The Wade — Hotel in Chicago

We came here on a wedding block discount, paying $239/night, which is still more than we'd like to pay but given its ratings and comps, the location was convenient for us and our plans, so we went with it. The wedding block ran Saturday-Tuesday, but we are here Friday-Monday, so they said we had to book two separate reservations, which means we pay double taxes and fees. We called a month before to link our Friday night reservation to our wedding block (Sat-Mon) reservation, and were told to call closer to the date of check in. We wanted to match the discount because we weren't arriving from the airport until after 1am. We called again as instructed, was told it would be linked and said that since they couldn't match our Friday night rate to the wedding discount rate, that we would get some complimentary food and drinks at their bar/restaurant, Current. We arrived to security dealing with an inebriated person trying to get in. Gave me bouncer at a club vibes. It was jarring coming in, and it sounded and looked like a loud yet empty club. We met a friendly staff member, but were told they don't know anything about the complimentary service and couldn't do anything about it. It was loud and difficult to hear the desk staff over the music and bar conversations. I've had softer check ins in Vegas but there the volume seems expected and appropriate. In spite of confirmation that our reservations were linked, our cards turned off on Saturday anyway, but it was easily resolved visiting the front desk.

The room is spacious and meets the needs, but the lighting throughout the hotel and in the room is odd. The main source of light in the room is a bright chandelier next to the window, and the bathroom is bright which allows some light into the main part of the room through the glass wall between the bathroom and the bed (bottom part of the glass wall is frosted, but it's still weird). The bathroom door is a barn door style that leaves little to the imagination and um...zero soundproofing 😬). The whole bathroom is black tile and grout which I understand can be unforgiving. It seemed pretty clean, no standing water, but when I turned on the shower I got a pretty strong musty, moldy smell for the first half of my shower. Not sure if that was the pipes or the grout. If you request it, there's fridges, microwaves and coffee machines available but we didn't request those during our stay. Ample outlet options, storage, and a large couch/seating area in our room. We had a functioning safe and a solid temperature regulation system.

The elevators are impressively slow considering there are six of them. At more than one point there were lines into the lobby waiting to go upstairs. Most of our rides we were sardined into them like the elevators going up to the sky deck at Sears/Willis tower. You need a room key for the elevators.

We are deeply grateful for the toiletry amenities as we forgot some things. As I mentioned, we're in town for a wedding and my husband's tuxedo got wrinkled in transit. They were incredibly helpful and offered to steam it for him, no extra charge. Wonderful!

As for the bar and restaurant Current in the lobby, I'll create a separate review that will, unfortunately, be less forgiving...

Update: they immediately contacted me because of this review. I replied back and then never heard from them again. There were no refunds. Hopefully this review will help others.

This place looks very cool from their website photos. The reality is not quite the same. From start to finish it was a strange and negative experience. I'm not a super picky person. I just wanted a place with good food, friendly people and a nice basically cleaned room. There were issues with absolutely everything, unfortunately. I really do not like doing negative reviews. But, I really want them to fix these issues so no one else has this experience or wastes their money, only to get disappointed.

On the positive - this is in a good location if you want to be near the train station or other local businesses, which is why I was there. It's still not very safe, so be cautious.

When you pull your vehicle up, be careful! I immediately was honked at and cars were pulling in and out in all sorts of directions, which made no sense. There is very little space, so having a system in place would have helped. The concierge valet person just stared as I waited and waited. I exited my vehicle and walked out to him and then requested his help, then he assisted. Otherwise I guess he would have just stared at me longer. It was very cold out and I just recently had surgery, so it would have been nice if I didn't need to do that. But, that's fine.

The room had issues all over the place. Bring bleach wipes! The bath tub had hairs in it. I never ended up using that because it was unclean. The corner of the shower seemed to have some mold type substance that they tried covering up with caulk. The sink was chipped. There was physical damage to all aspects of the room - to all the decor and furniture. The bed had no real comforter or blanket. I had to untuck and pull it all out and fold it in half onto my body to stay warm. I even used a bath towel like a blanket. One of the pillow case covers was stained. There were more hairs in the bed too.

Lastly, I can't find a way to contact the company by email for support. I would like a refund on the room service meal I ordered. It was inedible and the asparagus was not cooked at all. It was so terrible yet sounded and looked good based on their advertising of these restaurants. Please avoid eating there. It was shocking how bad it was. It cost about $100 for uncooked or improperly cooked food.

The lady at the font desk was basically friendly, but other than her, the people were strangely cold and awkwardly unfriendly, like they had never spoken to a human before.

Lastly, drunk people were yelling throughout the hallway, sporadically through the night. I got terrible sleep. I could not wait to get out...

Honestly this was one of the poorest hospitality experiences I’ve ever had. The single star is for the views from the room that I included in the photos.

Here are some things that happened during our stay: we arrived to be told they’d oversold the hotel and no longer had our king room and were stuck in a “wonderful double” room. There was nothing wonderful about it. The room smelled like mold, there were no amenities or needed items in the room (no fridge, no microwave). The doubles honestly felt more like stiff twins and were smaller than typical fulls. When we tried to discuss with management they told us they’d “move us into a king room if one opened up” never happened. They also promised a $30 credit on our stay, also didn’t happen. the room doesn’t have any refrigerators or microwaves despite the listing for the hotel saying they do have them. You have to “call and request” one be brought to you. Funny thing is when you call and request one they conveniently don’t have any available and will put you on a waiting list. Over a 4 day stay we called every day to get an update and we’re told we’d just be put on the list and they couldn’t see the status, I don’t believe they actually have a list as we never got a fridge and finally the last day when calling they brought up a dilapidated microwave that disgustingly had not been cleaned inside. worst of all while unclothed and getting dressed with the do not disturb sign on the door house keeping tapped twice and promptly walked into the room waiting for no response. They literally opened the door and walked in on us naked. When we reported it to the hotel the director of guest services came up to “apologize”. He said he’d make it right multiple times, offered to discount the stay, ultimately nothing was done to correct it and their was no adjustment to our bill as he said their elevators for a 30 unit building are serviced by only 4 units. If you are on an upper floor you will be waiting about 20 minutes each time you need to ascend or descend as they stop at nearly every floor upon checking out we asked for an accounting of the bill so we could check the promised credits. After about ten minutes of typing and fiddling around we were told the printer wouldn’t work and he needed more time to fix our bill and he promised to make adjustments and email us a copy. We never received a copy and the adjustments were never made

Honestly, this hotel ought to be decommissioned, I’ve stayed at multiple W branded hotels with significantly different experiences. Moral of the story, give another hotel your money in Chicago, we will never be staying...