I booked this hotel because it was listed as a "good value" and "customer favorite" on Hotwire; we booked Holy Thursday-Easter Monday, 2008. I was happy to learn I'd booked the Wyndham, a chain I am usually pleased with.

The hotel is about a block off Michigan Ave. in the Magnificent Mile/Streeterville area. It's an easy walk to Watertower place and a reasonable walk to the loop. We used both the El and bus to visit other parts of Chicago, and found bus stop and the underground station at Grand easy to locate within a short walk.

Valet parking is expensive—$44 a night, I think. We opted to self park for around $35 a night about 1/2 a block away, in the ramp on St. Clair, adjacent to the Courtyard by Marriott.

The hotwire rate did not include breakfast, although I think some of the packages booked directly with the hotel do. There were apples and mints at the front desk, but not coffee service, something we've experienced at other 4 star hotels. There was a mini-bar and small coffee pot in the room, with some pedestrian no-brand coffee; no stirrers, sugar, etc. There is a tiny Starbucks with a perpetually long line across the street (next door to the Parking Garage mentioned above), a Dunkin Donuts steps away and a Corner Bakery and Panera very near.

The room itself was fine. We were on the 14th, nee 13th floor; we figured that's where they hide the hotwire cheapskates. If we peeked around the tall buildings, we could see the lake. The room had two double beds w/ down comforters and pillows; an upholstered reading chair w/ table; and a desk with a lovely aeron chair—easily the most comfortable piece of furniture in the room. Wyndam has not yet abandoned amoires, as many of the upscale hotels are doing, nor have they upgraded to flat screen televisions. The room felt a little cramped w/ all the furniture in it. (In fact we moved the occasional table to the closet because we couldn't otherwise set up a cot for the teen we had in tow.) The cable package was limited to a handful of choices, but what the heck, we didn't go to Chicago to watch TV . .

The phone on the night table did not work.

This must be a hotel that, in general, caters to business travelers with expense accounts. Internet service was something like $10. a day in the room, and a whopping 35 cents PER MINUTE in the business center. We walked to Panera and/or the Apple store (both within blocks) where we could, at no charge, check our email and look up (and write down) information on the places we wanted to visit. The concierge printed my boarding pass for free, but I had to pay to sign on (note, credit card machine attached to computer does not take American Express) and look up my reservation number, which I'd forgotten to bring with me.

I requested a cot for my teen-aged son and gulped when I learned it would cost me $20 a night extra. However, this charge was never posted to my account. The cot only fit in one spot in the room—between the bed by the window and the desk, provided we moved the aeron chair out of the way. We stood it up each morning so we could move freely around the room.

There is no charge to use the gym (which surprised me); it had a changing room, showers, and a decent selection of treadmills, bikes, etc. and free weights. It was never crowded when I used the facility.

The hotel has a tiny, shallow (4 feet at the deep end) pool, hot tub, steam sauna and dry sauna. The pool was crowded all weekend, even the hot tub was full of very young children (toddler to early elementary) splashing around w/ their parents. The pool area was not monitored well by the staff; dirty towels piled up in and around the hamper. On several occasions we had to dry off with the hand-sized towels from the attached gym because there were not clean towels in the pool area.

By and large, the concierge staff was helpful and friendly, if their knowledge of the city was limited to the tourist spots. (Our query for directions to the Benedictine Monastery south of the loop (roughly 31st and Halsted), in the Bridgeport neighborhood, was met at first with a blank stare and then with an explanation that they don't know a lot about "the suburbs". They suggested we buy a city map at the nearby Walgreens. We found directions online, during a visit to the Apple store.)

The room was clean, and housekeeping honored our request to be "green" and keep our towels and sheets for our entire stay. The water was hot and water pressure fine. The toilet has a loud whooshy flush that might wake the dead.

The Wyndham must do big business with their American Girl weekend package; the hotel lobby was full of AG bag toting parents with glazed looks, accompanied by 7-9 year old girls clutching America Girl dolls. (Note to parents of boys in the same age bracket: there is a LEGO store in a mall on Michigan Ave., I forget where precisely, but it's several blocks before Wabash.)