Raffaello

We reserved our king classic suite via Expedia. Due to this we had literally (even via our fire escape route diagram) the smallest room on the whole floor. Horrible shower, it always left the floor wet.

We stayed in an Airbnb hotel room. The person we were renting from said we should be able to check in around 2. However, the front desk staff insisted that we were not able to check in until 4 even though the woman called in to let them know. Apparently other people have also had problems with the staff in this regard.
The front staff were intolerable and not friendly. However, the doorman and the man who checked our bags were some of the friendliest people I’ve ever met at a hotel.

Wonderful hotel. My king suite was just fabulous. Large windows with floor to ceiling drapes, beautiful furniture and furnishings, spectacular bed. Two new large flat screen TV’s, bar area with stocked fridge, classy bathroom.
Great bar on the 18^th floor. Excellent restaurant on the 1^st floor. Michigan Avenue, Hancock Center and Water Tower Place are a couple blocks away.
Look forward to visiting again!

Our stay at Raffaello Hotel was just fine for the 3 nights we were in town. Since we had our «active» toddler in tow, we went with the Grand Suite which had a living room, and a bedroom with 1 King bed. The hotel is older, but it wasn’t in bad condition or falling apart by any means. Our room smelled like the house of an old lady who smoked and owned cats right as you walked in, but it didn’t linger too much. The common area had a small refrigerator, coffee setup (keurig, if I remember), counter space, a couch, coffee table, a small table with chairs and a desk. It’s nothing flashy. There was a good amount of space for our daughter to literally run in circles, jump around like a crazy person and get her daily cardio in. The bedroom was surprisingly really small, and a little awkward maneuvering around to «my side» of the bed. I had to do a sideways shuffle, and partially lift my leg to get to the other side. We are used to our comfy, Tempur-​Pedic bed at home so I was afraid the hotel bed would be like sleeping on the sidewalk… but hey, it wasn’t bad and we actually slept pretty well every night! Bathrooms looked like they were recently updated and although small, it did the job. They have a donut shop in the lobby with super fancy flavors and we had ridiculously priced room service for lunch on the day we arrived. I know, I know, room service is expensive everywhere, but these prices were like Ritz Carlton status, and this hotel is FAR from the Ritz, just so we’re clear.
Overall, customer service was totally pleasant. The maintenance guy who came up to fix our overly wobby table was prompt and replaced it after trying to fix it and we didn’t really have any issues. Good price and reasonable expectations for what we paid!

I really wanted to enjoy my stay at Raffaello, unfortunately there were so many ‘little’ things that were off, and ultimately lead up a really not great experience. I was in town for business, and will definitely not be recommending this hotel to my colleagues.
Foremost, I was treated very rudely upon checking in. I booked through my office managers credit card, and they needed the physical card for me to check in. I get that, as they wanted to prevent fraudulent charges. However, when I said I would cancel and just stay elsewhere, they said they would be forced to charge the card if I cancelled. So, how exactly does that prevent fraud if you’re just going to charge the card anyway? Anyway, mostly I understand, but they were very rude about the whole situation. I was willing to forgive that and enjoy my stay, but then there were a ton of other ‘small’ things that led me to have an overall pretty bad experience here.
Here are my complaints:
1. Trying to get up to the bar was very difficult for guests I had visiting me (since it’s only accessible via one elevator)
2. The room service was terribly over priced for really abysmal food.
3. The leather on my bed frame was all scratched up and falling off, exposing the cushion underneath. It did not make the room seem very clean.
4. The bedside table was on a slope mounted to the wall, which made it not a viable surface for me to put any of my belongings on — wtf?
5. The shower was not designed properly and allowed a lot of water to get all over the floor.
Will not stay here again. I really tried to like this hotel.

I booked my parents a room here during a crazy Chicago graduation weekend (literally more than half the schools in Chi have their grads during the same weekend/​day) which made area hotels crazy expensive. I booked a blind-​booking on hotwire and ended up with a room here for half the price of what I had expected to otherwise pay.
The rooms were comfortable and the staff (despite the sentiment expressed in other reviews) was friendly. THe big downside was the elevators. They are teensy-​tiny! On top of that, at night, the drunken crowd trying to get up to drumbar take up the elevators! Word to Raffaello staff — control this better! Your patrons staying at the hotel would appreciate it immensely!

