The Trump hotel would have easily earned 4 stars from me were it not for some really annoying faux pas. Note: these wouldn't be such a big deal if not for Trump's endless windbaggery about how he does things "The Best", "The Greatest", "The Be All and End All". When you make those kinds of boasts, Mr. Trump, that's what I expect of your organization. I am a low-key guest who doesn't demand much. When a hotel can't even deliver on the basics? They're FIRED.

First the good things:

- Rooms are enormous w/fantastic views
- I only paid $199 for the room ($399 seems a bit of a stretch for the location, but the property is new, clean, pristine & a value at $199)

Now for the less-than-good things. For $199, they're fine. For being a purported 5-star property? They are a joke.

- No one told us that you needed to use your room key in order to operate the elevator, so we stood around looking like village idiots for several minutes, punching the buttons & wondering what the malfunction was until another guest explained them to us.

- No internet in the room! I called the concierge about this & was told this was an issue they have w/AT&T, specifically. Aren't they the largest wireless network in the U.S?. So surfing for local attractions on my iphone wasn't possible w/o heading for the business center three floors down (no thanks).

- The pretentious "Water Menu" in the room. I can't figure out if Trump & Co. were serious about this, or if it was put there for comic relief. Truly, it was one of the most pretentious and faux-classy (or "klassy") things I've ever seen. Evian or Fiji is just fine, Mr. Trump. We don't need to guzzle, "a truly brilliant water whose time has come." (Seriously, that's an actual quote. We were dying!)

- Large TV in room was perfect for late night tv watching, although the In-House programming menu didn't match what was actually playing. It might say that a certain movie was playing on HBO at 10:00 PM, but when you turned to that channel, it was something completely different. After channel surfing a bit, we decided to give it up turn in early.

- As we were drifting off to sleep at around 11:30 PM, the phone rang. In a pitch black hotel room with 3 phones, you can imagine how disconcerting - and LOUD - that would be. I groped around for the phone (which was on the other side of the bed), trying not to wake my 13 year old niece, but then the ringing stopped.

Ok - whew. That must have been a fluke, right? I went back to bed, heart still racing a bit from the shock.

10 minutes later, right as I was beginning to relax, it rang again! This time i was concerned. I don't even get late-night phone calls at home, much less when I'm at a hotel for the night. Something must be wrong. So, I turned on the light, woke up my niece, answered the phone & heard, "Yeah - I'd like to order a small pizza."

Shocked & dazed, I told the caller he had the wrong #. "Is this [--]?" he asked

Why, yes - it was. Apparently he had dialed the main switchboard # and been put through to OUR ROOM at 11:45 PM. Lovely.

Furious, I called the switchboard & asked them to hold all calls for our room until 7:00 AM the following morning.

- When I mentioned this at checkout, I could tell by the look on the woman's face that she was mortified. She admitted that it was essentially the hotel's fault, as there were a lot of people @ the hotel w/my last name & the call probably got passed through to us accidentally.

This upset me. What kind of ineptitude managed that feat 2x in a row?

We had only one expense while we were @ the hotel: A $31 breakfast (for coffee & a bagel w/lox). I would have thought that she would have comped us for our trouble.
Nope! Instead she apologized and then smiled and asked, "But you got enough sleep, right?"

Uh, that's not the point. The inmates @ San Quentin probably get enough sleep every night, too. I could have slept more peacefully at home. And, next time I will, or else I'll spend the extra $150 and head for the Peninsula or IV Seasons, where I know their promises of "World Class" service are more than just hot air & $25 bottles of drinking water. (LOL - still giggling at that one.)

My wife and I recently spent two nights at Trump while celebrating her 40th birthday. We both came away from our stay with mixed emotions.

On the plus side, the hotel has a great location as it's situated on the river and only a short walk to the Mag Mile, Millennium Park, etc. Our room was aesthetically appealing and quite comfortable, particularly the bathroom, which had a large shower and bath area. In addition, we were very satisfied with our spa service (Soul to Soul), though it was a tad bit expensive.

