Ended up getting the Westin River North in a ridiculous deal on priceline - $69 for 3/11 - the lowest I've ever read about it going for. Was thrilled with the deal, but wanted to ensure a river-view room, and was willing to pay $40. Called Thursday night when I got the room and was told, because of priceline, they could only see about something like that when I checked in. Friday morning, I thought I'd try again. I didn't have any real "dressy" clothes at hand, and I thought - had a feeling - they wouldn't give me a river view room if I just walked in in casual clothing and tried to reason with the hotel staff. So, I tried calling. The woman said that I could upgrade to a river suite for $50, and I'd also get a free continental breakfast. So, all-in-all, the room would cost $120 before taxes. Still good for the river view rooms, which apparently command a premium of about $50-60 over the regular rooms (I was getting an approximately $230 room for approx. $120). She blocked off the room over the telephone and I was all set. Get there and the front desk staff was okay - not cold, by any means, but that sort of impersonally friendly - "trained" friendly. Anyways, the hotel used to be a Japanese hotel - the Hotel Nikko - and the lobby is heavily Japanese-styled, complete with a lowered restaurant area/sushi bar. The elevators have carved designs in the back of them. There was a very nice gift shop also off to the side. We get up to the 17th floor (20 floors in all - I believe 18,19,20 are business suites/rooms) and walk into the room and there's just a stunning view of the river. The room doesn't seem like a "suite", really, but it does certainly seem like a large/oversized room. There's a fairly lengthy hallway in the room, and off to the side in the hall is a mid-sized bathroom. You walk out into the room and to one side is a large desk area and the TV, and to the other side is the Westin "Heavenly Bed". The front of the room, facing the river, was sort of like half of a half circle - there was a nice sitting area and big windows looking out over the river. The nice thing about my room and the room next to it was that it's out a little bit, so you are literally looking down on nothing but river. There's a small walkway in-between the hotel and the river, but if you jumped from the window from my room, you'd hit water. At night, the view up along the river was pretty amazing. We had a big view up West along the river, but also had a pretty nice view East, although not a complete view East like we had looking West. The room next door appeared to have the opposite - big view East, good but not complete view West. We could see the lake through some buildings. The Westin Heavenly Bed was definitely really nice - my finance didn't want to get out of bed - she jokingly wondered if they'd notice if we lugged a bed out the front door. They do sell the mattress in a catalog in the room, however - I think it was something like $1000. Shower had the Westin Heavenly Shower - 2 shower heads. The room was nice and the view was GREAT, but the room didn't have much "personality". It's obviously a business hotel and not too funky in the rooms, where the Japanese flavor isn't carried over, unfortunately. The bathroom, with black marble tile, had more snap. The TV was also pretty underwelming - it appeared to be an older model 20 inch Philips that appeared to have been there for a while (the Courtyard Marriott we recently stayed in had a 27-inch flatscreen). Room was clean, though, and not worn in any way. Peeked into some of the other rooms on the floor when the maids were working, and they did not seem quite as big as our room. The hallways were clean and well-lit, and the ice machine was down the way. We went down to the restaurant in the morning to see what the deal was with the continental breakfast. Surprisingly, there weren't too many people there, and the breakfast was set out. it consisted of some pastries/breads/muffins, fruit, cereal and oatmeal. I ended up just having a muffin and a little pastry - fiance had some fruit and said it was fresh and quite good. It was free and the quality was good, but the selection was a bit underwhelming - some eggs would have been nice. We got much more at the Residence Inn in downtown Chicago by Water Tower place, which had a really nice spread laid out for breakfast, including big muffins, bagels, drinks, eggs, meat, cereal and even waffle makers. They didn't give us the breakfast coupon at checkin, so I had to go back down the prior afternoon. The restaurant was quite nice, and peaceful - you can look out at the rock garden (again, appears to be another element carried over from the days where it was the Hotel Nikko) They slipped the bill under the door in the morning and it had the "upgrade" that I did charged twice, only on the bill it was $40, not $50. Since I was up at 5am, I took it downstairs and got it taken care of - so the upgrade was $45 (incl. tax). No big deal, apparently they billed at the time of the upgrade and then someone doing daily billing did it again. Easy to take care of, but reinforces my motto when staying in hotels - always watch your credit card billing. ALWAYS. Room service was available, but we decided not to this time. There wasn't anything either of us were interested in - the menu a little bit on the limited side and definitely pricey, with a sandwhich that sounded decent running $13 - there were also some pricier items like Filet Mignon, which was $29. 19% $2.50 was also added to room service orders. If you walk down the street (Dearborn) there's a Sbarro's pizza, which is terrific - we ate there instead, and there's a White Hen Pantry across the street of Sbarros for snacks/drinks - definitely needed, given that room service soda was something like $3. The fitness room seemed more than adequately stocked, but I'd read that it cost $10 and really didn't have enough interest in working out to do that; seemed like too much to use the room, anyways. There are only 4 rooms per floor on the river side of the building. Given that there are a couple of floors with other things besides rooms, I would estimate that there are maybe 60 river rooms in the place. Out of the river rooms, there appear to be two smaller corner rooms on the sides, then the bigger rooms in the middle of the four. The river rooms, if the floors I were on are any indication, end in 24,25,26,27. 25 is the middle room looking West, 26 is the middle room looking East. So, overall, it was nice. The room offered a fantastic view - other hotels offer a river view, but there aren't any like that, where you feel like you're literally over the river - the other hotels have a street in-between the hotel and river. The staff/service was okay - not bad, but not fantastic, either. It was the same way at the Intercontinental in Chicago, while the *** Courtyard Marriott seemed eager to please. Overall, a very nice hotel, but the fact that I had a river room really was the big part of what made it an enjoyable experience. That, and the Westin Shower/Bed also certainly helped.
