Illinois

Lodging Review: Home2Suites by Hilton Joliet/Plainfield

Four friends stayed here for a weekend while visiting another friend who lives in the area. We had two rooms, one with a king bed and the other with two queen beds. Otherwise the rooms were identical. As part of our reservation we asked to be on the same floor and that request was honored, which was nice. Our rooms ended up being just catty-cornered across the hall from one another.

We arrived mid-morning, knowing we were too early for check-in and, unsurprisingly, our rooms were not ready. We asked to be notified when they were available and went to visit our friend at her house. A few hours later when we went to lunch I got a call saying our rooms were ready, well before the official 3 PM check-in time.

We were checked in promptly and given a couple of bottles of water. I later got an email stating that I’d receive points as my gift due to my Gold status. As a limited-service property, I was not expecting any kind of upgrade so this was just fine.

We were on the second of the three floors, right in the middle of the building. My window actually overlooked the awning over the front door. There’s not much of a view at this hotel as it’s in an area where there are a few other hotels and a mall, but it’s convenient to the interstate and there are quite a few restaurants in the area.

Guest Room

The room was identical to other H2S properties I’ve visited: upon entering you’re in the kitchenette, with the bathroom to one side.  The kitchenette features a full-sized fridge, a microwave, a dishwasher and a coffee machine.

Step in further and there’s a sleeper sofa with an ottoman across from a shelving unit that features a rolling table/desk and a desk chair. One thing that has always puzzled me about H2S setup is that this room can sleep 4 people (plus up to two kids on the sleeper sofa) yet there’s only one chair in the room. When we went down for breakfast on the Saturday morning, it was so busy there was nowhere to sit, so we brought our food back to the room. We ended up with two sitting on the sofa, we rolled the table out and used the desk chair and the ottoman for the two other seats. Not ideal, but we made it work.

At the far end of the room is the closet and the beds.

Each bed has its own night stand with a lamp, an AC outlet and a USB outlet. In the middle is a small chest with another lamp. It, too, has an AC outlet on it. I love that Hiltons in general have a lot of easy-to-access outlets!

The bathroom has a nice, wide counter and two drawers for storage, with the hair dryer kept in one of them. There’s also a bit of storage under the toilet paper rolls. Lots of fluffy towels were provided as well.

The shower stall is across from the sink. The doors slid easily and there were wall-mounted toiletries from Zero that worked just fine. I also liked that there were two upper shelves, one in each corner and in the back of the shower there was a low shelf, just perfect for propping up my leg for shaving.

The hotel was opened in 2017 and still seems to be in great shape. I didn’t notice any nicks or rust in our room. Our only gripe was how heavy the bathroom pocket door was. Yes, it had a little pull that popped out but still, no weaklings allowed here!

Second Floor Hallway

Common Areas

Lobby

Breakfast is served in the lobby from 6-9 AM weekdays and 7-10 AM on weekends and holidays. It’s not huge but there’s a decent variety. Three kinds of juice and water is available on tap.

Coffee is available all day at its own station.

Fresh yogurt, fresh fruit, and a toaster for pastries were on hand.

Cereal and oatmeal, with a selection of goodies to add to it were on offer as well as several different kinds of milk.

Hard-boiled eggs and cheese and this warmer which had all the pieces so you could assemble your own breakfast sandwich. The eggs were in little round shapes, perfectly sized for the sandwich. Though I didn’t try it, that pretzel bread looks pretty good!

There were lots of seating areas – and the business center computer is in this area too – but breakfast can be a very busy time as we found out on the Saturday. On Sunday things were much calmer but I suppose that all depends on what’s going on in the area.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

There’s also outdoor seating at a fire pit though it rained a good part of the day during our visit.

Next to the Front Desk is the mini-mart which has snacks as well as cold beverages and frozen meals.

Spin2Cycle

This area has both the gym and the washers & dryers. The gym is not large but there are several aerobic machines as well as dumbbells and a universal machine. Both areas are open 24/7.

The laundry area has two pairs of washers and dryers, each of which cost $2 per load.

There’s also an ATM in this area.

Pool

The pool is open from 6 AM to 11 PM and children under age 16 must be accompanied by an adult. It’s not a large pool but it looked to be in good shape and it even had some beach balls available.

Not only was there seating around the pool, but there was a door that opened onto a patio where there were tables with umbrellas. Pool towels were provided so you don’t have to bring your room towel downstairs.

In the end

We had a choice of three Hilton properties for our stay. As we thought we might want to sit and talk at some point we chose Home2Suites because we knew the rooms would be bigger. That worked out well when we needed to eat breakfast in the room. The staff was friendly, the room was clean, I have no complaints and would be happy to stay here again if I’m back in the area.

