Next time in Chicago we will probably stay someplace else.
We stayed the long Thanksgiving weekend and enjoyed the holiday brunch buffet and our day at the spa, but were annoyed at some little things that detracted from a positive weekend.
The first annoyance was that it seemed the main restaurant was never open. We arrived on a Wednesday evening and it was closed and it was closed again for dinner on Friday and Saturday. There is a pub in the hotel that has a limited menu but frankly is a bit pricey. We ended up eating in the pub twice and the food was above average, but it was nearly twice the cost of eating someplace off of the hotel property.
Secondly it seemed that an 18% gratuity was added to just about everything. I start to steam when this is done and believe that when dining in the pub for instance, the staff, knowing their tip was built in, had no incentive to provide good service.
The final straw was the $13/day charge to access the internet. I guess when the bargan hotels are offering internet access at no charge, I have a big problem when a "resort" cannot do the same.
Between the automatic gratuity and the charge for internet, I felt like I was being nickled and dimed.
Our experience at the spa was very nice. The automatic gratuity there was expected as that seems a normal practice for spa services. We made reservations in advance and were glad that we did as they were booked solid the day that we were there.
The pool, hottub, game room, fitness room etc are all located in the same building as the spa which is some 150 meters across the parking lot from the hotel. In the winter months this means having to bundle up and then to deal with coat, boots, etc. while there, not to mention the cold return to the hotel.
The fitness room did contain a fair amount of equipment and though we did not use it it looked better than the average hotel fitness area.
