I would also like to submit a report of my stay this past weekend.

Planning

My wife and I had our wedding ceremony and reception at this hotel last year and we wanted to come back to celebrate a slightly belated one year anniversary. The current AA double miles promotion between SFO and ORD was also an incentive.

We made our reservation through our moderator luxury who is a FSPP agent. He was very responsive with our special requests including lunch reservations at Deca and to have our wedding reception menu recreated and served in our room for dinner.

We booked a Deluxe Room. Both FS hotels are running a summer promotion offering a guaranteed upgrade upon booking. luxury was then able to secure us with a further upgrade from a Premier Room to a FS Executive Suite.

Check In

Upon check-in, we were then again upgraded to Deluxe FS Executive Suite because was a FSPP amenity (which I did not expect because I thought it was replaced by the guaranteed upgrade upon booking).

However, we were told that our room wasn't early when we tried to check-in at 7:00am because they were completely sold out the previous night. We were told that we would be given the next available suite as soon as possible. So we used the fitness center, walked around Michigan Ave, had breakfast at the David Burke Steakhouse at the James Hotel (excellent breakfast, BTW), and finally was able to check-in around noon when we were informed that were upgraded again to Premier One Bedroom Suite (room 3005 - I might have been nba1017's neighbor).

Accomodations

The suite as described by nba1017 is beautiful and tasteful. Last year on our wedding night, we were given a SW corner Deluxe Lakeside One-Bedroom Suite on the 23rd floor. Not to sound ungrateful, but I actually preferred the suite on the 23rd floor because it had a half-bath which was very useful since we had a Giordano's pizza and Champagne party with 20 of our guests after our wedding reception.

As nba1017 mentioned in another thread, the toiletries were Bulgari white tea which I did not like at all. The suite we had last year on the 23rd floor had L'Occitane which I much prefer. So I called housekeeping to ask them for a supply of L'Occitane. I was delighted when they delivered 3 bars of soap and 2 bottles each of shampoo/conditioner/lotion. Let's just say that I brought back home to San Francisco some very nice (and fragrant) souvenirs.

Lunch

Deca was very enjoyable and the service and food were good. They are offering a 50% off promotion on all wines by the glass and bottle on Sunday-Thursday. Krug is a bargain at $116! My wife wouldn't allow me to order a bottle because she didn't want to drink that much at lunch so we both ordered a glass - she a glass of Louis Roederer (aka Cristal for us middle class folk) and me a glass of Dom Ruinart Rose.

Public Areas

As nba1017 mentioned, the hotel was very busy this past weekend. They had 3 weddings on Saturday and 1 on Sunday. The public areas were alive with activity and the elevators were very crowded.

Concierge

We asked the concierge to make a lunch reservation for us at Nomi for the following day as well make a tour reservation for the architectural cruise. Jon the chief concierge was there. Venke handled my requests with aplomb. She is indeed very charming and she would fit right into one of the top properties in Switzerland.

In-room dining

As mentioned above, we wanted the hotel to recreate our wedding reception menu and have it served in our room. The hotel truly did an impressive job. They brought up the works including linen, china, silverware, and an ice bucket for our wine. The food was wonderful - my wife actually said the food was even better than at our wedding which we thought was very good already. They even made a small replica of our wedding cake with the same fillings and frosting.

But was really special was the gentleman who served us our meal, Jose. He served our meal, course by course, allowing us plenty of time to enjoy each course, pouring wine for us, make sure that we were enjoying ourselves. He left our room and came back several times to make sure that we had alone time together but also to make sure that our needs were met. He really did a fantastic job. It was truly a special experience as we enjoyed dinner with a dusk view of the lake, Lake Shore Drive, and Evanston. Jose told me that he has been an employee with the RC for 26 years. The hotel is fortunate to have such a loyal and dedicated employee.







The next morning we enjoyed breakfast in our room. My wife had the Japanese breakfast which she said was good. My smoked salmon was outstanding, buttery, rich, and robustly smoked which is the way I like it.

Other notes

After the big dinner in our room, we barely had enough room for a slice of our wedding cake replica - we were only able to eat a quarter of it. Jose said that they could store the leftover in the kitchen refrigerator and pack it for us to when we leave. We enjoyed it with friends over dinner after our late check-out the next day.

Rhonda is another notable employee. She works in the entrance on the ground floor welcoming guests. She went out of her way to run an errand for me.

As nba1017 mentioned, I was a bit perturbed that the hotel offered complimentary delivery of the Chicago Tribune and WSJ but there was a co-pay for the NY Times, even though the WSJ and the Times have the same cover price. As much as I appreciate the fact that the "journalists" at Rupert Murdoch-owned newspapers have truly extraordinary phone-hacking skills, I prefer to get my News of the World from the Times, and so would I imagine many guests that patronize FS properties in the U.S.

This hotel is unique from other Chicago luxury hotels in that it is staffed with so many long tenured dedicated employees. Our waitress at Deca remembered fondly with me when I reminded her that the Greenhouse used to serve a wonderful weekday lunch buffet with a carvery roast back in the late 90's.

The RC's loyal and dedicated employees is what makes this property a special one.