Categories: Hilton, Home2Suites, Hotel, Illinois, Lodging Review, North America, United States | Tags: , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Lodging Review: Fairfield Inns and Suites, Chicago O’Hare

A Quick Trip to the Northern Plains
Lodging Review: Home2 Suites by Hilton Rapid City, SD
Our Visit to the Crazy Horse Memorial and Custer State Park
Our Visit to Mount Rushmore and Theodore Roosevelt National Park
Lodging Review: TownePlace Suites, Dickinson, North Dakota
Lodging Review: Fairfield Inns & Suites, Chicago O’Hare

After driving literally all day, we made it back to Chicago and pulled into the Fairfield Inns & Suites Chicago O’Hare about 10 PM. We’d booked a room here anticipating that our Chicago-based friend would drop off my LA-based friend and me so she wouldn’t have to drive us back out to the airport the next day for our flights. But my LA-based friend decided to stay an extra few days visiting another friend so I had the room to myself. Once again we’d use an expiring free night certificate for our room, booking a room with two queen beds. Shortly before we departed on the road trip we called to see if we could switch to a 1 King room but they said the hotel was nearly sold out so they couldn’t make the change. We didn’t ask about it again at check-in as it really didn’t matter at that point.

Fairfield Inn & Suites Chicago O’Hare
photo from marriott.com

Continue reading

Categories: Fairfield Inn, Hotel, Illinois, Lodging Review, Marriott, North America, United States | Tags: , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A Quick Trip to the Northern Plains: Introduction

A Quick Trip to the Northern Plains
Lodging Review: Home2 Suites by Hilton Rapid City, SD
Our Visit to the Crazy Horse Memorial and Custer State Park
Our Visit to Mount Rushmore and Theodore Roosevelt National Park
Lodging Review: TownePlace Suites, Dickinson, North Dakota
Lodging Review: Fairfield Inns & Suites, Chicago O’Hare

Due to not taking my usual two-week international vacation in the fall of 2021, I found myself with some extra vacation days to use before my company’s fiscal year ended. My two travel pals and I had not all been together since our trip to New Zealand and Australia in the fall of 2019 so we were all glad to get to be together again. In the past we’d discussed domestic trips we’d like to do but had just never gotten around to so this seemed a good time of year to explore the Dakotas a bit.

Despite doing a road trip around the Southeastern US about a year ago, I’m not a huge fan of road trips. I’d rather fly and get a car. Flights into Rapid City, SD aren’t exactly cheap and my friend from Chicago said she’d be driving anyway, so we decided my LA-based friend and I would fly to Chicago and we’d all spend a little quality time together on the way out and back.

Driving there and back was an all-day affair each way. With a very early morning start we drove from the WSW suburbs of Chicago to Rapid City, SD with a sit-down lunch break and a few gas stops and arrived around 4 PM. On our return, we left Dickinson, ND just after 7 AM and arrived at an O’Hare-area hotel right at 10 PM with only a brief stop to grab-and-go some lunch and a few more gas stops. Rapid City and Dickinson are both on Mountain Time so while we gained an hour going there, we lost an hour coming back.

We save our points to use on vacation so even if this wasn’t the best use of points or certificates we got to stay free which was most important to us. We stayed at a Home2 Suites by Hilton in Rapid City on points, a TownePlace Suites in Dickinson and the Fairfield Inn & Suites O’Hare, both using Marriott free-night certificates that otherwise would have gone unused.

In between we visited the Crazy Horse Memorial, Mount Rushmore, Custer State Park and Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Our weather ran the gamut from sunny and pleasant to windy with sleet/snow.

As the whole trip was less than a week and we really only had two days on the ground, it’s a pretty quick trip report.

Categories: Fairfield Inn, Hilton, Historical Site, Home2Suites, Illinois, Marriott, North America, North Dakota, Road Trip, South Dakota, TownePlace Suites, Trip Report, United States | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Review: Hyatt Place Chicago O’Hare Airport

At the end of my business trip my LOT Airlines flight arrived in Chicago too late to catch the last flight back to Memphis on a Friday evening so I booked a stay at the Hyatt Place Chicago O’Hare Airport. The hotel has a free shuttle that runs every half hour. As I have a friend in the area I did not take the shuttle to the hotel but did take it back to the airport in the morning.

One thing I like about Hyatt Places is the consistency and this hotel did not disappoint in that respect. The check-in desk is just inside the front door and I was greeted promptly and thanked for my loyalty as a Discoverist (gained by holding the Chase Hyatt Visa) and offered a free bottle of water. Check-in was quick and I was assigned a room on the second floor.

The lobby seemed a bit larger than I recall at other Hyatt Places, or perhaps it’s just because the hotel is shaped a little differently. I later realized there were several conference rooms which I don’t believe is something I normally see at Hyatt Places, so perhaps that’s why there was more seating.

Hyatt Place Chicago O’Hare Lobby Seating

Hyatt Place Chicago O’Hare Conference Room Lobby

Continue reading

Categories: Hotel, Hyatt, Illinois, Lodging Review, North America, United States | Tags: , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.