Ehh...
Chicago was great. Congress Plaza Hotel – not so much. I stayed there with 2 friends to celebrate my BFF’s 45th birthday. Here are the highlights of our stay at Congress Plaza:
• First the good – very nice sheets (although looked like rust stains on set of one of the beds); housekeeping staff very nice, but they don’t speak English. The lady that serviced our room had to call someone to translate our requests to her. Also, the hotel is right across the street from Grant Park, where the Taste of Chicago was held – which was the reason for our visit. This came in handy, because we got caught in the rain several times. It was nice to be able to run across the street and wait the rain out. Also beautiful pictures in hotel lobby and lots of historic relics – very interesting. Nice lounge and restaurant w/ outside seating. The view of the lake was spectacular and we were able to see the fireworks from our room.
• Now the bad and ugly: Very, very old hotel. I understand historic, but seriously it looks like it hasNEVER been updated. Very dim, yellow lighting; old, frayed carpeting; damp mildew smell; broken doorknobs; ancient furniture, etc – seriously, it’s like stepping back in time. The mattresses were uncomfortable and clearly had seen better days. Very slow drains – when you shower, expect to be standing in a small pool of water before you’re done. One of the chairs in our room had a nail sticking up and was unusable. It was very stuffy. We never could get the air to a comfortable level. However, the outside temperature was unusually hot that weekend.
• They require you to allow them to charge a full night to your credit card just to make a reservation.
• When we arrived, we spent quite a bit of time explaining we had already paid for the 1st night. We also had to pay for the 2nd night and leave a $50 deposit before officially checking in - ok, whatever.
• WiFi is $10 per night and that fee only covers 1 device.
• We received a call the night before we were to check out informing us we had a balance. Surprise to us, since they require you pay for the stay up front. Anyway, we learned that someone (we believe an employee) used our name and room number to purchase parking. We never parked anywhere. We used Megabus to get there and back (different story and different review). After a considerable amount of time back and forth, they finally agreed to return our deposit, but with the warning that whoever parked there would not be able to get out w/out paying. This or course didn’t bother us – served whoever it was right. However, we were quite upset 1) that our personal info. was obviously compromised,2) that we had to defend ourselves and 3)that the manager refused to even speak to us – only sending a message that he(?) would allow it “this time”. What was that about??? Anyway, we were very happy to leave the place and we will NOT be back. Neither will we recommend it to anyone else. I'm rating the service bad due to the management and not the actual staff, who seemed to be doing the best they could under the circumstances.
• Finally, workers were on strike and we weren’t made aware until we had already paid the deposit. Each morning we were met with picketers. We felt very uncomfortable crossing picket lines every time we entered the hotel. We finally started trying to avoid them by using a side entrance.