While the hotel has a lot going for it, there were too many minor irritations that left us with a negative impression. I'll start with the $50/night valet parking that others have mentioned in their reviews. This seems outrageous to me. Classic two part pricing where you get focused on the cost of the room and you end up paying a lot more because of other services. It's probably worth the inconvenience to park across the street! On the topic of getting nicked for other services, we were erroneously charged for mini bar items that we never consumed (they did remove this fee at check out).

Also, while this is probably unique to our stay and not likely replicated by you, a maintenance person barged into our room soon after we had arrived looking for a video game, or some such nonsense, that he thought someone had left behind (turns out he was wrong). He rang the bell once and was in the room rummaging around. Good thing we had just arrived and were checking out the room, otherwise it could have been really awkward! Doesn't anybody knock anymore.

As I mentioned at the onset, we were staying at the hotel celebrating a birthday. The staff sent a bottle of champaign, which was a very nice touch, but the card wished us well on our wedding anniversary. While the message was a bit off, we drank the bottle of champaign anyway, thank you very much.

Finally, our neighbors decided to crank up their stereo at 3:00am on the last night of our stay. Maybe those Bose systems with the Ipod adapter are not such a great idea after all.

Decide for yourselves, but for my money, I'll take Four Seasons any day of the week. Respect.

The Trump was perfect. My wife and I were on our honeymoon and this was a fantastic final hotel in our 4-week US road trip honeymoon. They upgraded us two levels and we had a gigantic (I think 800+ sq ft) room with a Lake view. It had a kitchenette (the only thing missing was a oven) which was perfect since I have food allergies and prefer to eat food I cook since I can be positive what it did and did not contain or come in contact with. Finally, the bathroom was amazing. A giant soaking tub that fit two, a great shower and a bathroom mirror that had a TV in it.

The trump is right next to the South end of the Magnificent Mile of shops on Michigan Avenue. My wife and I walked that one afternoon on the way to a Cubs game at Wrigley. And with that said, the concierge was able to get us great seats at a reasonable price to a sold out Sunday afternoon game. I was not sure we would get the tickets, but not only did he find some, they were in the fifth row down the third base line. Perfect!

The only downside to the hotel was the ridiculous charges for room service and valet parking. A six-pack of Sam Adams beer was $30 not including the room service delivery charge of $4. Seriously, it is a $8 six-pack of beer, and $4 to deliver to the room, WTF? And the valet parking was ~$50/night. That is not a typo $50/night! Yet at the same time, it was our honeymoon, so the cost didn't really matter, even if they were annoying.

The Trump is over the top and exactly what one would expect for the $400+/night the rooms cost. Yet even though expensive, I think it was worth it since the rooms were more than twice the size of rooms we were in prior hotels on our trip. Also, it had the kitchenette and fantastic bathroom with a great view of the Lake. Overall, I'd highly recommend this hotel to others.

Without doubt the best hotel in Chicago and one of the best hotels in the world. My wife and I were in Chicago to visit our son and decided to stay in the Trump as we had stayed in the Peninsula and Four Seasons in previous years. Our city view room was exceptional and larger than most suites that I have stayed in. There was a kitchen in our room which is vital for people living away from home for two weeks. It was ideal to have the option to eat out or just to relax in our room and have something light to eat.
The gym facilities are amazing. The view from the gym is worth going there alone but when I did pretend to work out my treadmill had its own fan and iPod docking station. Simple idea but something that is not in very many gyms. Of course it was spotless and appeared to have equipment for a serious workout or a guy like me just going through the motions.
When we ate breakfast at 16 (the restaurant within the hotel) we received personlized attention and exceptional service from our server (he showed us where the best views were in the foyer so that we could take better pictures of the Chicago skyline for our family to see). I normally don't eat breakfast but 16 made me break that rule every day throughout my stay.
I would recommend this hotel to anyone visiting Chicago. It is very well priced for the service and quality of hotel.