My wife and I just spent the Labor Day weekend in the city, choosing the Hard Rock Hotel as our pad. We've stayed at the HRH in Orlando twice and are blown away by the ambience there. It's not that way here. These may be all ticky tacky things, but they added up to us. First of all, the room. We upgraded our reservation thru the HRH website for a room with "an Incredible view". Well, our 9th floor view was of nothing more than the venting on top of the building next to us. That was all we could see. So there was no view. The room was muggy. We had the air turned down all the way and it never got below 74. We woke up sweaty both days. When we opened the window to get a breeze, the noise from the rooftop next to us was overbearing. The room was small and dark, but it didn't bother us that much. The bed may have been the mosr comfortable bed I ever slept in. And we even joked about stealing the pillows! We had the same issue with the honor bar as a previous poster, but they removed the charges no prob. Throughout the entire hotel, I counted a total of 3 pieces of music memorabilia. I thought it was a pretty cheesy attempt to renovate an old hotel, throw a Styx guitar on the wall, and slap a HRH emblem on the outside. The hotel itself was very clean and did not look like a renovation. The location is good, right on the south end of the mag mile, but there are 10-15 better hotels in a better location to shopping, quality eats, and Navy Pier. If you have a car, parking will cost you $38/day, which is prob normal for downtown. The hotel restaurant was a Chinese restaurant. The bar was small and trendy, and I guess the kicker to it all was that my wife tried to order a Pina Colada and they told us they didn't have a blender. WHAAT???? A HRH without a blender? Did they not know that Jimmy Buffet was in town???? Mind blowing! I would never, never, never go back here. Like I said, there are many better hotels in much better locations. I will stay at the HRH in Orlando or elsewhere again.
