My husband and I will be making our first trip to Washington at the beginning of September for a one week stay. I have found some great rates on quickbook.com for the Henley Park and the Hotel Lombardy. I made a reservation at the Clarion Hampshire quite awhile ago. Should I stay with the Clarion Hampshire or try one of the other two? What are the neighbourhoods like regarding safety and also which is closest to the tourist sights and good restaurants. Thank you.

Cindy,
It's important to use specific words in the title of your post.
This section covers the entire United States.
Therefore, your heading/title should read something such as:

"Washington, D.C. Need Hotel & Restaurant Advice"

I just found a great rate by calling Loew's L'Enfant Plaza Hotel --have a "summer special" on a room that's regularly a lot more than I'd pay. We're going in mid-August, and I just saw another post from someone who stayed at this same hotel for the week of the 4th and highly recommended it. It's two blocks from Smithsonian, 7 blocks from White House, 8 blocks from Capitol. The Mall is really a nice place to walk, so I look forward to that, too.

Neets--you'll love Loews. We stayed there July of '99 and thought it was a great hotel. A few posters on this forum told us ahead of time that it was too far from the action (restaurants, etc.) but we didn't find that to be a problem since the Metro is right there. Our youngest was 7 at the time and we walked to the Capitol from Loew's one day with no problem at all. One other perk--the rooftop pool is supposedly one of the nicest in the city--a great place to take a little mid-afternoon break from site-seeing.

The Clarion Hampshire is in a great location. I don't know where the other two are.