Renaissance Chicago Glenview Suites Hotel — Hotel in Northfield Township

I recently spent a little more than a week in this property on the occasion of my wedding (at the Redfield Estate right across the street).

Starting with the positives: Broadly speaking, this hotel was a convenient base of operations for a wedding at the Grove. It is immediately across the street (though given how busy the road is, it's not walkable, which is a shame). The rooms themselves are huge (with major caveats, below) The hotel staff were almost always lovely and pleasant to speak with (with one particular significant frustration, below)

Unfortunately, there are quite a few things about this hotel which kept it from being a perfect stay: There is a consistent, profound lack of attention to detail throughout this property. For instance, I don't think there's a single toilet roll holder in the entire property which is straight and level. This sort of unnecessary sloppiness can be seen in fixtures, fittings, lighting, furniture, etc. Another example: in the Presidential Suite, the light isn't centered over the painting isn't centered over the chair isn't centered on the wall. In and of itself this isn't a major issue, but it's indicative of what I think is a more general laxness on the part of hotel management over the small things which really create a polished experience. The standard hotel suites are "shotgun" style, with a sitting room in the front and a bedroom in the back. These rooms are all quite large and should be comfortable. However, the sitting room in particular is very sparsely furnished and is very very "beige". Also, the standard suite I had was lit more like a hospital waiting room than a hotel room, with very harsh overly-white light and lack of natural lighting. Lack of attention to lighting is endemic. The inner atrium is huge and dramatic, but you can't help but notice an almost arbitrary mix of yellow and white lighting in the guestroom hallways. Also, the bright white lights make the front desk and the restaurant areas look like a dentist's office, especially at night. For me personally, it makes these spaces like places I would hurry through, not places I would linger. The hotel was kind enough to upgrade us to the Presidential Suite for the latter part of our stay for a very slight difference in rate. In retrospect, it was "easy" for them to upgrade us because the quality of the Presidential Suite product is... not good. It is marginally bigger than the standard guest rooms, and gets much more natural light, but not materially bigger in the places that matter: the extra floor space is essentially all in a dark little corner. Otherwise, the number, size, and quality of the furnishings is exactly the same as the other guest rooms. The larger bathroom with a double sink and a double shower could be nice, but the sea of beige and white tile leaves an impression of sterility that only Dexter Morgan could love. The real shame here is that with a minimum of interior design treatment, this suite could be exceptional; however, it's been value-engineered to death. The blackout curtains don't actually black out. As the curtains are on the same rail, they don't overlap where they come together, so the rooms won't actually get truly dark. Specific to the Presidential Suite, the blackout curtain doesn't seal to the wall on the side closest to the bed. This is particularly bad as the light which illuminates the front of the hotel leaks in this curtain, directly at eye level across the bed. It's horrible that we slept worse in the presidential suite than a standard suite because of this issue. The front desk staff were consistently let down by their technology. They had trouble reconciling bookings across room blocks. At one point, they had my room with my grandmother's name with my dad's Marriott number...

The overall impression was that for the most part, this hotel is a bunch of good people pushing a bad product. As there are many many other hotels in this area (including another Marriott), I would...

