having just stayed here it is an excellent hotel for chicago offers shuttle bus to all places on the navy pier and michigan avenue only thing bus starts at 10 am and finishes at 6 pm also you can get the free schuttle from may to sep just near hotel hotel itself very clean with rooms completed each day room size good hotel staff very helpfull

The Essex is a great hotel. My husband, me , and two of our friends decided to go to Chicago and used Priceline to do so. We booked a hotel called Econo Lodge. From the description on the internet it seemed fine,but when we got there it was under construction and was nasty. We called around for hours looking for another hotel when the hotel was not willing to work with us and refund our money. Thats when we finally found the Essex Inn. They were more than willing to help us and put us up for the remainder of our stay. We loved it there. The rooms were perfect.If we ever go back to Chicagowe will for sure stay at the Essex Inn.

This was my first hotel out of six I stayed in during my US holiday tour. I read some of the reviews on this site before I left and was not looking forward to the stay. I stayed in the hotel for two nights.

My room was on the 12th floor, overlooking the light terracotta painted building to the left of the hotel (when you are looking at the hotel head on). I loved the flat panel TV and the beds were nice and comfortable without being too firm. The bathroom was of a good size with plenty of room to put your toiletries and to dry yourself in. Plus there was the sink vanity unit outside the bathroom, so one can use the shower whilst the other dries their hair etc.

The only downer was the outdated decor in the lobby area. I think getting rid of the mid 1980s carpet and the leather and chrome furniture is a must. From seeing the older photos, I can see the rooms have been refurbished and chances are the lobby will be done at a later date.

This is a decent hotel to stay at if you're working on a budget but want to avoid any of the Comfort Inn et. al. chains. When we stayed there in Mar. 08, the foyer reception area was undergoing renovations. It's quite small hotel (if I remember correctly, there were 12 floors or so). The rooms are much more updated and cozy than the hallways (which are decorated in a dated art deco'ish style) would indicate. The front desk and parking service was slightly incompetent. Upon arriving, the receptionist ask if we wanted two beds or one. When I said, "two beds," she then replied, "Oh sorry, we don't have any rooms with two beds." Then there were a couple of incidents with a parking attendant (who was still being trained I think) who had misplaced our parking stub, and neglected to record which parking space/building our car was in, so that his associate had to comb through both to find it. Other than those unpleasantries, however, I would still by large recommend it to young travellers, looking for a convenient location (great if you didn't bring a car).