Current mood:	angry
Current music:	Sirius Satellite Radio

When staying in Chicago... AVOID the Wyndham O'Hare!
On August 4, 2005, I checked in to the Wyndham O’Hare in Rosemont, Illinois, for what would be my absolute worst hotel experience in ten years of travelling.

Shipping Nightmare, Part One

I was in town for a convention at the Donald E. Stevenson Convention Center. I had shipped two boxes of merchandise to the hotel the previous week, allowing plenty of time for delivery. Upon check-in, I requested my boxes, only to be told that they only had one of my two boxes. I assured them that they had both shipped, and requested they look again and perhaps call Tony Mariano in the shipping-and-receiving department, a man I had spoken to the previous week, when I called in advance for information on properly addressing the boxes. Still, I was told that there was only one box.

If I had a tracking number, I was told, perhaps they could help me. I proceeded to my 3rd-floor room, where I called a friend who was able to locate the tracking number (along with the information that the missing box was signed for by an “A. Mariano” the day before). When I went back down to the front desk, they insisted that they had no box. I went back to my room and called Mr. Mariano in shipping and receiving. He insisted he delivered both boxes to the front desk.

When I went to the front desk for the third time with the new information, the desk clerk went to the room behind the front desk and immediately appeared with my box. It had been there all along. She just didn’t bother to look very hard for it until my third trip to the desk.

Misinformation

Before making my reservation through hotels.com, I called the Wyndham O’Hare to ask about some geographical facts. I was told the Wyndham had a skywalk to the convention center and an elevated train stop was across the street, within two or three blocks.

Both of these statements turned out to be untrue.

The State of the Rooms

The room was clean and tidy. However, it should be noted that turning both faucet handles on the sink to the wide-open position resulted in a mere trickle of water.

Bad Directions, Part One

When I asked about the best way to get to the convention center, I was told to take the hotel’s airport shuttle (driven by a particularly surly gentleman) to the airport and then take a train back in to the convention center.

The airport is three miles away, making the total trip six miles, with significant wait time between the shuttle and the train departures.

The convention is a little over two miles from the Wyndham’s front door -- an $8 taxi fare and a five minute ride.

No Shuttle Service

Incidentally, I found out that the Wyndham was one of the very few hotels in Rosemont that was not running a direct shuttle to the convention center for this convention (one that attracted over 56,000 attendees). The Motel 6, with rooms starting at $56 per night, was running a shuttle. The Wyndham, priced at over a hundred dollars per night, was not.

Bad Directions, Part Two

Realizing that we had been lied to in regards to the proximity of an elevated train station, we rented a car. We were appalled at the $14 per night charge for parking.

Worse, this made it necessary to go to the Legendary Wyndham Front Desk to ask for directions. We were told to make a left-hand turn on Mannheim Road and proceed from there.

The Donald E. Stevenson Convention Center is in the opposite direction. We drove for a half-hour going the wrong way, which made me late for the convention.

That was enough to make me decide to write the Wyndham corporation to alert them to the incompetence running rampant throughout their operation in Rosemont, Illinois, and I had only been there for slightly over 24 hours.

The remainder of my stay was not to improve.

Shipping Nightmare, Part Two

At the end of the convention, I had one small box of booth supplies and other items that I wanted to ship home instead of carrying them on the airplane. I asked if the hotel offered the guests shipping services through either FedEx Ground or UPS -- a service for which I would have gladly paid.

I was told that the hotel did offer such a service.

But I was at the Wyndham Front Desk, where nothing is as it seems.

When the clerk rummaged through a desk looking for shipping forms, all he could find was FedEx Airbills.

“I can’t find the other forms,” he told me, “So if you’ll just fill out this form...”

“If I just fill out that form,” I finished his sentence for him, “I’ll pay about four times more than I would shipping via ground services.”

I asked him if he could call down to the shipping and receiving department to get the proper forms.

He told me he would. He picked up the phone and asked security to page shipping. I waited by the front desk. He waited on several other customers.

Twenty minutes later, as he desperately tried to ignore me, I asked, “Any word from the shipping department?”

“Oh,” he said, “We only do Fed Ex Air.”

There had been no phone call between my question and his answer — nor was there a conversation with a co-worker. Nothing. Which can only lead to one of two conclusions: Either he (a) knew all along and was simply trying to see how long I’d stand there, or (b) he was making it up to get rid of me.

No other explanation is plausible and neither scenario is acceptable.

Checking Out... 24 Hours Early

Angrily, I stormed up to my room, but found that my key card no longer worked. Luckily a kind housekeeper took pity on me and let me into the room. I assured her that I could accurately describe the contents of the chest of drawers to prove I was the rightful guest. She graciously declined.

Of course, that meant a trip back down to the front desk where I found out that I had been checked out of the hotel.

It was Sunday. My reservations had been made from Thursday through Sunday night. We had already paid for Sunday night through hotels.com.

But the Legendary Wyndham Front Desk checked us out Sunday morning.

I had to produce my itinerary from hotels.com to prove that I had actually reserved the room. The hotel had actually reserved the room for another guest for Sunday night and suggested that my family and I should move our belongings to another room.

A manager stepped in and that, thankfully, was as far as that idea went.

The Shuttle

Monday, August 8, found us in good spirits. The convention had been a success, but more importantly, we were not to be subjected to any more of the Wyndham Hotels’ Famous Service.

Or so we thought.We gathered in the lobby with several other families to wait for the shuttle to the airport. The shuttle bus pulled up and two men got on. When the rest of us tried to board the bus, we were told angrily by the aforementioned surly shuttle bus driver that “this bus ain’t goin’ to the airport.”

He did not offer any information as to the destination of the shuttle bus — neither to them nor to any of the other dozen or so guests who had gathered in the parking lot.

He stalked into the lobby, returned with some goods in a Target Store plastic sack, and drove the two men away.

No explanation. Nothing but exhaust fumes.

Several families decided to call for taxi cabs, including mine.

As we drove into O’Hare International Airport, guess what we saw driving the opposite direction, coming away from the airport.

The Wyndham O’Hare Shuttle Bus.

I didn’t get a look at the driver, but I’ll bet he was surly.

This goes way beyond wanting an apology.

I want my money back.