Hotwire Hotel: 4.5* Chicago (Magnificent Mile North - Water Tower) Thompson Chicago

[Trading_Places]

Greetings:

 

have a 7-10 day trip planned to Chicago to attend a wedding, do some sightseeing and more.

 

Dates are:

 

- starting Jul 2 / 3

- ending Jul 10 / 12

 

Was hoping to get a 4+ start hotel (Hotwire or Priceline rating).  A bit flexible on price, but the cheaper the better.

 

Strong preference for something that is ranked in the top 10-15 out of all Chicago hotels (showing total of 168 currently) on Trip Advisor.

 

In terms of location, would like:

 

the proper Loop

Grant / Millenium parks,

North of River: Mag Mile, etc

 

Any advice or suggestions would be good.

 

I will start out by following the forum link to HOTWIRE.

[Trading_Places]

Ok, my first step was the following:

 

1.  Do a Hotwire search using the quick applet on this website using the following parameters:

 

(a) Dates: July 3 to July 12, 2014,

(b) City: Chicago, IL,

© Guests: 2.

 

2.  Then, once the search loaded, I restricted as follows:

 

(a)  Choose only the 4 areas I care about: (i) Mag Mile / River North, (ii) Mag Mile North / Water Tower, (iii) Loop / Theater District, (iv) Dwntn / Millenium / Grant.

(b) only select 4 and 5 star properties,

© sort by price.

 

At this point I got 12 hotels.

 

I briefly looked at the first two:

 

N1.  4 star, Loop / Theater District, Boutique, $92 / night.  This could be either Allegro (TripAdv rank 59 out of 168) or Monaco (rank 11 out of 168).  So that is a big difference.  FYI, these hotels are too similar to each other in amenities.

 

My money is on Allegra, especially since after I click on the link, the blue ribbon message says, "Book soon, last person got Allegro Chicago".

 

FYI, this was the entire list of amenities:

 

Pet friendly

Boutique Hotel

Fitness Center

Restaurant(s)

Business Center

Internet access

Spa Services

Accessible bathroom

Roll-in shower

(wtf is a roll-in shower?)

 

90% recommend (this is also potentially useful in ID-ing hotels)

 

Given the high chance of getting Allegro, I moved on.

 

N2.  4.5 star, Mag Mile N / Water Tower, $115 a night.

 

Instead of doing a lot of research first, I just clicked in the link, and it said, "Last Person got Thompson Chicago".  This actually fits all my criteria, so I was tempting to book.

 

Based on this research, I don't think I can do any better according to my criteria.  Also, Thompson seems to have a lot of sales, and using Expedia, one can get a pretty good deal.

 

I am going to think about this for a couple of hours.

 

If anyone has any improvements they would like to suggest, I would love to hear from you.

 

And thank you for creating such a useful website.

 

[AaronJB]

Welcome to Betterbidding. :)

 

In terms of a hotel within the top 10-15, there's really no way to guarantee - those hotels may not have discounted inventory available.

 

The "last person got" messages are not necessarily the underlying hotel, they are the last hotel that someone bought at that star rating in general. The % recommended is not a reliable indicator, as that is the % recommended from Hot.wire customers and there is no up-to-date list given to check that against. If a trip advisor rating is showing, that is not a guarantee, but that can help lean towards a particular hotel or hotels.

 

If you would like us to confirm the Thompson listing, please provide the full list of amenities and we would be happy to try a look and try to ID the listing.

 

A note is that if you are going to be staying out at night, the areas North of the river are going to have more going on. The Loop can be quiet later at night, especially the West Loop (where the Allegro is, for example.) A week in Chicago is a lot, I'd really recommend looking into the Lincoln Park neighborhood, which offers the Zoo (which is a great, free zoo) and a variety of restaurants and shops. Overall, if you are primarily sightseeing, 7-10 days is enough to really cover everything and then some.  Are you driving or flying in?

 

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

[Trading_Places]

Hi Aaron, thank you very much for your reply, useful tips on location, etc, and also offer to help.

 

I looked very carefully at the secret hotel description, and then cross-referenced with the BB Hot.wire 4.5 list.  I concluded that the said 4.5 star in Mag Mile was either Thompson or Ivy, based on "boutique" feature. 

 

I carefully looked at the amenity list, as follows:

 

v Free Internet

v Pet Friendly

v Boutique Hotel

v Smoke Free Room

v Fitness Center

v Restaurant

v Business Center

v Internet Access

 

I cross-referenced the possible amenity sets both for Ivy and Thompson found on BB search list, concluded that this must be Thompson.  First, one of the many amenity sets found on BB Hotwire list for Thompson matched it, and second, no matter how I searched on google, I could not find any evidence that Ivy has a pet friendly policy.

 

So I went ahead and jumped the gun.  I had to redo the search a couple of times from this site's little applet given the fact that HOTWIRE times out a lot.  Well, the good news is that hotel was revealed to be Thompson.

 

To summarize, rate per night was $115, and then for 10 nights, plus the hotwire fees, were: $1264.57.   Obviously, the fees were about $229.57.

 

P.S. For reference, I also tried to book a "flight plus hotel package" via several sites, as follows:

 

- 2 adult round-trip, non-stop, from EWR to CHI,

- stay at Thompson.

 

The deals were consistently at $2,300 - $2,325 (I did this on Travelocity, Expe.dia, and Hot.wire).  When I tried to price only flights, separately, they were almost exactly $800 ($400 each).  Thus, HOTWIRE secret deal was roughly $300 cheaper.

 

Thanks for your help.

[thereuare]

Congratulations on your success!

Glad to see you received a great deal on this stay and it's one of the highest ranked hotel in Chicago... just what you wanted!

