Rodeway Inn Chicago-Evanston — Hotel in Jefferson Township

The #1 pro: the nightly rate was about one-third of what you’ll pay for a similar-sized hotel room just a few miles east of here. The room is basic, clean and sufficient for a couple. Anyone who’s stayed in a non-luxury hotel in Manhattan would recognize this size of room and probably be envious.

You get a comfortable king bed, a small bathroom with a walk-in shower, a refrigerator, microwave and coffee maker, a 40-inch TV, two drawers, two nightstands and a table with two chairs. If you want more amenities, go a few miles east of here and good luck finding a hotel room for less than $200 a night.

It’s a small sink with no countertop space, but you can use the bed or the top of the cabinet that holds the microwave and fridge to spread out your stuff. No hair dryer and you only get two bath towels and a washcloth, but we made it work. Yes, the wallpaper is peeling a bit in a few spots, but it doesn’t look shabby. The carpeting is what you’d find in any hotel that was renovated about a decade ago.

No free breakfast, but nearby there's a Starbucks, Dunkin' and McDonald’s. It’s on a major street with lots of retail and frequent bus service. We never felt unsafe at this location.

The free hotel parking is limited but there’s adjacent free street parking. If you’re driving, it’s about 15 minutes to Lake Shore Drive and 20-25 minutes to the Loop.

A few cons: the satellite TV service to the rooms is crippled by random but frequent freezing of the picture. Bring your laptop or tablet if you want to watch something without throwing things at a screen. And you can’t hook up a streaming player directly to the TV because using the free WiFi requires a login on a web page.

Another knock: the light over the sink in the bathroom is on a motion sensor and cannot be manually shut off. It’s blindingly bright whenever you walk into the bathroom, and that’s not good when using the toilet at night.

Our $2.50 solution was a plug-in nightlight near the sink and applying a four-inch piece of electrical tape over the motion sensor on the light. This disables it but there are two other lights and a fan on the switch in the bathroom.

If you need the light over the sink you can peel back that tape and re-apply it after you’re done. Bring your own or pick up a nightlight and electrical tape at the Dollar Tree that’s a quarter-mile away on that major street.

We’ve been driving to Chicago every summer for seven years to visit with family that live in a North Side one-bedroom apartment and we never paid less than $175 a night for an Airbnb or VRBO. Three nights here (Thursday/Friday/Saturday) with tax was about $220, leaving us more to spend on shopping, food and drink....

I would rate my stay as adequate for my purposes, but I probably won't stay there again. I stayed there for 2 nights.

Pros: The room looked nice and the bed was very comfortable. Security was also very good (Up to date door locks worked very well). The room had microwave and refrigerator that both worked well.

Cons: TV only showed static. This was due to the DirectTV box that was stuffed behind the TV being broken. I did mention it to the front desk clerk and he made a note of it. The shower, while it looked very nice, did not work as expected. Both days, the shower took about 5 minutes to heat up. The first day, the water never heated up beyond warm. The second day, it did manage to heat up to hot. Also, the water had no force and kind of drizzled out of the shower head, instead of shooting out with any kind of force. The shower has no shelf on which to put soap and shampoo. The housecleaning person that cleaned my room took my shampoo and soap that I had used the first day. I had left them in the shower so I could use it the next day, but because there is no shelf to place them, I had to leave them on the shower floor. I ended up using the shampoo and soap that I had brought myself for just such an emergency. Housecleaning services should have known I was there for multiple days and either left it there, or provided a new set for me to use.

Things to keep in mind: There were only 2 towels and 2 hand towels for the room. Not really an issue for me as I was by myself, but if there were 2 people staying there, it could be an issue, especially if one person uses more than one towel to dry off. I've seen other reviews saying that the towels were thin and hard. Yes, they are thin, but I think they just bought cheap towels to use in their rooms. They were adequate to the task. The bathroom has 2 lights. The main light that is on the switch, and a 2nd light that is on a motion sensor. Be aware that after about 20 seconds, that light will go out. This is nice to know if you are getting up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and the light goes out while you are...

Considering it's Chicago, the room wasn't all that bad. It's fine. In general, I don't have very many issues with the quality of the room. Bed was neatly put together and the TV worked. The remote had tape on the back probably to keep the batteries from falling out. The TV had a ton of stations and even college football games that I don't even get at home. The door has two different ways of locking, which helped me feel safe being someone out of state in Chicago. The younger guy in the office was helpful. Now with the issues I do have: There are stairs to get to the upper rooms and those stairs were seriously so nasty. I get that carpet is hard to keep clean, but there were so many mystery stains and gunk on them. It's really easy to hear other room's TVs unless you have yours up loud. The AC is very loud. The bathroom honestly didn't feel that clean. The mirror had weird smudges and the frame holding it wanted to collapse. The window had some type of crack in the corners and the ledge in front of it was very dirty. There is no shelving anywhere, not even in the shower. I had little to no space for toothbrush/paste or for my personal shampoo/conditioner/body wash. I didn't get a picture of it, but the sprinkler in the room was absolutely disgusting. I couldn't tell if it was mold or dust or what, but it was coated in some kind of fuzz. For some reason, after one night (paid for 2), the two keycards I received stopped working. I had to go to the office to get them reactivated. You're required to wait to be buzzed in to get into the office and I noticed that there were people that wanted to check in and get their room, but no one was in the office. They were forced to wait outside in the dark until the office guy came back. Not a very...