The Willows Hotel

We were in Chicago for a holiday visit with our son’s family. In the past we have stayed multiple times at The Willows and found it more enjoyable. No lobby treats, parking was a problem exiting the location, some one tried to enter our room late one night, we were on the third floor and it smelled like cigarette smoke or marijuana vapor.

I just stayed at this hotel with my wife and kid in the lakeview area in Chicago. Unfortunately we were extremely disappointed with serveral things about our stay. 1. Lack of cleanliness in the room, we found pills, plastic waste from candy bar, old used contact lenses. As we had a toddler running around and investigating every inch of the room, this could have resulted in fatal consequences! 2. It was very noisy! we had some kind of generator outside our windows, which was running all night and made it very difficult to sleep. All in all very disappointing and not great value for money.

I called to advise I'd be later than expected and the gentlemen on the phone was really good but once I got there, it went downhill. There were a bunch of kids just hanging out in the lobby at 2:30 in the morning. We were advised that parking was offsite, though nearby, and it was public parking with no in and out privileges. We had to pass dumpsters with rats in an alley to get back from the parking to the hotel. The place was very outdated and I was afraid the only elevator would stop working. I was right. The next morning the elevator wasnt working although it was fixed by the time we got back that afternoon. The room was not as advertised; it was very small and the bathroom was so small there was no room to put our toiletries. There was a centipede on the ceiling which we had to kill and several hair ties on the floor so obviously it seemed it had not been vacuumed. Ice is only located on the first floor - super inconvenient and they didnt tell us until I had checked the 4th floor, found none and called downstairs. The clerk we passed on the way out that morning and then that afternoon didnt even acknowledge us. When we checked out on the 2nd morning, there was no reply to my cheerful "Good morning", no smile, no "Have a good day". It was very obvious the front desk person didnt want to be there. In short, the only good thing about the hotel was the early night front desk person who was very friendly and accomodating when I talked to him on the phone.

great location for visiting family.