We chose the Delta Marriot as our hotel for our wedding guests because of the close proximity to our venue and because of how nice the newly renovated rooms are. However, we ultimately had a negative experience with the hotel. It became clear to us early on after choosing the Delta that they did not consider us to be important guests because our wedding was not taking place in the hotel. Instead of being given a standard block, we were simply given their corporate promotion code that they use. This made it impossible for guests to call and book over the phone as there was no block associated with our names. When we called to inquire about how guests can book over the phone, they acted like wedding blocks were unheard of. The sales representative told me she would look into how our guests can book over the phone, but never called me back. That was the theme of our experience – un-returned calls and emails. When we did actually get ahold of someone, they acted like we were just an inconvenience to them. The hotel was also unwilling to book us the bridal suite so we had to book a different suite in the hotel. About a month before the wedding they called to inform us that the suite we booked was no longer available so they moved us to the bridal suite – at an increased price. They would also not give any type of block rate on the suite (3X the cost of a standard room), which all the hotels who work with our venue do. We had gift bags that were to be handed out at the front desk when guests check in. Because we did not have a block with our names on it, there was no way for the hotel to know who to hand them out to, so we had to reach out to every single one of our guests to ask if they were staying, then had to provide the hotel with that list. Each guest in each room was supposed to receive a gift bag. The first few guests that checked in told us they only got one per room. When we reached out to the Delta to correct this we were assured that they were handing them out to each guest, not one per room. After our wedding, we had about 25 extra gift bags; there should have only been 5 – 10, so we had a large number of guests who did not receive a gift bag. We also utilized the hotel’s shuttle service. We were given one complimentary round trip shuttle on a 14-seater. Any additional round trips were $50 per, despite the fact that the venue was literally right across the street. Again, other hotels who work with our venue had larger shuttles and offered multiple complimentary rides (some based on amount of rooms booked) from farther distances. It was also reported to us from some of our guests that they were waiting in the lobby for the first shuttle for some time past the scheduled departure time. When one of the guests went to the front desk to ask about it, it was clear that they had forgotten to actually schedule the shuttle. I will note that the front desk staff was very nice and accommodating day of when we needed to have early check-in for the bridal suite to have hair and makeup done. Other than that, the entire experience was negative. A lot of the rooms face the highway which makes it difficult to sleep. The elevators are extremely slow. And the customer service is not what you expect from someone in the accommodations industry. I understand that this is a relatively new hotel but they have a long way to go to catch up to other hotels in the area. We do not recommend this hotel and will not be...

Frustrated that I have to post this review with 1 star cause IT DOESN’T EVEN deserve that. First of all let me start off with saying within the last 2 years I have stood there 5 times. The customer service the last two times was terrible. I didn’t even want to go back again but my daughter insisted of spending her birthday there. So as one of her gifts my husband and I booked the “family suite”. We checked in Saturday. Everything was going well. Around 8:00 we receive a phone call from the front desk stating to turn off “our loud music” because guest were complaining. I instantly became frustrated because we were having a family movie night and watching “Despicable me 3”. I ensured the respestivative that music was not playing and I have my 3 year old son and my 5 year daughter was in the room (it wasn’t that kind of party). Then she replied, “the guest was certain it was 211”. While I can ensure YOU that music is not playing and we are watching a movie before bed time. THEN Sunday morning we get ready to go to breakfast followed by the pool. My husband goes to the pool with the kids as I go to the room to get our belongings. I moved my son blanket and there WAS ANTS EVERYWHERE!!!!!!!!!!! Coming from the counter onto the floor. That was it! I reached my limit. I go downstairs and I waited in LINE WHILE 2 GUEST IN FRONT ME JUST COMPLAINED about how terrible there experience was. She even has a “PETER” business card just siting on the counter cause guest were just so frustrated. After speaking to her and having her aplogize more than 10 times to me. Room service gave me two clear garbage bags. She ensured me PETER was going to give me a call. Well PETER never called me, I HAD TO CALL HIM!!! I introduced myself and explained the situation (hoping one of this staff members explained to him the situation) said, “he wasn’t aware of my sitauation” So I proceeded to explain AND HE CUTS ME OFF AND SAYS, “ WEll I WALKED INTO 211 AND I DIDNT SEE NO ANTS!!!” WAIT, I thought you said you didn’t know about my situation. AND THEN HE SAYS, “ SO WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO? YOU PAID THROUGH EXPEDIA SO I CAN’T GIVE YOU ANY MONEY BACK?!?” Do you really think I am calling you to get money off this room?!? Do you think that I will make up having ants in my room, to get a measly 50 dollars off my room? There was no way I was going to deal with his insult and I told him that I wanted to speak to his supervisor. Do you think his supervisor called me...NOPE! No call or an email. I recommend spending the extra money and go to Rosemont. THIS PLACE IS A...