Thank you for sharing your results and using the HOTWIRE links on the board to begin your purchase.

Enjoy your stay.

[AaronJB]

Excellent, excellent deal for the Thompson. This property used to be the Sutton Place Chicago, but was closed for a few months last year before re-opening in the Fall as the Thompson.

 

The Original Pancake House is across the street, but it is a smallish place so it does get crowded at times. Let me know likes/dislikes if you need any recommendations or let me know if you have any other city questions.

 

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

[Trading_Places]

Hi Aaron and Admin: thanks.  

 

With respect to Chicago, we have the following plans:

 

- pre-wedding, wedding, and post-wedding activities from Jul 3 to 6,

- the rest of the time we are free (this also applies to parts of Jul 3 to 6),

- towards the end of the trip, we would like to check out the taste of chicago (Jul 9 to 11),

 

For the most part, we want to check out the neighborhoods in the loop, north of the loop, and possibly Lincoln Park.  

We will try to do a couple of things like a museum and the zoo.

I am reasonably familiar with Chicago, having done some short trips over the years, but would love to get a local's perspective.

Would love to hear restaurant recommendations as well as unique things to do in Chicago.

 

Aaron: I saw your post in another topic (started by not recommending Navy Pier, and then recommending a few things) and that was very helpful.

 

Also, I am not sure if it was clear, but we are flying in from New York City.  We won't get a rental car, but I have zip car, so we can use that to do short trips and sightseeing when needed.  But for the most part, we were hoping to walk, take the trains / subway, or taxi when needed.

[AaronJB]

The nice thing about the location of the Thompson is that, if you felt like a longer walk (although really not that bad), you are at the very top end of the NMA area. When you walk out of the Thompson, you are on Rush, then a block or so North is the intersection of Rush and State. Walk a block or so North to State and Division. Walk slightly West on Division to Dearborn. Take Dearborn North and you'll walk 4-5 longish blocks full of very nice apartments and homes before reaching the bottom of Lincoln Park (North Avenue.) Cross the street into the park and you should see a path that will take you under LaSalle Avenue. Once you go under LaSalle, it's not that much longer to the bottom end of the Zoo (Farm in the Zoo.)

 

Once you reach the North Avenue point mentioned above, if you go West on North Avenue a few blocks, you'll get to North and Wells, which is Old Town - that's where the famed Second City theater is, as well as one of my favorite stores in the city, The Spice House (http://www.thespicehouse.com/info/chicago-spice-store.html)

 

The Chicago Historical Museum is also on Clark/North right near here, as well. The Green City Farmer's Market, which is I think the only organic market in the city, is also right in the park, as well (http://www.greencitymarket.org/index.asp)

 

Nearby the Thompson is the Red Line subway stop at Clark/Division. There are a lot of different ways to get from this area to the museum campus, but the one that I often did is to take the Red Line from Clark/Division South to Harrison, then walk one block North to Congress. Walk East on Congress and you'll pass Buckingham Fountain and then it's another block to the Lakefront, then walk South along the Lakefront. You can take the Red Line one stop further South to Roosevelt then walk East, but I think the walk from Harrison is a little longer but a little more scenic.

 

There is a really nice Farmers Market that actually occurs a couple of blocks North of your hotel on Saturdays. They close the street on Division between Clark and State.

 

If you have never seen Taste of Chicago, my one thought is this: see it. Don't buy an absolute ton of tickets to start off with. Buy a little bit (a strip or two) of tickets to start off with, walk around, sample a few things and see what you think. If you are having fun, then buy more. I've gone to Taste countless times over the years, but as I got older, I really started to feel like it got expensive for what it was and it's hot and crowded. Personally, I say go and explore it but I think don't get tons of tickets at first - get a few, see what you think and then go from there. Tickets are usually sold in strips and then you walk around and, for example, a slice of pizza is x amount of tickets (x usually equals a lot, for whatever it is.)

 

Again, check out the Taste - it's certainly a big event and a rather unique experience. That said, I would have a list of restaurants that interest you in mind and have those ready if you don't end up devoting much time to the Taste.

 

I like doing very long walks and in terms of Lincoln Park, one of my favorites is taking the Red Line Northbound from downtown to the Belmont station, then walking East to Belmont and Broadway. From there, walking South on Broadway to Clark, continuing South on Clark to Fullerton, then East on Fullerton a short distance to Stockton, then it's South on Stockton a few feet to the North entrance of the Zoo. Walk South through the zoo and then you get to the point where I discussed above where you can just walk South and into the Gold Coast. That is a LONG walk, but it's a pleasant walk through much of Lakeview/Lincoln Park, starting by passing by Anne Sather's, a neighborhood institution that offers gigantic cinnamon rolls.

 

If you were driving, I'd say check out Chicago Botanic Garden (chicagobotanic.org) in the suburbs, but a very nice - and very free - alternative in downtown is the Lincoln Park Conservatory, which is right next to (can't miss it) the North entrance of the Zoo. (info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_Park_Conservatory)

 

In terms of the suburbs, I'd also have suggested a couple of suburbs for fireworks, but things changed in the last year where those suburbs are no longer allowed to put on fireworks displays over the lake (you were able to go down to the beach and watch.) I'm sure the suburban displays will still be very good, but it was kind of a neat experience to be able to go down to the beach.

 

In terms of restaurants, any particular style?

 

You definitely do not need to drive if you are going to be downtown only. The only real day trip of note in the area is Lake Geneva, which is a resort town about an hour and a half from downtown Chicago. There are also a couple of great high-end outlet malls, as well as fun stops (Mars Cheese Castle) on the way. However, the one issue with Lake Geneva is that it is bumper-to-bumper on the weekends trying to even get into town.

 

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