Three of us are travelling to Chicago in two weeks for a concert. Stu and I got together today to find a hotel and finalize our plans. We decided to take a train from Battle Creek, which is a bit pricey…but it gets us completely out of navigating Chicago traffic.
After getting train tickets, we started searching around the venue for hotels. The venue is The Riviera. When we first purchased the tickets I did a Google search around the venue with limited success. A street level view of the venue didn’t reveal much of anything. There were a lot of well maintained, but otherwise inconspicuous buildings. No hotel signs to be found.
Travelocity didn’t show any hotels closer than 1.5 miles from the venue, and obviously we have no intention of walking that distance through downtown Chicago in the middle of the night. We tried Expedia and Orbitz too. No joy. Finally, I resigned myself to doing a Google hotel search around the venue. One of the hits was on the same block. Chaching!
We did some searching for reviews on the hotel, but didn’t find much. Finally we decided to take a chance, call the place, and get a reservation. I dialed the phone, and a nice enough gentleman answered. When I enquired about the distance to the venue, the man indicated that yes, it was very close. When I asked to make a reservation, he said something that surprised me: “We’re first come, first serve. No reservations.”
We decided to stay downtown and take a cab the five miles to the venue.
1 comment:
first come first serve so they can maximize their prices! Smart.
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