The Whitehall Hotel

Good price for the weekend, nice view of the Hancock, neat they have options for food and drinks downstairs. We got to the Whitehall around 6:30PM on Friday night, to find one of the automatic doors to enter was not working correctly. Next up: one of the elevators (of only 2 tiny elevators) was broken down. Everything had a luster of the past, but needed updating, cleaning, replacing, etc. In our room, the carpet was stained and one of our sheets had a hole in it. To add insult to injury, of the 2 phones in the bedroom, one didn't work at all, and the other only worked if you pressed 0. (ie, none of the corresponding keys to concierge etc worked). The shower faucet where you adjust the temperature was also broken - as it was loose and hard to finagle into getting a temperature that didn't scald or freeze you. And maybe the worst of all? We had gone out for brunch on Saturday, and come back, said we didn't want to be disturbed, but then, while we were napping, someone CAME INTO OUR ROOM without knocking to check our minibar!!! What?! Who does this!?!? This hotel is 2 star-worthy, not 4. They need to SERIOUSLY up their game or deal with reality. Also - we were charged for 2 items (a granola bar and candy bar) that we didn't even take. The lady said "sometimes touching something in the minibar triggers these prices). I said "that would make sense if either thing were even *in* the minibar!" So, there you go. That's the truth of the place. Judge for yourself.

Location. A block away off the Magnificent Mile, North Side near the John Hancock building. The North Side of Chicago downtown is the nicer & safest part of downtown Chicago. Also has more restaurants and shopping centers within close walking proximity than the south part of downtown Chicago/or the loop. We were are from San Diego, CA, it was our first time visiting Chicago, we are definitely going back (much nicer & easier to get around than NY). We will definitely stay in the North side of town again, but definitely never booking the Whitehall ever again & we are never prepaying for a hotel ever again, unless we have stayed there in the past & we already know what we are booking. Had we not prepaid for the hotel we would have checked out & booked another hotel. We Checked in at around 2pm Dec 26th for a 6 night stay. First room we got on 8th floor modern decor but was not as the one we expected from the pictures, it was a 3star room because the bathroom was big & definitely worthy of a 4star, but room was not. Even in the dim light we could see the walls & furniture were old, once we used our cell flash lights to see better in the room, the walls were scary. And there was a wall just 2 ft away from our window, so even in the day no natural light came in. we tried it for a few hrs but we felt like we were being enclosed & we had 7 days to go & we were there on our 10th yr wedd annv. So at around 7pm, we called front desk, Rebecca was super nice, we requested if we could get a room that was not facing a wall, just something that had a view to the outside world. We got mover to room on the 19th floor, bathroom was small, but room was bigger in size, but worse in décor & condition. Traditional décor, but not in a good way, even more older furniture and walls than first room, & bed frame & fixtures had a layered of dust, as if no one had cleaned it in 10yrs. And I found a woman's sweater and hair wig in the closet. Lets just say the only area I felt okay to get undressed was the bathroom as this was the only 4star worthy part of the room.The only reason why we stayed in this new room is because the room was a corner room away from the main hallway, which seemed a lot safer, being that this hotel did not seem safe at all & the hallways & elevator are super narrow & small & seem taken out of an episode from the "Twilight Zone". Hallway walls are old & musky, elevator even had tagging, I never stay at a hotel that's less than 3stars, never had seen this type of condition in any of the hotels I have stayed. And in past 10yrs we have vacation 2-3 times a yr. Not sure how they have manage to keep a 4star rating. The only 4star worthy of this hotel is the bathrooms in rooms, hotel restaurant, & hotel staff. Rebecca gave us a nice letter and vouchers (we only used the breakfast voucher) to apologize for the hair wig & sweater, but the damage was more than done. We had a hard time even being in our hotel room, before our trip we had originally planned to spend more time relaxing in hotel, but definitely we ended up trying to be out of our hotel as much as possible. If they had 4star rooms elsewhere in the hotel, then we did not stay in one, which again does not make this a 4star hotel because a 4star hotel should have all rooms in 4star condition starting from their smallest deluxe rooms all the way up to their suites. Unacceptable, if anything they are a 2 1/2 to 3star hotel.

You can hear everything from near room. Staff is not helpfull.

Unfriendly staff Having to request ice No coffeemaker No easy access to coffee

Great location, clean, comfortable bed, quiet,friendly staff. Would stay there again. No in room coffee, no ice machines or vending machines. Parking was $65 per day.

The bed Elevators not working.

Location was good, rooms were decorated nicely and had been updated. Was the cheapest of the 4 star hotels by $40 and we needed two rooms so we saved almost $100. Great rooms if you're traveling alone. We've stayed at almost every 4 and 5 star hotel in Chicago so we have a lot to compare this to. Whitehall by far is the worst of the best. Service was average, didn't feel like the employees truly cared about our experience but were just going trough the motions of what they were told to do. Minibar was super annoying, it had a lock on it that could only be unlocked remotely by the front desk and when we called to ask they couldn't do it bc they were busy with another customer and then forgot altogether. It also auto charges when you touch anything, even just placing our son's milk into the fridge caused a charge. A 4 star hotel should eliminate these types of annoyances. Rooms are very snug and beds are queen size.

Location was right in the heart of Chicago. Overpriced and overcharged for everything!