Avoid The Talbot, especially for group functions. My in-laws spent a great deal of time trying to find just the right hotel to use for our wedding party and several out of town guests. They were lured in by promises from The Talbot, that since they were a small boutique hotel that they could provide "special, personal treatment". Nothing could have been further from the truth. They failed to honor two requests to keep the bar open after our reception, they persistently confused reservation requests, they front desk failed to contact the valet despite multiple requests and nearly caused of my guests, his wife, and his two year old daughter to miss their departing flight. Now the worse part. Mistakes are made, even hotel managers are human, but where a hotel, which is supposed to be in the hospitality service, can distinguish itself is in how they handle and correct the error. Case in point: I had requested on several occasions when I made the reservations for my family that they all be placed under my credit card, all expenses, they assurred me that this would be no problem. Of course, when my brother, his wife, and asthmatic five year old arrived to searing hot and humid Chicago after six hours of travel they wouldn't let them check in until they physically saw my card... again despite them having my card on record, and despite my explaining this to them over the phone. My brother recalls the "indignation" of the desk clerk when he mentioned that the charges were to be put on my card. Then Another guest, in this case my older brother, came by and put the charges onto his card so that the five year old could escape the heat and the prolonged waiting in the lobby. When I finally was able to get across town, leaving a Cubs game early, I again spoke to them about putting all the charges on my account. Again they agreed, but never did anything about it. In the end when my older brother checked out on Sunday he was told everything was alright, but when he went to his ATM his account was frozen from "unathorized overuse". The hotel kept billing his debit card automatically for multiple charges ubtil his account was essentially drained. When he got home he had to take an entire day off to discuss with his bank how to rectify these events. I spent Sunday afternoon for an hour and three hours on Monday, the first two days of my honeymoon on the phone, calling The Talbot, the credit card fraud division, my brother, etc trying to solve this situation. The most aggregious insults continued to come form the covering manager, who at one point suggested that "I was mistaken about coming back down to talk with the desk clerk about these matters".... this was a witnessed event, and her insinuation was that I was lying, and that there was no way her clerk could have made a mistake. In the end, there is no one running this place... managers from one department refer you to the manager of another departments voice mail. When I was finally able to get the name of the general manager (after two days)m neither he nor his assistant would ever call back. The communication between the staff and mangement is non-existant. Fortuneatly the staff at the Signature Room (where we had the reception) was beyond excellent so the day was not lost, but the The Talbot went out of its way to insult and poorly serve my family and many of our wedding guests. Try The Ambassador East (same neighborhood) cheaper, much more professional staff.