This week was probably my sixth – at least, stay at The Raffaello and now that I’ve come to know what to expect, my stay was perfectly fine and I enjoy staying. The website will make you think the hotel is a 4-​star, luxurious, cool, boutique hotel with great décor. Lower your expectations, think location, location, location, and you’ll enjoy it. This is a 3-​star hotel for sure.
The Good: location is perfect. Right off the Magnificent Mile and super close to everything in the «tourist area» of Chicago. The street is a nice and quiet respite off the main drag, within easy walking distance to many of the tourist attractions, shopping, Navy Pier, etc. The lobby is nice with a simple coffee-​shop featuring Glazed – Chicago’s answer to the latest doughnut craze (pretty good too!). The rooms tend to be good size. The staff in general are helpful with various degrees of friendliness – typical of most places. The maid on this trip was super great however. There is also a great garage less than a block down the street that has in/​out privileges all billed to your room.
The Meh: The rooms, while large, have seen some wear and tear and the age is definitely showing. The furniture was showing some heavy use, sinking cushions, roughed up wood, not great mattress, etc. Carpet had some staining. The room walls have the oddest/​ugliest texture (from the 1970’s?) that was so rough, accidently bump up against it and you’ll tear off a chunk of skin. The rooms are always clean and you get the sense they are trying to do what they can. Bedding and towels are in need of some new, fresh supply – clean but a bit dingy. What is unacceptable is the shoddy construction work that was done in the refurb. The horrible paint job (messy!), missing and horrendous grout work on the bathroom tiling, poorly done molding work around the bathroom and room doors, etc. shows the whole «lipstick on a pig» mentally, just not quite pulled off. The heating/​cooling system has been retrofitted with an electronic thermostat, yet the fan and system itself were rattling so loudly this trip I questioned if they were actually working at all.
The Bad: The elevator (s). And I use the ‘s’ sparingly because almost every time I’ve stayed… one of the two elevators is out of commission. The elevators in general are small, slow, and tiresome. However, this trip I was happy to see that both elevators were in use.
So…it sounds like I am ‘dinging’ the Raffaello, but I am simply being overly critical. In all honesty, given rates, location, size and proper expectations – as a 3-​star hotel, it’s a fine place to stay and I am sure I’ll be back.

I recently had one of the most awful customer experiences of my life. I called to make a reservation with a gift certificate that is expired by two weeks but during the time of validity I was assured that they would honor the certificate since I’m a local and a regular patron of Drum Bar and because they claimed it was not a problem. When I called to make the reservation the front desk agent and a lady who claimed to be the operations manger spoke to me like some bum off the street looking for a free handout. They constantly talked over me, lied to me and then took my number down to get a call back… which never came. They also claimed to be overbooked… but I saw their listing on hotel tonight for $ 87. Shame shame shame. There are plenty of other lovely hotels in Chicago… don’t waste your money or time on this place.

Was expecting a 4 star hotel, but this hotel did not meet our expectations. Location cannot be beat, but rooms are extremely small and bed was extremely uncomfortable. Requested a room change due to the run down condition of our room and the bed. We were given a room that was a little bit larger, a little bit better bed, with a view of a back alleyway and dumpster.
On a better note, the doorman was extremely helpful and the rooftop bar was lovely. Would not stay at this hotel again.

