SpringHill Suites by Marriott Chicago Downtown/River North — Hotel in Chicago

The hotels location was great! Most everything was within walking distance and close to public transportation. The rooms were clean, had a kitchenette, and a lot of room. The breakfast was decent and complimentary which was great because it got kinda of pricey eating out everyday. The ONLY issue I had was during our visit to the bar. It was busy but there was someone helping the bartender and he took our order. When placing our order the person who helped us asked if it was going to be together or separate and since we were given the option, we chose separate. We did not want to charge to our room but pay with our individual methods of payment. The food and drinks came out and everything tasted good. When the check came both myself and my friend were given receipts and when reading it I didn’t understand the listed charges. I informed the person who took our order, and later identified himself as the “newly appointed manager” that we asked for the checks to be SEPARATE. Meaning, my friend would pay for her chicken wings and drink and I would pay for my meal. Her meal being $20 and mine being $36 which is two separate checks. The way the charges were listed is as if we were splitting the cost. (This might get confusing but it will make sense in the end). As an example, the receipt read as 1/2 chicken wings, 1/2 tater tots, etc.. with the final bill being around $56’ish for me and the exact same amount for my friend. The total of everything we ordered if it were to be on one bill it totaled to $56’ish or so. How do we pay the same amount if the total cost was $56 and you’re saying we owe over $100? We explained the issue to the manager and I thought he understood but I guess he couldn’t relay that to the bartender, who we could see became visibly annoyed. The manager came back with two checks both with the same amount of $46’ish. Again, the total bill was $56 but now we have to pay $46 each? At this point I could see the bartender making his way to us and he was mad! He approached us with his voice raised and I have to add that the manager was at the table with us during this confrontation. Now he had two checks for $38 each and said he was giving us a discount and we would have to pay more if he did separate checks . WHAT? That doesn’t even make sense. I asked if I could explain what two separate checks meant and he said that he didn’t have time for me to explain because there were other customers beside us. He took away one of the $38 checks and told us to just pay that amount because he didn’t have time to listen. When he left the manager profusely apologized on his behalf and said he would speak to him about his behavior. What bothered me the most was the manager allowing the bartender to yell at us in front of him and the look of other customers who turned when the yelling started. The bartender made us feel as if we were trying to get out of paying. I was so embarrassed. The manager could’ve took the bartender aside and explain the situation because it’s not difficult to understand what two separate checks meant. Apologizing for someone’s behavior after the fact is pointless. We were humiliated and although we wanted to eat there the next day, we didn’t because that bartender was...

I stayed at the hotel for one night with my college-age son and daughter On our first night, they took the elevator down from the 3rd floor to the main level on the 2nd floor. After the elevator started moving, it stalled, and they were stuck. They pressed the red button to call for help and an automated voice came on telling them that "help was on the way". So they waited. And waited. Help was in fact NOT on the way. In fact no-one at the hotel was notified that they were stuck in the elevator. They had no cellular signal and we had just checked in a half-hour before. Fortunately, they were able to remember our room number and were able to log into wifi where they texted me to tell me what was happening. By this time, they had been waiting 15 minutes - but were assuming someone was trying to get them out, as the automated recording had told them. I had been waiting for them in the lobby. I immediately went to the security desk and they called an engineer to try to get them out. It took another 10 minutes for them to get out. I went to the front desk and they had no idea that anyone was in the elevator or that the elevator was stuck. I then asked to speak to a manager. Sean, the manager, was strangely unconcerned. There was no apology. He said that the call button went to an offsite company who was supposed to let the front desk know and that if people are stuck in the elevator, they should continually press the red button (how anybody would know this, I don't know). But he said sometimes if the lobby is loud, noone can hear this. There were a lot of excuses and explanations but no apology and honestly it was like talking to a robot. There was no sympathy or compassion. I had to leave for a meeting but we agreed to talk later that evening. At that time - after waiting a while for him to get back to me - he continued with the excuses/explanations, though finally there was an apology and he offered to put Marriott points in my account to help make it right. I thought this was very nice of him. But of course - a month later - no points have been posted. Either he forgot, or it was something he said and had no intention of following through. So, a word to the wise ... although this is a well-appointed hotel, please be careful taking the elevator - and I hope you don't have to take an issue to this particular manager because he is likely to have no empathy for your problem. It is very disappointing as someone who is a loyal Marriott member for 30 years. Service is usually very good, but not at this hotel and not with this...

Initial impression was the usable space in the room was fairly small. It was my wife, me and our two kids. We stayed in a double and there wasn't really room for our two suitcases to both be opened up at the same time without putting one of them on the sofa. Our original plan was to have one of our kids sleep on the hide-a-bed, but that lasted one night as she complained about the noise from the bed itself. I tried it out and the hide-a-bed mattress was super noisy. The beds were comfortable. The HVAC system in the room was a mess though...not because it didn't work but because if you wanted to run it (which we did in the hot Chicago weather), it blew directly onto the beds from the ceiling onto your face. The housekeeping was good and the room was, for the most part, cleaned very well though the carpet showed signs of wear as did some of the furniture. Also, the hotel's parking garage was directly across from our windows and on Friday night it was quite loud with cars revving and horns honking at about 2am. The hotel itself is built well and we couldn't hear any noise from adjoining rooms the entire trip. The pool area was consistently dirty/messy, in defense, it was also very busy. The water never seemed particularly clean and I didn't like the fact that there wasn't a shower to rinse off on near the pool, given the temperatures the body oil from people was probably causing some imbalance in it, it was super cloudy. The workout room had good aerobic machines, the weight area had a rack that needed servicing and the weights were mismatched. The front desk was consistently good, I would say that the people working is probably the best thing the hotel has going for it. The location is very solid with easy access to the redline, the loop and the CTA, and the neighborhood restaurant selection within walking distance is outstanding. One other observation, we stayed during the week and weekend and the breakfast quality dropped significantly from Thursday morning- Sunday morning. No fresh fruit (other than bananas) was available after Friday (Strawberries, grapes and melons were out during the week) and the room was overwhelmed with only two working waffle machines. I walked over to the Residence Inn breakfast bar to check that out and it wasn't nearly as busy...maybe utilizing the resources more jointly would make sense. Basically the same assortment of food at both of them. The individuals working the breakfast area were...