The Gwen, a Luxury Collection Hotel, Michigan Avenue Chicago

Great service within the hotel. Very nice amenities. Great location. Easy check in . Great rooftop bar/restaurant on the 5th floor. Comfortable beds. Great bathroom/shower. Only two negative things. There was some type of stain on the wall behind the beds that looked almost like someone flung coffee or something and the soaps and shampoo are in these containers that make it very difficult to get any soap out of the dispenser. They need to be raised up so the pump handle can actually work.

What a lovely stay at the Gwen. Incredible service. Excellent food and drinks. Bartender Patrick and servers Ron and Lili were awesome.

Ariel G was thoughtful & informative about the Gwens history & activities in the area. Our checkin process was quick & welcoming. We cannot wait to come back!

Hi, we spent 5 nights at the Gwen and it was generally aligned with our expectations, except for one thing. Location is practical. The building has a lot of nice artsy touches. Our room was exceptionally good .. corner room, very quiet, comfortable and spacious. One real highlight was May, the housekeeping lady .. perhaps an unsung hero, she was SO considerate, detailed, attentive. A zillion good details .. we were so happy to have her in our floor! Another real highlight was Russell, the concierge .. that man knows his stuff! He took the time to deal with many tough questions, added tons of value in every interaction .. another real hero, encourage you to ask for his help and wisdom. On the other end was our breakfast experience. A nice terrace. We wanted to to use Bonvoy category to take advantage of at least proper continental breakfast options to get us going .. what a disappointment. The average waitress wasn't great, service was VERY slow (mean it). Menu is priced in a way that whatever you take will cost you a lot more than the Continental's value (think it was 8$ for expresso). However, the really bad part was the host, a lady whose name starts with an "L" .. never seen anyone SO unsuitable for a client facing job!! Won't go into details, let's just say she was really off and very out of line, inconsistent with a place that is meant to provide you an exceptional experience. We saw her in action more than one day (anyone can have a bad one) and she was just terrible. Now, truth be told, the restaurant Manager (Jason) impressed us really well .. he displayed the right attitude after some serious issues, doing his best and I'm sure he took note and will enhance overall customer's experience. Doesn't change reality, but at least gave us some comfort to know he would try to fix some of this. PS: Ended up having great breakfast at "Goddess and the Baker"

I do not know how a hotel is rated 5-star, but this one was certainly far from 5-star luxury. The ‘Luxury Hotel Collection’ threw me off and I booked this one for a special trip. When we arrived, it felt like we were at a back entrance but it was the only entrance on Rush Street. It is small and congested. Took the elevator up to the 5th floor lobby to check-in and the person at the counter was less than friendly. I noticed that with other front desk staff through the stay, when I had to go back there on the 3rd day as the mobile key and the card keys didn’t work. The ambience in the lobby is nothing special. It does have a walk bridge into the Shops at North Bridge which is convenient. The ‘Upstairs at the Gwen’ is really just a small restaurant on the Lobby floor (5th) with outdoor seating which was actually nice - surrounded by tall buildings all around. Food at the restaurant was really good and they had generous portions and the staff here were friendlier than the front desk folks. I had to take a queen room as I was with family and was told there were really no options beyond the 7th floor which seemed odd considering I am a Platinum Elite member and had applied for an upgrade. No upgrades were available and the benefit was returned back to my account. This hotel has 17 floors and is much shorter than the surrounding buildings, so you don’t really get a good ‘view’ of anything. The room is like any other good Marriott hotel and nothing really stood out in terms of luxury. I really don’t have anything I can call out as special. The bed was really comfortable though. This hotel does not have a pool! I totally missed that when I chose this hotel so that is on me. Overall, the experience was nothing special at all. On hindsight, I would have chosen the Marriott next door which actually seemed to have a much better ambience overall.