Chicago, Route 66 and the home of Abe Lincoln part 1
Sat 7th Sep 2013
We met our small group of six at Heathrow T3. I’ve not been here for a while and they’ve spent a lot of money doing it up, looks nice. We used the self-service check in, this was easy and stress free.
I’ve not flown Virgin from Heathrow before, only out of Gatwick. I’ve always had bad service, broken seats and seat back TV’s so I was pleasantly surprised to experience a fantastic flight. The new configured planes are great. We flew economy and the seat pitch was great and the width fab. I didn’t feel any need to pay for extra leg room. We arrived in Chicago refreshed and looking forward to a great few days.
We checked into the Hyatt Regency O’Hare. It’s a nice hotel, 4 star, lovely public places which are modern and have had lots of money spent on them. I felt the room itself (I was in the Regency Suite) was dark and lacked attention to detail when it came to the finishing of room decor. It was huge though, but with a very small bathroom.
This is in an out of town area called “Rosemont” and it’s a great place for an airport stopover, mainly due to the fantastic new “factory outlet” which has just about every kind of shop you need and plenty of dining options. It’s great to hear from the customer services team that our clients can drop off their luggage with them whilst they shop and if they were on a domestic flight they’d go as far to check them in on line, print off their boarding passes and even drive their luggage to the airport!!! There’s also a neighbouring entertainment complex for the evening time.
Sun 8th Sep 2013
I woke from a great 1st night’s sleep, the comfiest bed ever, thank you Hyatt!
Today we walked around the city taking in the many sites. We went up the Willis Tower (or if you’re speaking to a local they still like referring to it as the “Sears Tower”). Sadly there was loads of fog so we didn’t quite get the views or that scary feeling when standing on the glass overhangs…but the fact I knew I was 103 floors up in the air was scary enough! However the bonus was no queues at all. You should visit the Hancock tower too as the views here are also wonderful and you can see all the North side of the city, the lake and the beaches whilst enjoying a Mojito or 2 or 3!
We had lunch at Bubba Gump at Navy Pier. Navy Pier is very touristy and apart from catching the boat trips from here, I wouldn’t recommend this if you’re on a short stop in the city. However, we did catch a great boat trip called the “architecture cruise” from the Shoreline Sightseeing boat company. It was very interesting and informative, a nice way to have a break from all that walking!
Following on we then popped into the Essex Inn for a site inspection, a hotel looked after by Cellet here in the UK and one of the many UK operators use. For a fairly central location great for someone that doesn’t want to blow the budget and also very family friendly with interconnecting room options. Another huge family USP is its unique place as the only city hotel with a pool with a lifeguard during open hours!