citizenM Chicago Downtown — Hotel in Chicago

It’s a fantastic hotel in (almost) every way. But it has a fatal flaw. The vibe is hip and new. The art and execution of style is on point. You don’t have a traditional anything when it comes to citizenM. You check yourself in and out, making your own room keys. There’s no bellhop or parking attendant, just one staff person to help the technology challenged. From the street you’ll miss the entrance if you blink. The bar area and especially the patio area are great. We spent time outside on the patio just relaxing and enjoying the city sounds. The location is perfect, a short walk to most of the areas you want to see downtown. The rooms are small, very small. In fact, a cruise ship cabin is bigger. And maybe the designers should have visited a couple of the newest cruise ships to see how a small room can still be super functional with lots of storage. Because this is where some things start to fall apart at citizenM. It’s small things in some cases (well everything about the rooms is small, LOL) but for example there is no foot bar in the shower so if you need to shave your legs – it will be tricky. The refrigerator is about the size of a large shoebox, so if you are planning to bring back that leftover deep dish pizza – better think again. You need more storage space and somewhere to hide the suitcases so they are out of the way. All the lights, tv, window shades etc. are controlled by an iPad or an app on your phone. But for a hotel that appears to be very concerned about environmental impact, no matter how we turned off the lights in our room when we left, when we returned, they were always on full blast. Just strange. But all of these things are not deal breakers. What might be a deal breaker is the bed, or should I say the placement of the bed. It is just a terrible layout. The bed is against the wall on 3 sides. So someone is always crawling over the other person to get out of bed in the middle of the night or whenever. And god forbid both people need a wall out let for a medical device or something. It may not sound like a big inconvenience, but at 3 am when you are sound asleep and your significant other tries to vault themselves over the top of you to get out of bed, you’ll wish the bed was in a different place. If you can get past the super annoying bed location, or are traveling alone –...

The hotel is very trendy & cute, our room was clean and the technology is awesome. The service on the other hand was very disappointing. We struggled to check in as it kept saying my license was unable to be scanned. I alerted the concierge’s associate, and she was immediately audibly, annoyed by me having to ask for help as she slammed her phone down onto the desk and huffed at me. I apologized for needing help and said the machine will not scan my ID. She was able to scan my card on her end, and proceeded to take my payment. Apple Pay was declining, come to find out it declined because they ran it 4 times so apple declined it as a multiple same amount charge, however it did accept the first time and posted to my account. Then she proceeded to also charge my debit card after stating Apple Pay failed. After noticing the next day that the charge posted to Apple Pay I alerted the concierge associate who couldn’t even be bothered to look up from her up from her phone while I was talking to her and she said she see’s that they charge four times in one was successful to Apple Pay as well as the one to my debit card, I asked her if she could refund it and she said she would send the request. Two days later I still don’t have a refund, granted I’m sure the refunds take 5 to 7 days. That same night we called to ask if we could have two more pillows brought up to our room (there’s only two pillows total in your room) or if we could come down and grab them, we waited an hour, no pillows arrived. I called again and hour later to see if we could either come down and grab them or have them brought to us another hour later no pillows arrived. There was a garbage bag and a DoorDash bag in the hall down from us when we arrived, and two days later, that garbage was still sitting there, and the whole hallway smells like rotting food. It seems like there is a problem with the housekeeping there. It’s really unfortunate to walk out of your hotel room to the smell of rotting garbage. You could smell it immediately when the elevator opened to our...

If you’re looking for a great place to stay in Chicago look no further! This place is spectacular!

Checking in is done by self service kiosks. It’s very straight forward, the staff on site is very helpful if you need anything at all. Don’t forget to bring a government issue id (drivers license/passport).

The whole hotel is ultra modern, plenty of comfortable places to sit and relax in the fourth floor lobby. There is also a beautiful outdoor terrace that overlooks Michigan ave. There is also a gym available for guest use as well.

The rooms are smaller than your average hotel, but extremely modern. Everything in the room is controlled by an iPad that is provided. Lighting brightness, color of the shower, blinds, climate, and the television! If you have the CitizenM app on your phone it will allow you to control your room from your cell phone regardless if you’re in the room or not! There are also labeled wall switches for those that opt to not use the app based control. I found the bed, pillows and sheets to all be exceptionally comfortable! The room comes with a few hangars, ample drawer storage underneath the bed, along with a safe which is also in a drawer under the bed. Irons are not provided in individual rooms. Each floor has a dedicated “ironing room” with an extremely nice iron and ironing board.

The proximity of the shower/bathroom is very close to the bed, but don’t let this deter you. As long as you keep the frosted glass door shut, the ventilation system prevents any steam/odor from entering the rest of the room. The vanity for the sink includes a small drawer refrigerator.

The only slight downfall to the room design (at least the room I spent 4 nights in) is there are no power outlets close to the bed. The nearest power outlets are on the wall near the desk, and next to the sink. The outlets near the desk come equipped with both USB and USB-C plugs in them.

Highly recommend staying...