I booked online and reserved a 21 day advanced rate for 1 night. I am a Diamond. I booked the cheapest room available. A couple days before my stay, the pre-arrivals coordinator emailed me telling me the pool table suite that I requested would be available. Cool! I took another look at my online res and in the comments it said : (along with alot of code) DO NOT WALK!!POOL TABLE ROOM!! The hotel was going be busting out of its seams that night I guess.

I arrived at 8PM and valeted(?) my car($31) The lobby was very large and ornate. I did not realize how big this hotel was. Went to checkin and got in line. There was 1 dude ahead of me. Had I looked around directly behind me, I would have seen the HH checkin. DOH! I smiled at the checkin agent and gave her my name. Now comes the funny parts: The guy ahead of me just got there from Ohare after flying 30 hours that day from Australia. The lady said that they were all booked and that he could have a large living room suite with a "roll away" bed. He thought for all of half a second before he said that he wanted a normal bed. After a bit, agent said that he would be upgraded to the executive lounge for his troubles. He thanked them and left. My turn. Just in case, I gave the agent my Diamond card. She told me she would be right back. She went in the back room for a couple of minutes. I slowly started to put my hand in my pocket where I had the printouts stating what room I was getting and that I was not to be walked. Before I could get the copies out, she came back and told me that there was a problem and that I had 2 choices. They had reserved the pool table suite for me. It was very large but the attached bedroom was already rented out to someone else. They explained to me that the pool table suite can be rented out separately for parties and such. The hotel offers many different configs for their rooms. Made sense to me. They said I could have that room(Pool Table Suite) and they would get a roll away bed in there for me. I said what else is available? She said that I could have a parlor suite which was the same size as the Pool Table suite. I said I wanted both :).She told me to wait a second and went back to the back room. During our whole conversation, I was in a very relaxed mood and we were both actually laughing at the situation. She came back and said that I would be able to use the Pool Table Suite for 2 hours. I said OK. I got 4 room key cards: 1 for the exec lounge, 1 for the pool table suite, and 2 for my parlor suite. I go to the elevator. Whoever said that the elevators were slow hasn't been here recently. I had to pop my ears after I got off. The elevators are divided by blocks of floors like the big high rises. It took me a couple minutes to get to my room. Did I already mention that the hotel was huge? I walk into the room and it is huge. It seems a little bit old but still done in a very charming style. The suite has a wet bar, dining room table for 6, living room, 2 tvs, 2 fridges, 2 full baths, and a master bedroom. I dropped my bags and after a quick look around, I went looking for the pool table suite 2 stories down. I walk into the room and it is the same size as my parlor suite minus the bedroom.(I saw several door at the end of small hallways that I assumed went to connecting bedrooms. Pool table was in good shape. Cues were not. After looking around for a bit, got a call from my friend who had arrived at the hotel to meet me for some drinks. I don't drink much but he does. Went to the front of the hotel to meet him.(it took about 5 minutes) I got in his car and we went to the parking garage on the next block. The self-park garage is a block over and you have to go outside to get back to the hotel. Self park is $23. On the way back to the hotel, I noticed that there were several security officers at the different entrances to the hotel checking for room keys. That made me feel good. We head on up to the Executive Lounge on the executive floor. The elevator has a bench in it. I had to swipe my card to get in the elevator. This has got to be the biggest lounge that I have ever seen. There is a PC area, tv, cash bar,smoking section, non-smoking section, dedicated HH concierge, hot snacks, and unlimited soft drinks(yeah). We grab a seat and the bartender takes our drink order. I ask him if he wants my room number for the bill. He says to write it on a form and it will be an open tab. I said OK. The lounge closes at 11PM. At 11PM the bartender gives my friend one last drink and disappears. I thought he was gonna be back to get my signature for the bill. He never came back. I wish he did because I wanted to give him a tip because he was so cool. I had a White Russian and 4 diet cokes. That's a good ratio for me. I didn't even finish the White Russian [img]http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif[/img] The Australian I had seen at check in showed up at the lounge and chain smoked for a couple a minutes, said hi and then went to sleep. My friend left at midnight and I headed back to my room. The lounge was in a different tower than my room so it was a elevator ride back to the lobby before hitting the elevators that went to my room. I have to make this trek one more time for breakfast. Next morning, I wake up and I get cleaned up. They serve breakfast until 11 AM so I slowly head on over the Exec Lounge. The lounge is pretty crowded but I easily find a spot to sit. They had bagels, cereal, juices, croissants, yogurt, and pastries. They had more stuff but I don't remember. Lot's of different kinds of coffee, teas and cappuchinos coming out of self serve machines. I don't drink it so I didn't really pay attention to it too much. After eating, I went to see the HH concierge working on the floor about an error on my folio which was under my door that morning. I had already pre-paid for the room but there was an additional room charge on my bill for a night probably due to the confusion at checkin. She took care of it and I was back off to my room. I double checked the folio and I realized that they never charged me for the drinks we had on either folio. I heard in another post that this happened to someone else. Now I really wished I could have tipped the bartender I packed and got ready to leave. They said I didn't need to check out until 2 PM if I wanted. It was around 12:30 PM. I called a number to check out and gave my parking stub to the valet office. After 10 minutes, my car shows up and after giving the guy $5, I am off.

Overall

My take on the Palmer. It is an old hotel but still very nice. It is a big place. Exec Lounge is very nice. Food there is average. Bartender is awesome. They have good security at night. Fast elevators. Nice employees. If there was one bad point, the walls between bedrooms may be a bit thin. The next morning when I woke up, I could hear the next door neighbor arguing with someone. I tried going back to sleep. They kept arguing. I got up and went to the door and banged on it while yelling SHUT UP! I was able to get back to sleep. I didn't have a chance to eat at any of their restaurants so no comments there. I enjoyed it and valuewise, I don't think it could be beat. Here are some pictures of the 2 different rooms. There are 3 pages of pics.http://groups.msn.com/TheSuhFamilyWebsite/palmerhousehiltonchicago.msnw[This message has been edited by korea71 (edited 05-11-2003).]