My first trip to the Drake was 32 years ago when a college friend and her boyfriend picked me up in his Rolls and took me to the Drake for Sunday brunch. I was wowed then and I told myself that some day I would stay at the Drake. I have made many trips to Chicago over the past 32 years, but somehow, never stayed at the Drake. One of my professional societies had its annual meeting in Chicago this past week so I decided that this would be the time to do it. The location is in my favorite part of Chicago. Excellent shopping is at your doorstep. On the downside, it is pretty far away from McCormick Place. Even with the express bus lanes, you had to count on a minimum of half an hour travel time to the conference. I had requested a king sized bed and got it.
The bed was really very comfortable. There were extra pillows in the closet along with a blanket that was useful. The room was extremely warm when we arrived. When we activated the ventilation system, it turned the air conditioning on and it stayed on the entire time we were there. We were comfortable, but it made us question what was going on to make the place so hot? Our room was on the 4th floor on the Michigan Avenue side and we did not experience any problems with noise. The blackout shades did an excellent job of darkening the room as well as keeping it quiet. The staff are absolutely outstanding. They really bent over backwards to help us. We did do the high tea on a Sunday afternoon, meeting some British friends of ours who had been relocated to Chicago. They brought their infant twin girls along since we had not seen them. The staff were incredibly accommodating about finding us a place where we could park the monster stroller and providing high chairs, and then taking pictures. Their willingness to help really helped me when I paid the bill for tea, scones, little sandwiches, and some sweets--$150 including tip. So I check "having high tea at the Drake" off my list of things to do before I die. The thing that really irritated me the most was the incredibly poor internet service. No wireless internet service was available in the rooms. The land line service was incredibly expensive and incredibly poor! It had intermittent failures every hour for five to ten minutes where it could not connect. And then suddenly, it would reconnect. I could never get a satisfactory answer for why this occurred. It was maddening because I spent more in my four days at the Drake than what I spend in a month at home on my high speed internet connection. They are not oriented to business travelers who want to work from their room.
The Drake is an institution. As our British friends mentioned, this was the place that the Royal family stayed when they visited Chicago. I put it in the same category as the Plaza in New York as it once was. It is an experience to have had but not necessarily a habit to acquire. I look fondly on the experience, but the next time I am in Chicago, I will find one of the better value hotels.
