IL Bloomingdale/Itasca Doral Eaglewood Resort

[LadyBug50]

The Doral Eaglewood (formally Nordic Hills) is a beautiful resort with a beautiful spacious atrium lobby with a full bar. There is also sitting areas with a cozy fireplace. It

[lindabobhat]

We stayed here 6/17 - 6/19/05. It is now called simply the Eaglewood Resort and is no longer affiliated with Doral Resorts. Fortunately, they are still honoring the Doral Club card which I purchased back in April. It gives us one free Saturday night for the year and two Friday or Sunday night stays with the purchase of a Saturday night stay AND provides a Jr. Suite upgrade for only $30. It also gives us various dining, spa & activity discounts. This was the second year I've purchased the card and it's been a great value for us living so close to the resort (they told me this would be the last year it's offered because of the new ownership.) Anyway, back to my review. We booked a kids package for Saturday night at $129 - it included a manicure for my daughter, $5 for the arcade, and hour of bowling incl. shoes for 6 people, a s'mores dessert in the restaurant, and cookies and milk room service at bedtime. I used a free voucher for Friday night and paid the $30 for the Jr. Suite upgrade. I ran into a little glitch here in that the $30 upgrade fee is only good for the free night - to change our kids package to a Jr. Suite would cost almost double the rate for a reg. room - $259, however, I spoke with the reservations mgr. and asked if she could do any better and she came down to $199. Seemed pretty fair to me, and even more so after I realized the value of the package amenities. The Jr. Suites here are just lovely, very nice color scheme with rich green and burgundy tones. It is one large room with two sections - a very spacious living area with 2 club chairs and a really comfortable high back sofabed. Then there is a centrally located armoire with drawers and the TV. In the other section is a king size bed, a padded bench at the end of the bed, as well as a very large desk with office chair and another club chair. The room is incredibly spacious, and there is also a balcony overlooking the golf course with a table and chairs. The bathrooms are pretty typical for a hotel, one area with a nice large vanity and another with the toilet and bathtub/shower combo. Nice Gilchrest & Soames products for the bath in large bottles! If you can get a deal on one of these suites, I highly recommend them. That's all I've ever stayed in at the Eaglewood, so I can't comment on the reg. rooms. We stayed in the tower furthest away from the lobby, which is a bit of a hike. Elevators are also really slow. Those were really my only complaints along with poor water pressure in the shower. Everything else we experienced during our stay was awesome. Started out on Friday with my daughter's manicure, which included the gratuity. I indulged in a spa pedicure at the same time and I was just pampered. I've never had so many different soothing treatments for my feet! We had dinner at the bar/grill type restaurant downstairs on Friday - we just had sandwiches which were fine; we got our s'mores dessert which was great. They bring a small "grill" with sterno, 4 chocolate bars graham crackers and marshmallows on a tray with fondue forks and you make your own. There was more than enough for the 4 of us. We then enjoyed the pool for a few hours where they showed "dive-in" movies. Keep in mind that the pool, spa & fitness center are in a separate facility from the hotel - some people might find this to be inconvenient, but during the summer, it's not really a problem as far as I'm concerned. The pool is open until Midnight on the weekend which is great. The 6 lane bowling alley is also housed in the facility along with a small cocktail lounge. We checked this out on Saturday for our hour of bowling which was a lot of fun - it was not crowded at all. We bought a few sodas at the bar which were $2 each but included free refills. Enjoyed the pool some more before dinner. I generally find room service prices to be outrageous, but here they were the same prices as in the restaurant, and pretty much the same menu. So, we went out and got McDonald's for our kids, then ordered room service for ourselves. We got a potato skins appetizer and the Sat. night BBQ ribs special to share, along with the cookies and milk that came with our package. A half hour later, the food arrived in an insulated picnic basket. Our total cost was less than $30. The food was great and portions were enormous - there was more than a full slab of ribs, plenty to share and we couldn't even finish the appetizer. They brought 2 large glasses of milk for the kids and 8 giant homemade cookies! I was really impressed with the room service experience overall. And for us so much more preferable than trying to dine out with our young children. By the way, the desk in the room was plenty big to substitute for a dining table.

What more can I say? This place was just great for a weekend getaway and the package inclusions were well worth the cost. The rooms are really nice and the location kind of tucked away and secluded in a pleasant residential neighborhood (some might say it resembles a country club more than a resort but we were pleased regardless.) The staff was pleasant and accomodating, especially those that were running the numerous free kids activities they offer on summer weekends - my kids made kites and participated in sack races (but, alas, missed the limbo contest!) Even though we didn't book this hotel through Priceline or Hotwire, I'm certain that anyone who might do so would be pleased. Of course, I wholeheartedly endorse the kids package we booked, which is usually only $30 more than the room price alone. We thoroughly enjoyed our stay and plan to return before the summer is over (maybe without the kids next time!) Sorry for the lengthy review but I really wanted to elaborate on this great facility.