In September, Dan and I went on a three day trip to Chicago to meet up with Dan's parents, who were stopping in the windy city on their cross country AmTrak adventure. They flew to New York from London and took the train from NYC to visit us in Los Angeles.

Our hotel for Chicago was the W Hotel City Center.

The building was old, but it had been refurbished with modern furniture. The lobby had a night-club feel with a swanky bar and disco balls on the ceiling. Club music pumped through the lobby all-day long. I was most impressed with the enormous lamps.

Although it looked lovely, the lobby always had a tinge of a sewage smell. We thought that it might just be because the building is so old. We never saw anything poorly maintained and everything appeared clean.

I liked that the front desk always had a basket of fresh fruit and coffee available. They also changed the floor mats in the elevator to give a proper greeting, reflecting the time of day.

Our room had plenty of nice touches. The one thing that hotels can do to make me love them, is to put a cozy throw blanket in the room. The W Hotel had placed a plush, furry blanket across the foot of our bed. I always have extra blankets on my bed at home and this immediately made me feel comfortable and happy. The bed was perfect and I slept very well in the W Hotel.

The best thing about the bathroom was products by Bliss. Excellent, excellent touch!

he W Hotel City Center is ideally located just a short walk from many Chicago tourist attractions, like Navy Pier and Millennium Park. I was thrilled that a Dunkin' Donuts was directly across the street from the hotel. Dunkin' Donuts is a huge treat for this California girl. We were very happy with our stay and we would not hesitate to return on future Chicago vacations.