walking around alone as he is getting from me and others about doing so in the Landover/Largo area. I wouldn't hesitate to stay at the hotel he's going to, and I am sure many fine folks live in those cities, but I've been robbed in Landover myself, and I'm afraid the Prince Georges County police response was that it was no more than I should have expected.

My report back on the Doubletree Club Largo -- hope it can help the next traveler! The room was clean; there was adequate room. No regrigerator, but there was a coffeemaker with a nice selection of coffee & tea. Cable TV selection was rather limited. There is a small indoor pool, but being serviced at the time my husband was there. Limited exercise room. Parking appeared adequate (although he was not driving.) The staff was very helpful and cooperative. Although the shuttle service to the metro station is supposed to be every half hour, whenever my husband returned from DC he was able to call the hotel and they would send someone to pick him up immediately. (Time to the Smithsonian Station -- about 6-8 minutes on the shuttle to the metro station & then about 23-24 minutes to the Smithsonian stop.) The hotel staff offered to shuttle him down the road to restaurants in the evening, but he was tired, on his own, and enjoyed the Au Bon Pain bar which was on premises. Didn't spend a lot of time walking outdoors at night, but the area seemed clean & safe.

Thanks for the update. That sounds like an exceptional shuttle service.

KathyM, thanks for reporting on your husband's experience. Finding out how things turned out, when your advice may have influenced a travel decision, or maybe just as much when it was ignored, is an important payoff for the time and care we spend here, and many people tend to forget to do it.

I talked just this weekend to a friend who works in Landover, and she told me that Largo is definitely on its way up, with communities of fine homes and many quality chains building restaurants and stores in the Largo Town Center, taking shape on the site of the demolished arena where the Washington Bullets (now Wizards) used to play. So perhaps Largo has not been given its due above, even by me.

You can comment on the below or not as you wish, KathyM. I'm a European American, and you and your husband may one or both be described by that phrase, or African American, or something else. But I do know there's an excellent chance that the staff members who were so helpful to your husband were predominantly African American, since the hotel is in an African American majority area of the nation's largest African American majority county, Prince Georges.

Very often in Fodor's--and perhaps above, and maybe in my own comments too--I see the assumption, often expressed in euphemisms, that any accommodation in a African-American majority part of a U.S. metropolitan area should be avoided by those not so described. Your husband's experience should be a reminder to us all that one should check out the reputation earned by a specific establishment rather than making such generalizations. Reviews such as those here at Fodors' and at TripAdvisor and Chowhound may help more people selectively choose good times to cross over invisible lines to try new choices in what might used to be dismissed as "unfriendly territory."

I'd have to 2nd the Holiday Inn Rosslyn. I stayed there back in the early 1990s and had a great stay there and the walk to the Blue Line Metro (which has the Smithsonian stop) was like 5 minutes duration and you get into D.C. in no more than 15 minutes. I remember being also ample enough eating establishments in that area so you can stay near your hotel.

johncharles, my husband & I are very white, blue-eyed overwhelmingly Irish-American, but he did mention the staff at the hotel, as well as the clientele at the Au Bon Pain were predominately African-American. Which was fine... really, can't we all just get along!?!?! He mentioned this just in passing, as I was grilling him as to his experience, so I could report back to Fodors!

"Why can't we all just get along...." Amen, KathyM.

I remember one poster here warning another not even to consider making a reservation at ANY hotel in a particular California city of substantial (more than 50,000) population which happens not to be European-American majority. Her euphemism to of convey this was to say "{Name of city} has problems which you may not want to deal with on vacation."

Well, all cities do. And pretty much all of them have well-managed places which are fine to stay or eat at. Why, in this city, should one cease to apply selectivity to establishments based on their own merits, as one would in other cities where some shabbiness, sleaziness and crime are known to exist?

I don't want to give the impression that I'm looking down on other Fodor's posters from on high about this subject. I had commented rather broadly in this thread on not running or walking in the area of the hotel, unfavorably compared Largo and Landover with white-majority Beltsville and Greenbelt, as well as recounting my experience as a crime victim in Landover and the dismissive police response. After talking to my friend and hearing your husband's account, KathyM, I felt guilty about having done so. I will think more carefully about making such comments in the future.

Johncharles

I think you're being a bit harsh on yourself. First of all as a fodorite you try to give answers that will benefit the reader when he/she visits Washington or suburbs. You are NEVER doing anyone a service by not forewarning them of the possibility of harm. I believe that each person requesting info is asking that whether or not it's written in text.

If I was going to any other large city, I'd want to know that the location that I was looking at was safe.

I myself would prefer that you would advise people as you would advise someone in your own family and continue to give really good DC advice as you have in the past.

I looking to get to Harrington DE from BWI airport. Taxi's are not cheap there. Does anybody have any other ideas?

"Twin Cities", you might want to post this in a new thread (and probably will if you can't find this later - the above is his/her only post to date)

Not knowing just where Harrington DE is, my guess is that you could take an Amtrak from BWI to Wilmington DE and take a taxi from there for less than a taxi directly from BWI.

Topped for a poster asking about the safety of staying at a motel in Largo, Md., since that topic is discussed in detail in the second half of this thread.