The Write Inn - Chicago, USA 

A great old Chicago experience
Posted: Thu, Aug 13 2009
My father and I decided to have a week long July 4th family reunion in Chicago and picked this inn from the Internet reviews. I think we hit spot on, as it was a memorable, enjoyable and affordable experience.<br><br> Well, bad things first. It&#39;s an old inn with an old carpeting in the corridors, which looks worn. Their new elevator is super slow (I think their old elevator - the oldest in Oak Park - is actually faster). Due to the layout, the restauraunt kitchen entrance faces the hallway, so it can get kinda noisy and smelly in the evening on the way to the elevator or to the lobby. The room lightning fixtures are very old and relatively dim, and the rooms themselves could have used a little more plugs. The general feel of the hotel is kinda dated, starting from the plumbing and ending in wall finish and the carpet (although the numbers are clean, and I had no problems whatsoever with the overall cleansiness).<br><br> OK, now to the good part. It is a genuine hotel from the glorious days of Chicago, complete with the manual sliding door elevator (the oldest elevator in Oak Park!), solid wood furniture that looks like it&#39;s hundred years old (but very well maintained), pin-up art on the walls (not the rowdy pin-ups, the good art), posters from the 1920&#39;es celebrating Lindberg&#39;s flight, old magazines and brass light fixtures. It stands on a very quiet and very green street, completely covered by the trees, right next to the Hemingway&#39;s museum and in the middle of the historic architectural district of Frank Lloyd Wright. It is also a short walk (well... maybe 15 minutes... I&#39;m Torontonian, so I&#39;m used to walking) from a bunch of very nice restauraunts, two food stores, and the subway station is right down the street, not even 5 minutes walk. It is actually a good thing that you have to walk to the parking, since it doesn&#39;t create a concrete wasteland next to such a nice inn, and it&#39;s right by the said subway station that goes right into the middle of downtown (green line).<br><br> Practically, we just took subway to downtown on a daily basis, avoided the driving hassle altogether, visit the museums and such. In the evening we could have as much beer as we want there, and just hop back and go to bed in our hotel. Super convenient, if you ask me. It was a relatively short (and, what&#39;s more important, a rather stress-free) drive to Chicago Midway (my taxi bill was something like 32$).<br><br> The hotel itself was really affordable. My extended stay bill for 7 nights for 2 people in a suite with 2 beds (despite being called a family suite, it was a rather small suite, and I would encourage families with kids to look at larger rooms) came to $530 including taxes. The staff was helpful (although they clearly didn&#39;t have the training of more expensive hotels - or any formal training - they were very helpful and reasonable), and the wireless Internet was fast and free.<br><br> All in all, despite certain shortcomings it was an unforgettable experience. I think the decision to stay in a hotel depends on what you want from it. If you&#39;re looking for a sqeaky clean white industrial room with spa and vallet parking, I think you should look elsewhere, as probably you will just see an old hotel with oldish rooms and remote parking. If you come to visit old Chicago, all fired up on stories of gangsters and jazz and architecture - this is definitely a place to be, and I can&#39;t think of a better place to stay for a purely historic visit. I really like the place because of its wholesomeness and authenticity. The overall experience was clearly better than the sum of its parts.

A great old Chicago experience
Posted: Mon, Aug 10 2009
My father and I decided to have a week long July 4th family reunion in Chicago and picked this inn from the Internet reviews. I think we hit spot on, as it was a memorable, enjoyable and affordable experience.<br><br> Well, bad things first. It&#39;s an old inn with an old carpeting in the corridors, which looks worn. Their new elevator is super slow (I think their old elevator - the oldest in Oak Park - is actually faster). Due to the layout, the restauraunt kitchen entrance faces the hallway, so it can get kinda noisy and smelly in the evening on the way to the elevator or to the lobby. The room lightning fixtures are very old and relatively dim, and the rooms themselves could have used a little more plugs. The general feel of the hotel is kinda dated, starting from the plumbing and ending in wall finish and the carpet (although the numbers are clean, and I had no problems whatsoever with the overall cleansiness).<br><br> OK, now to the good part. It is a genuine hotel from the glorious days of Chicago, complete with the manual sliding door elevator (the oldest elevator in Oak Park!), solid wood furniture that looks like it&#39;s hundred years old (but very well maintained), pin-up art on the walls (not the rowdy pin-ups, the good art), posters from the 1920&#39;es celebrating Lindberg&#39;s flight, old magazines and brass light fixtures. It stands on a very quiet and very green street, completely covered by the trees, right next to the Hemingway&#39;s museum and in the middle of the historic architectural district of Frank Lloyd Wright. It is also a short walk (well... maybe 15 minutes... I&#39;m Torontonian, so I&#39;m used to walking) from a bunch of very nice restauraunts, two food stores, and the subway station is right down the street, not even 5 minutes walk. It is actually a good thing that you have to walk to the parking, since it doesn&#39;t create a concrete wasteland next to such a nice inn, and it&#39;s right by the said subway station that goes right into the middle of downtown (green line).<br><br> Practically, we just took subway to downtown on a daily basis, avoided the driving hassle altogether, visit the museums and such. In the evening we could have as much beer as we want there, and just hop back and go to bed in our hotel. Super convenient, if you ask me. It was a relatively short (and, what&#39;s more important, a rather stress-free) drive to Chicago Midway (my taxi bill was something like 32$).<br><br> The hotel itself was really affordable. My extended stay bill for 7 nights for 2 people in a suite with 2 beds (despite being called a family suite, it was a rather small suite, and I would encourage families with kids to look at larger rooms) came to $530 including taxes. The staff was helpful (although they clearly didn&#39;t have the training of more expensive hotels - or any formal training - they were very helpful and reasonable), and the wireless Internet was fast and free.<br><br> All in all, despite certain shortcomings it was an unforgettable experience. I think the decision to stay in a hotel depends on what you want from it. If you&#39;re looking for a sqeaky clean white industrial room with spa and vallet parking, I think you should look elsewhere, as probably you will just see an old hotel with oldish rooms and remote parking. If you come to visit old Chicago, all fired up on stories of gangsters and jazz and architecture - this is definitely a place to be, and I can&#39;t think of a better place to stay for a purely historic visit. I really like the place because of its wholesomeness and authenticity. The overall experience was clearly better than the sum of its parts.

Never Again
Posted: Wed, May 27 2009
The room had bedbugs!!!! and they are trying to charge me for the room.

Location Location Location
Posted: Thu, Sep 25 2008
My wife and I spent a week in Chicago at the Write Inn and loved it. The room was fine (not overly big, but clean and decent) and it was a fraction of what anything close to downtown cost. And the location is amazing. Oak Park is beautiful, with several great places to eat and nice shops. It was within easy walking distance of the &quot;El Train&quot; into the city, and had free parking in a nice parking ramp. We will definitely stay there for any future trips to Chicago.<br>The only negative I could find was that the room we stayed in was fairly small. It was the &quot;economy&quot; room, so we excpeted it to be cramped, but it was actually a little roomier than we anticipated. It was cozy for 2 but would have been crowed with too many more.