My girlfriend and I spent two nights over the Thanksgiving holiday at the Intercontinental. This hotel was very beautiful throughout most of the interior and exterior the adjoined restaurant/bar and Starbucks was enjoyable and convenient for day and night time city walkers like ourselves. The best aspect of the hotel is its location in my opinion. It's literally right on Michigan Avenue, head just one block North and you're dead in the middle of the Magnificent Mile, famous for fabulous shopping and boutiques.
The lobby was ornate and gorgeous with some crowd issues during the night time, since it was not a very large lobby. Check in was rather easy. We had booked the room weeks in advance via Hotwire and recommend that method if possible, of course it's not feasible to know with 100% accuracy that you'll get the Intercontinental when booking through them, but if it's a 4 Star in the Loop you may be in luck. I believe we paid $130 a night.
The history behind the hotel is rather extensive and unfortunately we did not have the time to check out all of what the hotel has to offer in terms of historical significance. Although I did wander lost in the the historic tower a bit after getting ice! The building and towers are a bit confusing in the L-shape turn hallways that lead into different sections of the hotel entirely without you noticing when you head up or down stairs. But the pool must be seen. It's one of the most beautiful indoor pools that I have seen.
As for the room, it was extremely cozy and reminded me of the Palace Hotel in San Francisco a few weeks ago, so much so in fact that the Screen Saver on the plasma tv was exactly the same and playing the same hypnotic tune, on the neutral Hotel channel. The refrigerator was packed with overly priced alcohol and soft drinks. I'd rather have the space to store leftovers or my own alcohol from stores down the street to be honest. The room itself was much less spacious than the Palace, and in general was very tight. It had a Queen Size bed and a 3 cushion couch tucked near the window. Not much room to put any large luggage without it obstructing your walkway to and from the door and bathroom. The bed was comfortable and the TV was a pleasantly large HD flat screen. My particular view being on the 12th floor overlooked the backside of the neighboring buildings and street. So not a very awe-inspiring view, but then again it wasn't a special room in the historic tower nor a suite.
The concierge were well informed and found information with extreme ease and speed. I recommend walking to Trump tower and if it isn't the winter time definitely check out the architecture tours down the Chicago River.
Check out was very easy through Instant Service on your phone, simply leave the card keys in the room after they verify any additional charges and at 12:00PM.
Overall, the Intercontinental is one of the prettier hotels in Chicago, but it's most attractive feature is its centralized location to the downtown shopping area. Some negatives are the unusually small lobby for such a nice hotel and small rooms with the small refrigerator stuffed with high-priced booze instead of leaving space for personal boissants. If you are into shopping and want to see the architecture and cultural center of the city this should be a definite place to stay for under $200 a night.
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