Staying in Chicago? Stay here!

If you're headed to Chicago any time soon or over the summer, and will be needing a hotel, I highly recommend the Comfort Suites on the famed Michigan Avenue.  When we go to the city, we usually stay just outside of it because parking is impossible to find or atrociously priced (both of which severely annoy my husband).  This time, we decided to give Comfort Suites a try and it made the trip so much nicer!

Situated smack dab in the  middle of the downtown area, you can literally walk to everything. Valet parking was offered at a neighboring partner just around the corner at a very nice discounted price. We had the car parked, and didn't have to think about transportation or parking for the entire rest of our trip.

The hotel itself was nice and roomy with several closet/storage spaces, a fully equipped kitchen (we're talking right down to the bottle opener and the paper towels) with a dishwasher, a bar (to do homework on if you're an egghead like my husband...and I say that lovingly), two queen-sized beds, and a work desk. It also had a washer and dryer so you didn't have to lug home dirty clothes. It was like a very reasonably priced mini-apartment.

There were also AC and USB outlets all over the place (and free WiFi), so everyone with an electronic device (and we all had them) had an outlet to use at the same time. The flat screen TV was there, as was an easy-to-work safe. The bathroom was a little small, but who cares? You're in Chicago and it had everything you needed anyway.

From our hotel window we could see the Chicago River where we took our boat tour.

The view from our hotel was of bustling Michigan Avenue, and in the left corner, if you looked down, you could see the Chicago River. We walked over there to see what was going on. I remembered some of you mentioning the river cruise, which was right there, so we decided to do it. What a great decision!! It was close to dusk so we got the best of both worlds, a view in the daytime and a view at night.

This is where my camera broke. I did manage to get four or five pictures, which made me happy. We missed out on sooo many great pictures though...especially the ones at night. But it's okay, we had the absolute best time and because I didn't have to worry about the camera getting wet, we spent the second half of the boat ride at the very front (at the kids' request). No idea why they loved that so much, but they surely did. I thought it was nice to hear the history behind the Chicago buildings and find out what it was we were looking at if I didn't already know. The kids thought it was fun to see the water splashing on the front of the boat, go figure.

Business Center at the Comfort Suites Hotel 

The next morning we had the free hot breakfast, and hubby needed to use their business center to print something (still thinking of his school work, ugh!) and we set off in the other direction to see what we could find. You can see I also got a new camera from the CVS store right down the road. The quality of photos wasn't near as good w/the new cheapie point-and-shoot, but still and the same I was glad to have it.

We walked everywhere, and came across a really great live concert outside at the Jay Pritzker Pavilion (Millennium Park), Giordano's (where we did have dinner, thank you to all who suggested it because my husband loved it), and The Bean. I know it has a different name, but we always just call it The Bean. I get far more excited about seeing it than anyone else does, in fact, my family makes fun of me because I like it so much. Whatevs. :)

I don't care. They can laugh all they want, I love The Bean. ;)  Where else can you come across kids doing backbends, adults doing handstands, and groups of people laying down underneath it together w/their feet touching in a circle to try and get a cool picture? Plus every angle offers a great view of the city.

There were a lot of great places to walk to from the hotel. Shopping on the Magnificent Mile (which we did not have time to do), Broadway shows (of which we did not have time to see), Navy Pier (which we saw only by boat ride), and tons of other places to see, visit, and eat/shop/marvel at (some of which we did have time to do). And if you're coming in or going to the airport, the Orange Line of the metro is six blocks away to take you directly to Midway International Airport, and the Blue Line is six blocks away to take you to O'Hare.

There are other things I want to blog about from the trip, but I wanted to share the hotel. The best part of the hotel besides the safe and very prime location is the price. It's really no more than what you would pay on vacation while you were visiting most any city, and it puts you right in the middle of everything. My husband likes comfort most in a hotel, and I like location: Comfort Suites - Chicago had both.

A big shout out to the staff who was very kind, and to the gal running the desk when I checked in who pretended not to notice I was stuck in the revolving door w/the fold-up stroller (never mind that story, but know it did mortify my teen which was kind of funny). If there is one negative about the hotel, it's the elevators, and that's not really a negative if you know about it and are prepared to wait. There are two of them but there always seems to be a wait to get on and off because they're stopping at 26 floors along the way.

The hotel can make or break a trip, and for us, this one made ours simply marvelous. I loved being right in the middle of absolutely everything. This is definitely a great hotel to know about, and really, there's nothing but good I can say about it, it was a remarkable stay.

I'll blog about more of our trip later this week, but I wanted to tell you all about the hotel, so that if you're going to Chicago you can put it on your list of considerations.  Now, I'm off to write a review on TripAdvisor (that won't be near as long ;) ).

The info. on the hotel, if you want to check it out yourself is below:

Comfort Suites

320 North Michigan Avenue

Chicago, IL 60601

Phone: (312) 384-1208 Fax: (312) 204-6910

Website: http://www.comfortsuites.com/hotel-chicago-illinois-IL352?listpos=1

I don't know if they ever put up discounts or coupons on their Facebook or Twitter, but I'll be checking to see. If you want to follow them on either they're social media sites are below:

Facebook: Comfort Suites - Chicago on Facebook

Twitter: @CSChicagoHotel