Quote: Located just off the Magnificent Mile, the Hilton Garden Inn could rely on location alone to attract business, but it doesn’t. Instead, this hotel consistently receives accolades for its service and amenities.

The trick of this hotel, however, is in the booking. At peak times, a standard room might cost two or even three times what it does during low-demand times. For example, for the night of October 6th, 2006, I’m quoted $369 for a standard room. On October 11th, the rate soars to $439. But on November 10th, it’s only $98. Go figure. Obviously, you can get lucky with this hotel, or you can end up paying through nose. Happily, in mid April, it was the former.

I knew the hotel was close to the Grand Avenue Red Line stop, but I didn’t realize just how close until we exited the subway and nearly stumbled into the lobby of our hotel. It’s that close. Not only that, but walk right around the corner and you’re on the Magnificent Mile. Want to go to the Navy Pier? No problem – the free trolley is just around the corner. We ended up walking to Millennium Park and the Art Institute, but if we’d wanted, easily accessed public transportation could have taken us there. Ditto for just about any other place you’d want to go. No doubt about it – the hotel’s location is the biggest plus of staying here.

As it turned out, one day we wanted to pack in a lot of southside-to-northside activities, so we ended up renting a car. This was easily set up through the hotel’s concierge. There’s an Enterprise rental office right on site, so picking up the car and then returning it (in the wee hours) back to its designated space in the garage was an easy matter. A day’s rental was $42 – not a whole lot more than the daily parking fee at the hotel, really. This is the way to go if you think you might need a car but aren’t sure.

Other terrific conveniences include a Starbucks just off the lobby, a business center with computer access, and a small pool and fitness room. The on dit is that the corner rooms on the higher floors have the best views, though we were perfectly happy on a lower floor with a limited view. We shopped for a few essentials at the small grocery/convenience store across the street, making use of the refrigerator and microwave in the room.

Our room was standard issue Hilton Garden Inn – in other words, fairly spacious, well maintained, and comfortable. One minor quibble was that the doors tended to slam, echoing down the corridor, but this is basically a pet peeve and not a major issue. What I loved about staying here was the feeling of having Chicago right there on our doorstep, yet knowing we had everything we needed on hand, including the help of a well-trained and courteous staff.
From journals Springtime (oh, really?) in Chicago