I was one of approximately 50 guests who gathered as a family July 11-13, 2008. The hotel is conveniently located and the rooms are acceptable, tho not great. Improvement needed with regard to overall cleanliness and hotel maintenance.

The hotel offers a limited complimentary breakfast. However, on Saturday morning, there was an unexplained wait of over an hour for breakfast to be served. There was no coffee or juice available. Several of us were never served. The manager entered the breakfast area after my patient wait of over an hour. He was unapologetic, extremely rude and entered the area waving his arms to us to exit the room. He stated that since the breakfast was complimentary, it did not have to be available, Guest arrival time in the area did not matter, he said. Furthermore, we were informed by the manager that we must leave the area because breakfast time was over. Never have I seen a manager behave in such a manner. The next day service was carried out very well under the leadership of the same manager. Truly unbelievable.

We were visiting the area with a group of teenage softball players competeing in a National tournament. Understand that there were 280 teams in the Northern Indiana are for this tournament. The hotel was average at best on cleanliness. It appears to be run down and continuing on that path. We booked 11 rooms with our group. Airconditioning was average in most of the rooms with several of them not working at all. Breakfast was OK , though we found chicken nuggets to be an unusual choice for a breakfast. We stayed for 4 nights and never saw the omlet station. Be aware that the hotel has unreasonable rules for the common areas of the hotel. No one can be in the common areas after 9:30pm. Imagine the dissappointment of the 5 softball teams that stayed at this hotel when we were not allowed to sit around the huge common areas after returning from our games. Just a little extreme in the opinion of this team coordinotor. The heated pool that is advertised on the hotel website was at a very very chilly temperature. We were told that the health department controls the heater, but after numerous complaints it was finally warmer on Wednesday. Opinion...a hotel that is being used by 50+ families that have teenage girls and their siblings, and your heated pool is EMPTY the entire time...there is a problem. Our team would not stay at this property again unless there were many changes made. And we have contacted the travel company that helped the softball tournament book these rooms.

My boyfriend and I stayed at this hotel on a whim. We were in the area and didn't feel like driving back home after visiting friends and drinking. I'm a bit of a hotel snob (lol) so of course I was worried. To my surprise the room space was very adequate for two people and clean. I would like to add that the bathroom was clean and the shower had good water pressure. My boyfriend who is not as picky as I am said several times, "This is a nice hotel." They also have a nice lobby and pool. For anyone living in the area that has family visitors, I recommend this hotel.

There are many places to eat in the area given that there are quite a few small malls in the area. Just a very short drive up the street to those stores and restaurants. One could walk but this is a suburb with limited sidewalks.

Okay; the bad news first: this is no longer a Ramada Inn Hotel. We found this out after pulling up to the front of the hotel (after searching for the familiar Ramada Inn sign) and noticing that it now said "Homewood Hotel", although this was the address given for the Ramada Inn at 17400 S. Halsted on the TripAdvisor website. We were obviously concerned that perhaps the
quality was not going to be up to Ramada Inn standards, so we asked to check out the room first. To be honest, the quality was NOT up to the Ramada Inns I have stayed at in the past, BUT it was still up to snuff enough for us to stay there for a couple of nights despite some obvious problems. The price was $105 a night for a King sized, no smoking room. Now this was with an American Airlines discount, since my wife is an employee of that airline. The air conditioning was good, mattress nice and firm which we like. The rooms were a bit worn, but clean. The hallways were not air conditioned, I expect because the hotel itself is so huge that it would cost an exorbitant amount to keep them cooled. They had both an indoor and an outdoor pool (we didn't have time to swim), and a hot breakfast consisting of eggs, sausage, and pancakes, with juice, cereal, and coffee that came with the price of the room. It was not an "all you could eat" deal, but the food, while not great, was okay. The desk clerk, who at first appeared a little cold, soon warmed up and ended up being very helpful and courteous. This is an area in which there are black people moving in while the more racist element of the white people continue on their "White Flight." This, of course, kind of makes for a natural "coolness" until you check out how each other is going to act. It was obvious among some of the other employees and some of the guests as well, but being a Chicago native and having witnessed the racial issues of this city first hand while growing up, in my opinion, this is one of the unfortunate, but constantly present features of this town, at least on the South as well as the far South sides. As it turned out, all went well. We had a perfectly good stay. I do have some doubts as to whether the hotel can keep from declining further in quality as time goes by, as there were signs that business wasn't booming, and the number of employees required to staff such a large place is lacking, but I would stay there again, once again, after inspecting the rooms beforehand.