I stayed in a king suite for two nights. While the room was attractive and fairly spacious with nice french doors dividing the bedroom from the living, there were some annoyances that made for two terrible nights sleep.

While I very much enjoy feather beds on top of the regular mattress, their feathers kept poking out of the fabric, through the sheets and into my skin. I felt like I was sleeping on a bed of nails. Every time I moved another feather would poke out and into me. I pulled at least 6 to 10 of them out each night while I'm trying to sleep. I have had feather beds at home and this is a common problem. However to protect yourself from the feathers poking out, I have had to layer a thick blanket on top of the feather bed so as to avoid being poked by the feather that ultimately find their way through.

The other major contributing factor to my lack of sleep both nights was the heating system in my room. The unit is controlled by a nice new electronic thermostat on the wall, however the fan on the heat source operates at only one speed - high and loud. The thermostat is responsive to adjusting the room temperature quickly, however the noise from the wall unit is unacceptable. I searched around to see if there were any settings to lower the fan speed, but finally resorted to simply turning off the heat all together. Only then did I get any peace and quiet, which didn't really matter since I was already awake from the feathers.

Lastly, the in-room coffee pots and Starbucks Coffee is a nice touch, however I learned the hard way that it isn't complimentary. A very small sign almost hidden away says it costs $4.00 per packet of coffee. It seems petty to me to charge $4.00 for coffee in your room, when coffee in the lobby is complimentary.

My family and I stayed at the Chicago Courtyard Downtown in late February for recreation, including seeing "Wicked" at the Oriental Theater.

The best feature of this Courtyard is the location. It is close enough to everything to be convenient, although it is not necessarily right next door to any single location. Examples: 5 blocks to the Chicago Theater and Oriental Theater; 3 blocks to Michigan Avenue shopping; 3 blocks to the Windella boat tours; 5 blocks to the touristy restaurants around Wells, Illinois & Ohio; $6-8 cab ride from Union Station.

The hotel is a pretty standard Courtyard, with fairly decent size rooms for a city property. The indoor pool and hot tub are adequate size and the property is relatively quiet. The immediate neighborhood ranges from touristy to a bit rough - for example, a trendy piano bar on the north side of Hubbard contrasts with an adult book store two blocks west on the other side.

Make sure you are heading to the correct Courtyard Hotel and also specify to your cab driver. There are two Courtyard hotels in downtown Chicago north of the river, only about 6 blocks from each other (the other is labeled "Magnificant Mile" and is on Ontario). It appears that a previous Trip Advisor review talking about an upper level lobby may have been referring to the latter location, as the Courtyard on Hubbard has a standard 1st floor lobby.

Stayed at the hotel in adjoining suites with my in-laws right before Christmas.

Positives:
* great location – within walking distance of a million shopping options
* could not get a wireless Internet signal, so they provided a plug-in hub free after I talked with the hotel chain’s helpful technical service people on the phone (pretty sure it was a problem with our computer)
* beds were very comfortable
* excellent room service food

Negatives:
* do not like hotels were the lobby isn’t on the first floor; you enter to a small service desk that is primarily for the bellmen and have to go up an elevator
* they did some maintenance work very early in the morning that bothered my in-laws, but we couldn’t hear it in our room
* televisions in suite’s sitting areas were expensive hang-on-the-wall plasmas/LCDs but had poor picture quality
* shower surface was very slick

I agree with all the previous reviewers. Excellent choice for downtown Chicago. If I could remember the names of the staff members I'd list them with 5 stars after each of their names. Very comfortable hotel in a perfect location at a really good price. Would stay here again anytime.