It was very unfortunate for me that I had to conclude my very first visit to Chicago at this hotel and leave this bitter review. After going to school and working all summer, I finally decided to take a trip and enjoy myself in a city away from all the madness in LA a week before the start of the next school year. Realizing that I had chosen one of the busiest weeks for Chicago as I was desperately looking for a place to stay online and found very few hotels with extremely limited availabilities and ridiculously high prices, I was left with no other options but to use the HotelTonight app on my phone and switch to a different hotel every day during my week-​long vacation just to save a few (hundred) bucks.
So, after all the gorgeous views overlooking different parts of Chicago that I drooled over in my rooms in the hotels I stayed at, I found Rafaello on HotelTonight and booked my last night in Chicago for a little over $ 400 and expected a Ritz-​Carlton experience — boy was I wrong!
The staff at the tiny little reception area really took their precious time helping two ladies in front of me when I got there, gave me my room key and told me to get on that elevator the size of a MINI-​Cooper with those two ladies. I got to the room, opened the drapes, jumped on the bed and screamed into the pillow louder than I did the day before when I was in the glass box on top of the Sears Tower. The room was smaller than any of the rooms I had ever stayed in, and yes I had been in rooms with 10+ friends at Motel 6 and America’s Best Value Inn after raves before. For over $ 400 a night, I got a room on the 6-​th floor with power outlets that refused to charge my phone, and a view of the dumpster when the main reason I booked this hotel was because the building is right next to the magnificent John Hancock building. I called HotelTonight and hoped that some sort of mistake had happened but was told that the hotel was all booked up and that was the only room available. I thought I’d try and be optimistic about this disaster so I rode down in the MINI-​Cooper elevator to check out few of the million things nearby, but a thunderstorm slammed in my face before I could even get to the closest door of the John Hancock building. I ran back to the hotel in the storm, went straight up to the rooftop bar, got myself hammered because why not!!!
Oh did I mention that the room was tiny?

I really loved this hotel! Location was fantastic, service was so friendly and the donut place downstairs accounts for major bonus points. The guy who was working when I stopped by was so nice and welcoming, it almost made me feel less guilty stuffing my face with a maple bacon bar. The rooftop bar was nice on a war summer’s night although they closed kinda early. Also, it wasn’t an amazing view or anything, so don’t expect that to be the case. I opted for wine, so I didn’t get to try any of their cocktails but they sure looked good. The rooms were a good size with a very large bathroom. I got the feeling that this building used to be an apartment complex that was turned into a hotel. The only major complaint is the elevators. They are so small and so slow. Be careful during check in and check out time you might be waiting forever.

Giving it 3 stars because the price was reasonable for gold coast area of Chicago. $ 180 for a Friday night. Room was clean but a bit shabby – torn carpet, worn headboard, sticking bathroom door. Thin walls. Service good. Very small elevators.

I stayed here with a few friends for a bachelorette party this past weekend. We had originally booked at nearby Hotel Felix however, due to a leak of some sort, we were transferred to the deluxe suite rooms at Raffaello for no extra charge (we’d originally booked just a standard double at Felix).
We were booked on two different floors, one suite on the 6^th and the other on the 16^th. The room on the 6^th floor seemed a bit larger (or maybe it was just a better layout) than the 16^th floor suite but both were very nice and spacious. We had 3 – 4 guests in each room and we were all very comfortable. The 6^th floor suite included a king size bed, double mattress pull-​out couch and a twin size murphy bed. It easily could have slept 6.
We did have the opportunity to check-​out the restaurant as we’d made other reservations prior to switching hotels. However, the donut shop in the lobby is super cute and the latte was delicious (I did not try the actual donuts. They looked and smelled amazing, it was just a little too early for that much sugar after a long night out!). The DrumBAR is very chic and has a great view of the waterfront. Cocktail prices were as expected for an upscale hotel bar in the heart of Chicago.
My only complaints, and the reason Raffaello loses a star, are due to staff and elevators:
1. The elevators are tiny. It comfortable fits about four people, however you can squeeze in about eight if you don’t mind being nose-​to-​nose with your elevator mates. Also, of the two elevators, only one goes up the DrumBAR (located on the 18^th floor).
There is no way to specifically call this one elevator, you just have to hope for the best. If you get the other elevator, take it to the 17^th floor and wait for elevator 2 to come your way so you can go up another floor (taking the stairs up a flight is not helpful as they door is locked and the music is too loud for staff to hear you knock). However, due to their small size, the number of guests at the hotel (particularly on a busy Saturday) and the popularity of the bar, waiting for the elevators can take awhile!
2. As previous reviewers mentioned, front desk staff is pretty hit or miss. We did not have any major incidents but the few interactions we did have with staff they were very short, snippy and seemingly annoyed. We requested an extra pillow as the pull out beds did not have any that we could find and was very curtly informed that there was a folded up blanket in one of the bottom drawers that we could use.

