Interesting to hear a very similar experience that I just had last weekend. Booked SHS river north because we needed three beds incl sofa bed but RI river north had only two for reward stay (they were the same price). Room wasn't ready at around 5pm when we checked in and saw a bunch of unhappy people in the lobby area for room not ready. To not miss the call, I held my phone over the next two hours wandering around the city despite being tired and finally came back at 7 and surprised that the room was already ready. Asked if there was any attempt to give me call, they said no with an attitude that who does that in Chicago as someone also mentioned here. They were apologetic for the delayed room but I felt naive for expecting their call. Went down to retrieve my bags waiting for help but I didn't know I was supposed to tell anyone at check in desk so that someone had to come down to bring my bag at that late hours (7pm). Overall I found the employees exhausted, cold and did minimum to us but there was a protest every morning at a nearby hotel so maybe overall mood among hospitality job employees may not be good these days.

Room was good, breakfast was good. Our room was 9th floor facing west. Glad that we weren't at RI because up to 10th or 11th, view of RI rooms facing west is blocked by parking garage whereas SHS has an open view. Apologies for the quality of the picture but room size is notably different between SHS and RI (bigger RI rooms) at least on the 9th floor. I split the line but there was no real blockage between two hotels at the floors I went.