We booked a 2-night stay here for our family of 4 + baby (2 adults, a 5-year-old, a 3-year-old, and a 3-month-old). Obviously, traveling with such a group is never going to be seamless, but we were pretty happy with the room (12th fl, great view south towards the AON Center). It was a "King Suite", so my wife and I and the baby slept in the King, with the two kids on the sofa bed in the front room.
Besides the two-room setup with fridge and microwave, another huge plus for staying here with kids is that there's a Dominick's grocery store directly across the street (and FYI, your Safeway card seems to work there). That saved us the first night when everyone was too tired to endure a dinner outing and we bought dinner and other supplies from there.
Friday morning's free breakfast was a total fiasco. The line was about 20 minutes or more to get your food, seats were hard to come by, and they kept on running out of things like plates and silverware. It was obvious that the crowd was 90% families, which obviously slows things down. There wasn't any obvious way to help the situation (other than maybe keeping supplies filled so that people aren't disrupting the flow by barging into another line to get a fork). It really started our day off on a sour note. Inexplicably, I never saw the lines get out of hand on Saturday morning though. My guess is that so many people had been traumatized by Friday's scene that they either sent one family member down to fill a tray for the rest (as we did) or they just went to Dominick's or some other place for breakfast.
Another drawback is the fact that you need to take an elevator from street level up to the 5th-floor "Sky Lobby" and a second one up to your room. Just a pain when you're going back and forth (e.g. if you're playing the parking meter game, see below).
Parking charges are always punitive in downtown hotels, and this one is no exception. $39/night to valet park, $32 to self-park. We managed to get through our two nights with only about $25 in charges (a $53 savings). There are meters immediately south of the hotel and to the east on that same block (between the Sheraton and Illinois Ave). They run 9 am to 9 pm, so if you get a spot at night, you don't have to get up at dawn to move it. The lot which is located southwest across the intersection of Illinois and Columbus from the hotel charges $22 for 24 hours (with, obviously, no in and out priveleges), so we did use that for a long stint that first night. Another parking location that can be attempted is the lowest of the 3 levels of Wacker Drive, just south of the Chicago river. The meters are 7am - 7 pm, though, and there are quite a few homeless people living down there, so I can't vouch for the security of it. I'd definitely park there during the day (and I did), but chickened out for the overnight stint.
Getting back to the hotel itself, it's a good choice for its access to Grant Park and Millenium Park (less than a mile to the South), Michigan Ave (a couple of blocks east), Navy Pier (if that's your bag) and some metered parking. If you're an early riser, you shouldn't experience the problems with the breakfast traffic. Staff were all fine, breakfast is above average for a free one. We didn't partake in the happy hour (long lines again, of course), but I'd guess it was typical for Embassy Suites.
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