Blackstone Rennaissance

Premium hotel facing Grant Park, period-style decor with display cases of building historical artifacts, fun photo booth in lobby. The view from lake view rooms is absolutely gorgeous. Extremely spacious with ergonomic charging outlets (regular and USB), settee reading nook, apple storage and closet storage, coffee maker in room, bathrobe provided. Distinctive historical, vintage personality.

The property is beautiful and well decorated, clean and close to everything. Staff helpful and friendly. The hotel is overpriced and the fees they tack on are disappointing and sneaky. Watch your bill. Also the little coffee shop is closed on Sunday which was a huge let down. The food is good in the restaurant. We won't stay here again because of marriot bonvoy's stupid destination fees. Maybe the Hilton next door!

Excellent: -Location -TV -Bed -blackout blinds Bad- Housekeeping Bellman Service Culture Storage Parking Definitely won't stay again- Lack of a bathroom door that keeps sounds, smells, and light in the bathroom. First, I want to say that the desk staff is fantastic, and were right alongside the location as the top reasons to like this place, but they couldn't overcome the intersections of all of the other problems. The housekeeping was downright gross, I took pictures that will hopefully illustrate what I'm talking about, the tops of the waterfall showerheads have never been cleaned. That's what years of calcium and lime buildup look like when something has been there for years, and nobody has ever cleaned it. Just eww. The floors in the bathroom get mopped, which, owing to poor design choices, isn't enough. There's tons of grout lines on the floor, and the grout isn't well sealed, so it traps all kinds of ick, and the staff doesn't seem to know how to clean it (toilet bowl cleaner with bleach for those of you cleaning grout at home, put it on, leave it for like 30 mins, then clean it off, good as new). The bellman are not interested in doing work that does not tip them, this includes opening doors or lending you a bell cart so you can load/unload your stuff. They will watch you struggle with doors a dozen times as you make an unnecessary amount of trips, but they're not gonna hold the door for you, because that's not where tips come from. Maybe that wouldn't be so irksome, but parking is across the street at the Hilton, so you're going to have to walk by other people with doormen who open doors for them, and some of them are going to have bell carts to help them get their stuff to and from their cars. For all of the money the Blackstone costs, they'll force you to watch other people get good service at other hotels, enough to make you regret being there at all. There is not adjacent parking, you're just on the street, so you can't leave your vehicle there while you make a bunch of trips to and from your room. The street level parking isn't at the level of the entrance though, so you've also got some stairs in your future. If you've got someone in a wheelchair or needing a walker with you, you'll need to get them around the corner to the Michigan Ave entrance, take the little elevator up half a floor to the lobby level, then from the lobby level, take a second elevator up to your room. Your frustrations will not melt away in the rooms though, especially if you're staying with another person. The bathrooms have one more ick in store past the filthy grout... they don't have real doors. Instead, they have stylish glass barn doors on tracks that sit a full inch away from the wall... so you're going to share *every* moment with your family, and will involuntarily partake in theirs. If you indulge in some of Chicago's incredible food or food trucks, I would recommend you stay away from things that might result in noisy or smelly regrets later. You get two drawers, feel free to fight for them, because that's what there is. The rest of what looks like its going to be storage under the counters in the rooms is actually screwed shut, I think maybe some utility might go there. I understand that utility has to go somewhere, but there's a vastly underutilized empty space at the entrance of the room, Overall, I think part of the problem the Blackstone has is that I stayed in other significantly lower price point Marriotts both before and after my stay there, a Fairfield and I think a Courtyard, both of which offered things like automatic doors at the main entrance (which are perfectly fine), convenient parking, friendly and helpful staff, bell carts to help you tote your stuff, good housekeeping, and bathrooms with doors. All of these things (except maybe the lack of a bathroom door) are relatively small, and no individual one is a dealbreaker, but the combination of them all in a hotel that claims to be a 4-star is just a huge gap between the expectations they set (that you pay for), and the actual product.

This place is a superb update of early 20th century elegance. Service was superb; a special shout out to DJ for attention to guest service.

Perfect for events at Soldier Field! Booked: 2-queen room Front desk: quick check in process. Water bottles complimentary. Forgot toothbrush and received one at no charge — rough bristles and unbearable but necessary lol… The bathroom was clean. Shampoo, conditioner, and body wash were available. Cleaning staff provided extra towels upon request. Hair dryer available. Body mirror available! Great bathroom lighting! Queen beds as comfortable as they can be. No outlets around beds. Chairs/seats available in the room. Good amount of space for three people and luggage. No fridge…? Functioning elevators! Clean lobby and halls. Quiet and peaceful. Spanish restaurant/bar connects to hotel. Got $12.50 to use at the bar. Valet: Michael was nice! $82.00 for valet