Marriott Hotels Continue to Satisfy - Northwest Chicago is No Exception!

I've been a fan of Marriott hotels for several years. I used to be strictly a "Hilton" man but I found a fair amount of inconsistencies among different locations. So after I cashed in about 400,000 Hilton points for a trip to Hawaii, I started building up my Marriott Rewards points.

In general (there's always an exception here or there), Marriott hotels seem to have excellent service and comfortable rooms. Case-in-point, my latest Marriott stay at the Marriott Chicago Northwest. This hotel is in the suburbs of Chicago in Hoffman Estates, about a 20 minute drive from O'Hare airport.

The hotel has free parking. Check-in was flawless and friendly. I will warn you before I even start that Marriott is not a smoker friendly hotel chain. They have gone to a strict non-smoking policy for ALL rooms. There are notices that guests will be charged a $250 "recovery" fee if they smoke in the rooms. I wonder if they have actually ever enforced that. But since I don't smoke I do have to say it was nice walking into the room and not smelling any lingering smoke.

I walked into room 603 and found a spotless if not plain basic room. It wasn't that large, but since it was only me in the room, it was fine. I always get a king size bed and the new mattresses which Marriott are using are extremely comfortable. I did need to use two of the pillows, though. They are small and way too soft for me.

There was a large ample sized working desk and the table lamp had power outlets built in which were enough for my laptop and phone. The lamp also has a connection for wired, dial-up Internet. Wireless connection is available for $9.95/24 hours.

The TV seemed pretty small in comparison to what I've seen at other hotels but I'm not there to strictly watch TV. In fact, this trip, was strictly work so I was at the desk preparing for a presentation for the next morning. I was glad to see the remote did have an easy "sleep" setting so I could fall asleep watching TV and have it turn off after an hour and not worry about having to wake up at 3:00 am looking for the remote.

Most people don't think too much about the bathroom when they are at a hotel, but I love Marriotts because they use the Bath and Body Works Orange-Ginger Aromatherapy products: Soap, shampoo, conditioner, and skin lotion. I liked that shampoo so much I actually asked my wife to pick up some for me the next time she went to the retail store! The shower had a Speakman shower head but the pressure wasn't that great.

I like getting newspapers delivered outside of my door in the mornings. Unfortunately, this Marriott had USA Today papers by the elevators and down by the front desk. Wall Street Journal papers were also available in the lobby. I was also a bit disappointed that there was not a mini refrigerator or microwave in the room. That would help if you had leftovers from dinner and wanted to reheat them later. Perhaps the concierge level rooms has those amenities, my floor did not.

Just some additional stuff: Local phone calls are $1.00 per call. There's a business center in the lobby. You can get up to 20 free B&W copies and after that 15 cents per side. The first 20 incoming fax pages are also free. The hotel also has a decent health club and while they have a pool, I didn't check it out.

The Marriott's River City Grille wasn't bad for a hotel restaurant. I sampled the breakfast buffet with made to order omelets ($14), lunch, and dinner. Lunches offer a buffet. On the day I was there it was "Mexican" day. The food was decent for all three meals and prices average for a hotel.

I paid $161 for the room, but the rack is a staggering $530/night. I don't know who in right mind would pay that for this particular room.

The service was great, the room was comfortable and quiet, and I can't say there is anything that would keep me away from staying there again!

Marriott Chicago Northwest

4800 Columbine Blvd

Hoffman Estates, IL 60192