Chicago Marriott Downtown Magnificent Mile

Good location

outdated, noisy, charged for early check in

The hotel itself was in a good area. The staff was attentive and helpful. The hotel had a very nice lobby/lower level when you entered. While the room appeared to have been updated, it had several problems. Though I understand there will be noise with a hotel right on the magnificent mile, it seemed more excessive than other hotels I’ve stayed at in the area. The old windows are likely part of the problem. The biggest issue (which I failed to notice in other reviews) is you are NOT able to control the temperature. Everything is locked into AUTO mode. The thermostats “allow” you to adjust the temperature up/down, but it doesn’t do anything. There also is not an option to set the fan to on/constant. This would have been nice to not only muffle the noise from outside, but also the noise from the bathroom. Unfortunately, someone thought it would be a good idea to have a sliding door separating the bathroom from the rest of the room. There is also not an option to turn some sort of fan on in the bathroom either. If you are not traveling alone, you will hear every sound coming from the bathroom as if you were sitting right next to them. My biggest issue was the thermostat though. The temperature outside was in the fifties. The room never got colder than 72 (often higher) unless you cracked a window open. Of course when you do that, you might as well give up all hopes of sleeping with the added noise. Hopefully management can figure out something with the temperature control in the rooms. I can honestly say I’ve never stayed in a room (including at budget hotels/motels) where you couldn’t adjust the temperature and also turn on the fan. I’d also suggest using bathroom doors next time. I’m guessing this was done because the bathrooms are pretty narrow/small and there wouldn’t be enough space to open/close a traditional door.

BAD!!! Sleep disturbed, night’s rest wrecked by horrid screeching and ripping sounds outside our door from 6:00-7:00am on a Saturday morning. What the heck?! Turns out the hotel sent workers up in the wee hours to prep our floor for construction. We had splurged on a quiet (!) room for a special getaway, and these Marriott bunglers wrecked our night’s rest. Their proposed solution? A room change at 6:50am—as if packing up and moving out would lull us back to sleep!

Room was very clean, great view.

There was no room service and we had to go to the "pantry" often.

In 2018, Kristin L aired (pun intended), on her review, my same concern with respect to an absent in room A/C system. My room temp after a tasty Chicago steak - 82 degrees 🥵 My plan - turn it down to 65 for 2 hours and recheck. Now 83 degrees - hmmm. A call to the hotel operator led me to understand that due to the cold mid October weather, ALL the rooms have the HEAT turned on and that there are only 2 settings (for all rooms) HEAT or COOL. So how do I get cool ma’am? “Turn OFF the heat and then crack the window”. Pretty suboptimal for a rack-room rate of over $400. Their website says A/C in the room, but sadly fails to mention that it’s inoperable. 🤷🏼‍♂️ Given that this flaw was raised over SEVEN years ago, this troubling aberration is likely permanent, so one & done here for me I’m afraid.