The Good: Friendly staff
The Bad: Overpriced, Cleanliness, Lack of amenities, Lack of value, Lack of lighting, Breakfast issues, Dangerous rooms!
The Basics: A new low for the Quality Inn line, the Quality Inn O'Hare Airport near Chicago ought to be shut down.
This weekend, I am fulfilling a dream I have had for over half my life. I'm at a convention and I'm going to finally meet the last member of the cast to my favorite television show of all time: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (reviewed here!). My dream weekend, though, is far from dreamlike, mostly because the hotel at which I am staying is a complete dive. The Quality Inn O'Hare Airport is an utter disappointment from the Choice Hotels line.
Location
The Quality Inn O'Hare Airport (IL228 in the Choice Hotel numbering system, which may be helpful if you decide to ignore my advice and book a room here) is located at 3801 North Mannheim Road, Schiller Park, Illinois. This is found down a little way from the mess of construction that seems to be invading most of this area of Chicago. Missing a single turnoff to the hotel leaves one stranded in O'Hare Airport, which is pretty terrible.
Once one finds North Mannheim Road - Routes 14 & 45 - this is a very easy hotel to get to. The hotel has a very narrow driveway and from one direction, it's a simple right turn. Turning left into the driveway/parking lot is a real crapshoot depending on how much traffic there is in the area (it's a pretty high traffic area).
Otherwise, this property is pretty terrible. Stuck in an industrial area between one little suburb and the airport, the Quality Inn O'Hare Airport has no grounds to speak of, merely a parking lot that wraps around the entire building. In fact, the rooms out back face a very narrow parking strip and, as I discovered today, that floods incredibly easily! As someone who is fairly loyal to the Choice Hotel chains for their value, I prepaid for my stay at the Quality Inn O'Hare Airport, so I had no recourse but to finish my stay here: the moment I first walked into the hallway off the main lobby and smelled the marshy, dank smell to it, I knew I had made a terrible decision.
Room Size
The Quality Inn O'Hare Airport has a smell to it, like the afterscent of cigarette smoke or something moldy. While I was there, the hotel had construction going on in the hallway and on one of the stairwells and that contributed to the odor that pervaded the hotel.
The rooms are approximately thirteen and a half feet wide by twenty-six feet deep. With the king-sized bed, two nightstands, television stand, chair, desk and small bathroom, the rooms have a somewhat cramped feeling to them.
Cleanliness
The Quality Inn O'Hare Airport is flat-out dirty. The exterior windows seem to always be covered with grit from the city and passing trucks or whatever. The interior is dark, but that's not enough to hide that this hotel is unclean. All of the carpet in this hotel is stained, dirty and contributes to the overall dank feeling of the hotel.
Whenever I first arrive in a hotel, the first thing I do is go in and flush the toilet. There's nothing worse than a hotel room where the plumbing is backed up. To the credit of the Quality Inn O'Hare Airport, it passed the first flush test!
Sadly, though, for as helpful as the cleaning staff is, the rooms are not clean. The nonsmoking rooms seem like they are not terribly well enforced as the room bears an odor that could be from rooms formerly smoked in.
The peak of the problems in my room comes from the headboard. I like to sit up in bed; I can't do that on the king sized bed at the Quality Inn O'Hare Airport because it has a damaged headboard. In the center of the headboard is a piece that looks like it was re-attached with wood glue and spackle . . . backwards. That means, there are four exposed screws poking out more than a half inch from the headboard right where my head would rest if I sat up! How such a blatantly unsafe problem exists in one of their rooms is baffling to me.
Amenities
Room rates at this hotel are fairly expensive (at least by my standards) with all rooms being more than fifty dollars a night and they are nowhere near worth it. The rooms feel dank and there is nothing distinctive about the hotel for what it offers.
The room has the king-sized bed, a television (limited channel selection), two nightstands and shampoo, conditioner and lotion. They also have a chair and a coffee maker; despite three lamps and one overhead light, the rooms never actually get bright. There is not a lot to recommend in the rooms.
The hotel features a continental breakfast in the sports bar on the main floor. This is regulated fanatically by two staff members for breakfast, so there's no picking up breakfast and taking it back to your room for a friend. It's insane that one cannot bring food back to their room for a sleeping spouse or any sort of asocial partner. For a breakfast so close to Chicago, this seems especially bland. There are four cereal options, four juices, coffee, cocoa, oatmeal packets, hard boiled eggs, yogurt, bananas and bagels. There are also make-your-own waffles . . . but it's hard to eat with the two guards staring one down and pointing to the signs that inform people staying here that food cannot be taken from the restaurant!
The hotel has an outdoor pool which is fairly nice. It is not overly chlorinated and is cleaner than any part of the inside of the hotel.
Overall
Between the dangers of the headboard and the dirty carpets to the breakfast-monitoring staff that would make the ghestapo envious, the Quality Inn O'Hare Airport is an utterly unpleasant hotel to stay at.
For other hotels in the Choice Hotels chain, please be sure to check out my reviews of:
Quality Inn West - Baltimore, MD
Quality Inn & Suites Airport - El Paso, TX
Comfort Suites Downtown - Buffalo, NY
1.5/10
For other travel reviews, please be sure to visit my Travel Review Index Page!
© 2015 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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