60018 Travel Guide
Hotel Openings
InterContinental O'Hare :: "More Kinks Than A Chiropractic Convention" or Smooth Sailing?
September 19, 2008 at 12:52 PM | 0 Comments
Look, we're not ones to take the word of TripAdvisor reviewers as gospel -- especially since we understand that sometimes folks won't really take the time to write about a hotel on the Internet unless their experiences at said hotel are exceptionally miserable or fantastic.
Nonetheless, we like to consult TA when hotels are in their first days of operation because we like to get a 'lil peek at what folks are saying about it (especially if we haven't had a chance to check the place out ourselves). So we did our usual TA-spying on the brand new InterContinental Chicago O'Hare and it looks like the hotel got off to a bit of a rocky start during the soft opening at the beginning of the month, but everything seems to be going a bit more smoothly now.
Hotel Openings
Swanky InterContinental Chicago O'Hare Now Open
September 8, 2008 at 5:10 PM | 0 Comments
Swanky airport hotels tend to win our hearts. Like, we love a great hotel and all, but when the airport hotel manages to be a "great hotel" without prompting that little "...for an airport hotel" clause to be tacked onto the end, we feel as though we've struck the hotel-geek version of gold -- for reference, see the lovefest we bestowed upon the Grand Hyatt DFW Airport.
That said, we have super-high hopes for the brand new InterContinental Chicago O'Hare, a 556-room hotel and conference center that opened up around Chicago's O'Hare airport today.
Aloft Hotels
Hey, Chicago: You're Aloft-Free No More!
August 14, 2008 at 12:50 PM | 2 Comments
Lo! What light through yonder window breaks? It is Chicago, and Aloft is the sun...
Even the esteemed Bard Shakespeare would find something novel to say about the grand opening of the Aloft Rosemont at O'Hare Airport, that hasn't been said a thousand times before.
Surely he would concoct some delicious snark about Aloft Hotels dotting the globe in a slow yet deliberate campaign for world hotel domination.
No doubt he would kill us softly with some carefully crafted sonnet about those uber-hip W-ish terms for 24-hour food bars (example: re:fuel), the ticket kiosks in the lobby, the funky amenities in those sleek open-style bathrooms, free water bottles in the room, nightclub-styled public seating areas. Yet, all we can muster is "yadda yadda."
Airport Hotels
Chicago O'Hare Airport Gets A Swanky Hotel
January 25, 2008 at 12:03 PM | 0 Comments
While the trend for airport hotels these days is small and cheap with a hint of chic and geek tech like Yotel or Aloft, Chicago O'Hare is getting a much grander hotel--an Intercontinental.
Travelers can begin to crash in one of the hotel's 556 rooms in September 2008.
The hotel is accessible from the airport by a complimentary 24-hour shuttle. It will have three restaurants on site (supposedly "renowned" Chicago joints"), a live entertainment venue, rooms decked with original artwork, a fitness center and tons of meeting space.
And judging from this press release, the hotel will make good use of that meeting space as the release notes:
The American Society of Health-System Pharmacists, a professional organization of 30,000 members based in Bethesda, Md., is the first group to take advantage of The InterContinental Chicago O'Hare's prime location, expansive meeting space and on-site entertainment.
Oh and guess what? The Rosemont Convention Center is across the street. Still it's nice to know that if you get stranded at Chicago O'Hare (and the odds are good at this airport), you can relax in some luxury digs for a night. Just remember to ask for a distressed traveler rate.
