kosair

I checked into the Tremont yesterday for two nights. As a Plat I was upgraded to the top floor - a suite with a piano in it - for $99. Room is excellent, has obviously been refurbished, and I have a view of Water Tower Place and the John Hancock building. A minor issue is small slow elevator.

It is a short walk to the Red Line on the train, which takes you to the Loop. I cannot comment on parking as I have no car. A very nice breakfast is served to Tremont guests at Ditka's Steakhouse next door for $5 in the mornings. Even as a Platinum member it is still $5, but it is very good.

I cannot recommend this hotel highly enough. Fabulous location, great rate, big room, and a true upgrade. This is one of those stays that make me so loyal to the Starwood Brand.

schley

Five bucks? That sounds like a steal. I haven't been to Ditka's but I have heard it is very nice.

TRAVELSIG

Has the hotel been rennovated? Or as per previous?

kosair

I don't know if the entire hotel has been renovated, but my room certainly had and it looked like all the rooms on the 16th floor had been renovated.

Chris

BWIcrab

I stayed here recently and my 15th floor room was not renovated. I wish I had pushed for a room on 16.

Still, given the low rate I paid, the dated but clean room was what I would expect for an inexpensive, non-branded cat 3 in an appealing part of Chicago.

My real issue was the elevator situation. There is only one guest elevator for the 16 floors. It is slow, small, old, and made knocking noises while it operated. I spent a lot of time waiting for the elevator.

As a plat, they did give me a $5 coupon for the Ditka's brekafast spread. I didn't use it, but I beleive that would make it free.

uapremier

I just thought I’d post another quick report on the hotel since there were only a few trip reports with this hotel being relatively new to SPG. I’ll post just some random comments and observations hoping to add another data point for this hotel:

Overall: This hotel is located in a great part of town and the location is hard to beat. The hotel struck me as very worn and dated. It might have once had some European charm to it, but my impressions were that it was immensely tired. There was a couch in the lobby that I wouldn’t have even put in my college dorm room back in the day.
I also wouldn’t stay here again unless I or my client was incredibly price conscious. It is just hard to see how it would be worth it to stay here compared to the Westin Michigan Ave for 30-50$ more per night (which appears to be the difference on several dates for my upcoming stays and is about a block away).

Other quick notes about the hotel that add to or conflict with the few other reports:

It appears that the 15th floor has been “updated” and these rooms now have new carpet and a slightly remodeled bathroom. Old desk and other furniture and chairs remain.

I found the room old and tired and not particularly nice. I would have preferred to stay at a non-renovated four points---which I hope gives people a sense of where this hotel ranks in my opinion.

I didn’t find the elevator a problem. It does creak, but I didn’t wait long for it and found it actually fairly efficient for such a large hotel.

The hotel has 3 select standard suites and doesn’t appear to give out the penthouse suite (the one that a previous poster mentioned had a piano in it) to platinums anymore.
If you don’t get one of those 3 suites, you get a standard room (as there doesn’t appear to be any other upgrade).

Staff were friendly, but not particularly professional. The night receptionist had his feet up on the desk when I walked in.

Other clientele at the hotel struck me as young foreign tourists or college-age Americans looking for a cheap place to stay.

The breakfast was 5$ ---even for a platinum and I asked whether platinums got it free. They said no.
Breakfast consisted of some packaged muffins, cheerios cereal, rotting fruit, and coffee.
It also wasn’t really worth 5$- as I would have preferred just to grab a quick breakfast somewhere else with quality ingredients.

You can use the Westin Gym a block away.


Hope this helps for those of you considering this hotel in Chicago!

3Cforme

I'm not trying to be a wise guy, but stay at the Four Points on N Rush a few times and come back and let us know what you think.

worldtrav

Tired? This place is on the slab.

uapremier

I've actually stayed at the four points downtown and would echo what I said in my post--I still prefer that hotel to the Tremont. It wouldn't be my choice in chicago, but I still think its better than the Tremont.

wdchuck1

I was thrilled when I saw that the Tremont was now part of the Starwood family.
That ended about 30 seconds into my stay. To call it "a dump" is an insult to 1 and 2 star hotels.

I fully understand that Starwood just took over the management and is in the process of cleaning up the hotel but I can't understand why these rooms were marketed on the SPG site without a clear disclaimer of what can be expected. In fact, the photos on the site are grossly misleading - especially about the sizes of the rooms.

The hotel was basically empty (The $62 price should have been the tell) but the first room that they put me in was the size of a postage stamp and in just TERRIBLE condition

In addition:[LIST]

• One Old creaking Passenger elevator and one beaten up and hidden Service Elevator for "130 Charming rooms"- this can't work when the hotel is filled from an event in town
• No coffee machine in the room - No room service and worse, the "free" breakfast didn't start to serve until 7AM-
• No Tissues in the bathroom
• Furniture that is in terrible condition- tried to turn on a lamp and the tassel came off in my hand
• No Health club or facilities - "use the Westin Health club" - it's only 2 (LONG) blocks away - nice in Chicago in the summer and that gym has no shower or other similar facilities
• No amenities like writing pads, pens, etc
• A very "unspectacular" front office staff
  •No VOD or other useful services- Poor programming - missing major stations like CNBC and CBS-and no guide to show what programs were on. Half the stations did not have sound - Remote did not work -ran out of battery at about midnight.
• Small towels and only a few of them

Bottom line - they claim that they are doing renovations and will be done by 2/28 but I don't think that this is realistic at all.. What they should have done is to close the hotel down for 2-3 weeks and get it right before opening it.

Starwood does so many great things - one of them should be to insure that they do not market a property as a Starwood property that is so far off standards in so many areas as this property is!!

airplanepeanuts

Was the $62 price on the website or did you get this rate once you got there?

wdchuck1

ON THE SITE!!!!!! regular rate was $79 - this rate is the AAA rate but I have to tell you, unless you have a strong stomach, the $109 offered at the Sheraton Chicago is a MUCH better deal!!

EWRFlyerAL

I am staying at the Tremont currently and couldn't be happier. I checked in at 10 a.m. The room was ready and I was upgraded to a huge Penthouse Suite with a Baby Grand Piano and fireplace. The hotel is old but I think it has charm. At check in I was told to go to the restaurant in the AM for complimentary breakfast. Overall, a great stay and I couldn't be happier with the upgrade.

Flews

Sounds to me like there are two kinds of 'reviews' for this property: one ^ for the Penthouse "piano" suite; and another for the remaining 129 rooms!

Cheers,

landeej

Maybe all the bad press on FT will mean that no Plats will dare go near the place, and I'll be able to snag that fireplace suite during my next ricochet through Chicago...