Priceline Hotel: 3.5* Chicago (NMA-River North) Ambassador East

[SaturnMom]

Hi AaronJB,

I have a few questions for you.

We are planning to visit Chicago from Aug 7-14, and would like to stay at Hyatt Regency Chicago or any 4* hotel around that area. We ARE NOT attending the Lollapalooza, but it is from Aug 6-8. The Hyatt is sold out during the concert and the rate is really high for the Grant Park, Loop and MMA area hotel. Our budget is $80 (incl. taxes and fees) per night for downtown hotel.

We are driving so we can stay at hotel further away, what will you recommend? We stayed at the Hilton Suite at Oak Brook before and loved it, but the drive is little bit too much. Although mapquest said it would take 25 minutes, the actual time was more than 45 minutes depending on the traffic.

I

[AaronJB]

Good afternoon! :)

Which direction are you driving in from? Personally, I tend to recommend the burbs just to the North of the city, which offer some very cool sights of their own (Ravinia Music Festival, Chicago Botanic Garden, historic Long Grove and a few others), as well as nice restaurant and transit options. The SE burbs are also recommended (and have some very nice hotel options, too) if you are coming in from that direction, although the train trip in may be a tad longer (depending on where you stay.)

Most of the North burbs are about a 35 minute Metra ride downtown - you could drive to the Metra station and then take the train in. In general from the burbs, I'd recommend considering the Metra trains, as they are comfortable, very nice and while you would have to walk everywhere, it would mean not having to find parking downtown.

Are you looking for 2 rooms?

Thank you for using the site's HOTWIRE or PRICELINE links to start your purchases and searches.

[SaturnMom]

We are coming from southwest, either using I-88 or I-55. The metra is about $4 each way (right?), so it will add $48 to our budget everyday.

Yes, we need 2 rooms. Where are SE burbs?

[AaronJB]

My apologies, I meant SW burbs. When searching for 4 adults/2 children/2 rooms, I'm not seeing a whole lot in Oakbrook/Downers Grove, and prices there in general do seem a tad higher than normal for these dates. Interestingly, I'm seeing a 3.5* on HOTWIRE in this zone for $125 per room for these dates, which seems steep, but the Embassy Suites Oak Brook/Lombard is $107, plus coupon code 10SPRING takes another $10 off per night (although if you try to book 2 rooms at once, I believe it only takes $10 off per night from one room.)

The Doubletree North Shore in Skokie is $99 per night via Expedia (10SPRING should work), and offers free breakfast (a special) via Expedia. It is North of the city, and probably the closest suburban hotel to the city that's outside the city. That's a couple of blocks from the Expressway and across from the very nice Old Orchard Mall. This property is $99 when searching for 2 adults/2 children and $79 when searching for only 2 adults, so you should have one room at $99, one room at $79.

There are also cheaper, 3* and under options on HOTWIRE and regular rate in both the N and SW burbs.

Thank you for using the site's HOTWIRE, Expedia.com or PRICELINE links to start your purchases and searches.

[SaturnMom]

Finally won the Ambassador East Hotel for $65 (plus $10 bonus cash) per night. It is for our stay from 8/9-8/14.

I started from $50 (plus $10 bonus cash from the Entertainment Book), add $3 each time until it hit $65. There are mixed reviews for this hotel; but we only use it for a place to sleep, hopefully it is not too bad. After bidding unsuccessfully for 4* for 7 nights, I had to splite them in 2 difference stays and down graded to 3 1/2*.

Sorry I didn't use your link for this stay becasue I had to use the link from the Entertainment Book to get the $100 bonus cash. But I will use the link for our 8/7-8/9 bidding.

Ambassador East Hotel

1301 North State Parkway

Chicago, IL 60610

312-787-7200

Room Cost (avg. per room, per night): $65.00 (USD)

Number of Rooms: 2

Number of Nights: 5

Room Subtotal: $650.00 (USD)

Taxes and Fees: $130.60 (USD)

Total Room Cost: $780.60 (USD)

[yellowdog]

SaturnMom

Thank you for sharing your result with the board!

Enjoy your stay.

Thanx for using site's HOTWIRE and PRICELINE links to start future purchases :)

Yellowdog.

NOTE that you can still use the links on the board along with your entertainment rebate as follows:

1) click our link to go to PRICELINE (allow the page to fully load)

2) type the URL of the special URL supplied

3) conduct your search as usual

[AaronJB]

The Ambassador East is a very nice historic property that was previously an Omni and was recently taken over by Ian Schraeger, the famed boutique hotel operator.

A couple of blocks West is an Edwardo's Pizza, and the Lincoln Park Zoo is a reasonable walk (about 15-17 minutes) North.

Enjoy your stay.

[SaturnMom]

I used to park my car at the Millenium Park garage when I stay at the Grant Park/Loop area, but this time I have to find one up north and closer to this Ambassador East. Any suggestion? I probably not going to move the car until we leave Saturday morning. $20-$25/day range.