Took advantage of a slow holiday weekend to visit the Skydeck of the Sears tower. Barely any wait, making it for a fun experience. If going during normal hours I would recommend getting tickets ahead of time and maybe even considering the fast pass (lines could get crazy long and personally don’t think that this is worth a 2 hour wait which it could be on a busy day.) Expensive if you go with a larger group (gen admin cost us $70 for two adults and a kid)

The Sears/Willis Tower Skydeck offers amazing views of the city. The best part of the experience is my opinion is the Ledge which is a clear box protruding from the side of the building. It's a great place to take pictures if you're not afraid of heights. If it is crowded I would recommend buying the Expedited Entry which allows you to skip the line to the observation deck and the line for the Ledge.

Went here on probably one of the busiest days of the year (sunny Saturday before the 4th of July) and had a great experience due to the expedited line. The city pass includes the expedited line, which means almost no waiting for the elevator to the top and limited waiting for the ledge. Without city pass or buying the expedited ticket (which starts at $55), you will face waits boarding the elevator to the top and an even longer wait for the ledge on peak days and times. The ledge is five glass boxes that extend outside the observation area. You get 60 seconds if you have a party of two or two minutes with a larger size party. There are timers in each ledge and an attendant that keeps track of the time in each ledge. The ledge is included in admission. The entire experience took less than an hour due to expedited entry. Sky deck entrance is on the Jackson St side of the building and you actually go down two floors from the lobby to reach the entry. If you have city pass, you don’t need to stop at the ticket booth and can proceed to the expedited line entrance. This is a very well run experience and credit to the employees to making it run smoothly.

I am extremely disappointed with a recent visit to Skydeck Chicago. We arrived to a waiting room not long after opening and found the queue lines were already full. The waiting room had to be 80 Deg. F. due to so many people with heavy winter coats packed into the area, all waiting to go through security. We waited in line for 2 hours, making it half-way to the security check. At that point, if we waited another 2 hours before reaching the security check plus waiting time to get to the ledge, we would have wasted half the day. So we decided to leave and return later, hoping for a shorter line. We returned later the same day and this time were rudely stopped by someone stating, "you are aware there is a 2.5 hour wait." The room where we waited earlier was completely empty, so we didn't understand why there is still a 2.5 hour wait. We tried to ask the unfriendly person at the door and they said "that's not the line" with no other explanation or assistance. So we left again, having wasted two attempted trips to the Skydeck. Our out of town guests weren't able to experience the views and money was wasted due to the ridiculous long lines and Skydeck nonrefundable ticket policy. Attempts to contact Skydeck by email were met with the same unfriendly canned response that tickets are not refundable and you can use them for 15 days. Overall this was a terrible experience. Skydeck should change their policy on refunds. In my opinion, Skydeck is not customer oriented.

We went to the Willis Tower as part of our long weekend in Chicago and there didn't seem to be many people waiting to go up. However, when we checked, there was a 60-90 minute wait on the lower floor and we were told there was nowhere to sit in the waiting line. Why not move the food court to the waiting area, or give out numbers to watch for?! We grabbed a great gluten free donut at Do-Rites and headed out.

What better way to orientate yourself in a new city than from the 103rd floor of one of the tallest buildings in the world. We'd read about long queues for the elevators, so set our alarm early and arrived about ten minutes before the doors opened, which meant there were only a small handful of people in front of us and ensured we had unobstructed views once we made it to the Sky Deck. The viewing area is very good, with dramatic views over the city's other skyscrapers and out to Lake Michigan. The highlight was definitely The Ledge - a glass bottomed, enclosed balcony which I assumed would be a bit of a novelty but was in fact a real thrill. The staff ensure everyone has a fair amount of time on The Ledge, but I imagine queues can build up pretty quickly. They were also happy to take photos so you can prove how brave you were to all your friends! A great start to our time in Chicago, I'd recommend this to all first time visitors to the city.

Worth the money even if you are leery of heights. But don't do the slanted over view of the city if you fear them. You can still enjoy magnificent vistas, and if you're brave, pay the extra fee to enter the skyview booth which slants you over the city so you can look straight down. Weird and wonderful

They should disclose when purchasing tickets that they only allow you 120 seconds in the ledge. For a group of 3 that was not enough time at all! We rushed to take pics which didn’t come out good bcuz we were rushing. We didn’t have a sec to even look and enjoy the view from the ledge before their timer went off! If there wasn’t such a short time limit it on the ledge it would have been amazing!

Expensive, very tatty (no evidence of money spent since 90s at actual viewing level), unnecessarily authoritarian staff who are a combination of rude or half-assed with nothing in between as they boss you around the place. Feels very poor compared to almost every similar experience in the world’s largest cities. I’d not recommend it, and would actually have given it a miss if I’d read some of the poorer reviews on here first.

Visited the last Tuesday of April 2022. We arrived at the 9am opening, so there was no crowd to get in. We used CityPass for admission, which saved on the admission price, but by using CityPass, you also have to secure a separate admission pass (at no extra cost) for the Skydeck which required visitors to select a time of day for your visit. We quickly got in the elevator to the top which offered spectacular views of the city facing in all directions. We also stepped into the glass to get great views below the glass deck. After taking photos, we went to the first floor where they have a mini museum illustrating the history of the building and displays showing interesting facts about Chicago. It was well worth the visit and it didn't take that long - our entire visit lasted an hour. It was cloudy for us, but we still had good views. They did allow backpacks to carry water, snacks, umbrella, etc., but they check them for safety. Obviously, it's best to go on a clear day to get the best views.