I loved staying here! It was in the perfect, most quaint part of town. It was definitely a boutique hotel. The rooms were great, and the best part was Drum Bar on the roof… it was so chic! Glazed and Confused donuts on the first floor was a delightful treat… try the Maple Bacon Long John.

The Raffaello is lovely. It’s centrally located near some of Chicago’s best & most exclusive stores. It’s a great respite from busy Michigan Ave. The staff is friendly & efficient. Just off the entrance of the lobby there is a cute little coffee shop that is an outpost for Glazed and Infused, a hip take on donut shops. Definitely stop in early and have a donut!
My room was cozy, modern & exceptionally clean. The bed was so comfy. The bathroom though cool was small. Speaking of which, the elevators are very tiny & cramped especially on nights & weekends when outside guests are going to Drumbar. You should note rooms near the elevator on the 15^th floor can be loud late due to people heading to & from Drumbar.

Not particularly as nice as the price would reflect. The website I booked with stated «free parking,» but the when I addressed the discrepancy with the concierge, she simply stated that was not true. Thanks to Hipmunk’s great service, they reimbursed me for the parking fee.
Messy drywall and light fixtures. Poor design with the glass barrier in the shower and the placement of the full length mirror. Service was okay– not exactly personable, but at least they act professional.

Hands down the worst hotel I have ever stayed at. DO NOT STAY HERE. YOU WILL REGRET IT.
The only thing going for itself is the location and quality of the rooms. THE ONLY THING.
From the moment I walked into the hotel to check-​in, the staff was extremely rude. Every single one of them from the housekeeping to the staff at the roof top bar. No personality, no sense of urgency, and they talk down to you and are condescending. Trust me there are better hotels in the area. Go someplace other than this hotel. I will never return.

Everything is wonderful. They upgraded my room to a suite which was sweet. Room was big, service was fast and friendly. I like how they text the customer ask if customers need anything. Also they text is the questions for a trivia, winner can get a free bottle of wine. Everything was good except they had bugs in room I found three little black thing under the towels in the bathroom… I cannot sleep well at night cuz I was afraid the little things were on bed too

I bought a Groupon for $ 99.00 ($ 121.95) after tax and processing fees for a King Suite for one night. The hotel had a charming and elegant feel and was everything the website said and more. I called twice before my stay and the lady I spoke to on the phone was super nice and helpful. The other woman the next day was a little sassy and when I asked if we came early and rooms were ready and available can we check in early, her response was along the lines of, «What’s the question… You will be charged 30.00 if your going to come earlier than your check-​in» and she was very short with me. Minor issue, but she wasn’t nearly as nice as the first lady.
We arrived at 2:30pm and check-​in wasn’t till 4:00pm. We were just going to drop out luggage off and come back at 4:00pm. We were informed we could check in right then and there and we were thrilled we weren’t charged and how nice Liz was at the front desk. The room was very spacious, great view and felt simple and luxurious. We also got handed two drink tickets for both me and my boyfriend at the new Drumbar on the top floor. Great drinks, but crazy loud up there. The loud music didn’t fit the classy «whiskey bar» atmosphere. Nice nonetheless!
The overall experience, the fabulous location (directly next to the Hancock) and the friendly staff, doormen and maids made for a nice stay. I would do the same deal over again and id recommended it to anyone! So close to a 5^th star!
Here is my OCD recap lol:
–good location
–nice staff
–great drinks at the bar
–yummy donuts in the lobby
–nice rooms
–awesome texting feature from the front desk asking if we need anything
Cons:
–crazy loud bar
–wasn’t informed of an authorization charge on debits and freaked when I saw 100.00 charge (luckily it’s gone now)
–extremely tight and intimate elevators.

I bought a Groupon for the Raffaello which my family and I used for our Thanksgiving staycation. I highly recommend going the Groupon route because it was such a deal!
Overall, we really enjoyed our experience. The room was pretty spacious. The service was just average. But the location is pretty nice (right off of Michigan Ave). Glazed and Infused is in the lobby so that is a nice easy breakfast stop (and you dont even have to leave the hotel).
I didn’t feel like there was anything super special about our stay here… but I’d recommend it to anyone who is looking to stay in a downtown boutique hotel that is also relatively inexpensive.