The Lotus Suites

I have stayed at this hotel at least 10 times over the past two years due to getting treatment from the cancer center in Zion. I love everything about this hotel. The staff all know me and are always very helpful. The beds are incredibly comfortable. The entire hotel is clean. The breakfast is usually decent. There are many other hotels closer to the cancer center but I will only choose this one because of how wonderful it is.

The front desk was lacking the ability to project a level of professional customer service all guests deserve. They were less than eager to assist with our special requests due to a wedding at Midlane Country Club (they are not affiliated although they are connected). We constantly felt we were being lied to about the availability of rooms. They spelled numerous names wrong when scheduling the reservations for the wedding block which caused a difficult process when checking in. Our room had a broken tv, a clogged bathroom sink, a clogged shower/​tub, and a clogged kitchen sink. The presidential suite was also lacking basic upkeep. I strongly encourage you to look elsewhere for hotels in the area as you will not be impressed. Hopefully, the staff and management will catch on and fix these issues before it’s too late.

I really liked this hotel /​condo type place. The lobby was upscale… there was a steamy indoor pool with a hot tub and our suite was great!
A kitchen with refrigerator, cabinets, a sitting room with a couch and a big TV set and off to the side a bedroom, dressers, another TV set and a little bathroom type room with a sink and counter and then a bathroom further in.
Plus a free hot breakfast in the mornings! And I liked the variety that they offered. The menu changed every day and one day I got real chipped beef and biscuits, hot eggs, cheese omelets, bacon, sausage, there were also yogurts, cold cereal, waffles to be made and cranberry or orange juice.
Only downside was our room smelled kind of like someone was smoking or something at some point. So I opened the windows.
This hotel/​condo space was set on a golf course in a rather rural (pretty) area of Illinois, off the beaten path. However, there were restaurants nearby.
It surprises me that this got negative reviews but then I noticed that they were from years ago… so they must have improved things.
And that review of the wedding was a tad bizarre to say the least. Complaining about fireworks and that things ran too smoothly? What would you prefer? That the food was served burnt and the waiters lost the guest’s gifts? (I’ve been to a wedding where that happened!)

All in all, our stay at the hotel was acceptable. We just needed a place to rest for an evening before an early departure. We didn’t even need the shower, so simple was our visit. However, there were a few things, perhaps easily addressed, that would make future stays an improved experience for guests.
I stayed at this hotel about 10 years ago, after a wedding reception. The hotel does not appear to have been updated since then. The snagged and wrinkled window sheers looked cheap and out of place at a mid-​range hotel that is part of the Wyndham family. The pillows were lumpy and old – which is kind of gross. I tried not to think about it. There was a buildup of dust and dirt in the corners of the bathroom. In Spanish, we call it mugre — general grunge. In the hallway, one of the glass wall fixtures was sitting on the floor, which indicates a lack of care and attention to detail. Also, a sign, printed from a computer printer, requested that guests be quiet, refrain from running around, prank calling, etc. because the hotel housed guests that are receiving medical care. This was a nice gesture to the guests, but the sign was rife with misspellings and simply scotch-​taped to the wall. This looked decidedly unprofessional.
I was really surprised that both of the windows in our second floor room did not lock. No matter what I tried, I was unable to get them to latch shut. This is a serious security matter that would prevent me from recommending the hotel. In hindsight, I really should have had someone come look at them, but I was anxious to get to sleep. I did not feel that the fix would be quick. Also, with respect to security, I had to retrieve an item from my car at around 9 o’clock. When I returned from the car, the front doors to the hotel were not locked, despite a sign that indicated that a key card would be needed after 8pm. Furthermore, there was no one at the front desk at that time, just a note near the house phone directing guests to dial for assistance. Really, this is neither hospitable nor safe — particularly given the nightclub atmosphere of the bar.
Check in was great. The ladies at the desk were professional and made it easy for me to arrange for the three rooms I reserved to be put in the names of three separate parties. I requested early morning coffee since we would be checking out at 5:15am for a triathlon event. My request for food with that was denied — although it ended up being fulfilled anyway, with some nice fresh fruit, juice, etc. The bagels and bread were stale and completely unappealing, though.
Checkout was not great. Although Jun had a good attitude, he was very confused by our reservations. Either the check in team did not leave good notes, or Jun was not trained well enough to let each of the three rooms on the reservation be charged to three separate credit cards. This confusion delayed our departure.

Service:
The hotel was nice, the overall experience left me frustrated and impatient. They were grossly understaffed and the individual they had working 90% of the time at the front desk did not seem entirely competent to handle the checking out of 100+ wedding guests and handle the phone calls, etc. It was clear English was her second language, and I commend people who speak multiple languages, but there is nothing more frustrating than being a guest who cannot even communicate with the hotel staff because of the language barrier.
Checking in, they could not locate the reservation because the last name was spelled incorrectly in their computer. We were running late for the wedding since we were from out of town and got stuck in traffic. When we were checking out, we were in a hurry to get on the road and after waiting in a long line of other guests checking out and complaining about the service, we had to wait while the woman working had to call her manager on the phone multiple times to help us fix the rates we were charged for the room, they did not include the wedding discount as they were supposed to.
Wedding Reception:
All in all, the wedding reception was nice, the bar staff was friendly and the waiters and waitresses did a good job serving. The layout of the reception room was kind of odd, I almost walked into the kitchen multiple times since the door from the reception room to the hallway where the restrooms were was hidden. The entrance where the wedding party walked through was small, so it limited their entrance. I also heard there was not much of a choice in regards to the newlyweds personalizing their wedding reception in regards to food/​drinks/​etc. They were forced to have a wedding planner!
Stay:
The Continental breakfast was decent. The room was large and had a nice little kitchenette.

We really enjoyed our stay here on a recent family trip. We booked a 1– bedroom suite and were given an accessible room. This means that we didn’t have a bathtub, which my toddler did not appreciate, but we had some extra room to work with in our suite, which was great for setting up the pack and play. The room was clean and laid out intelligently. Having a mini kitchen sink to go with the mini fridge and microwave was very nice. Plates and utensils were available at the front desk.
I heard some hallway noise during our second night (a huge group had checked in), but it didn’t affect our ability to sleep. I can imagine it might be an issue if a rowdy crowd was staying there.
The staff were friendly and accommodating. The check-​in process was pretty slow. Not a problem for us, but when that big group came through on the second night of our stay, the lobby was a bit chaotic.
The pool was small, but it served our purposes well. We were lucky enough to avoid being there with too many other people. The breakfast was great — waffle iron, Kellogs cereals, yogurt, scrambled and hard boiled eggs, a breakfast meat, an additional breakfast starch (potato pancakes one day, pancakes and french toast the other), fresh fruit (apples one day and watermelon the next) and a toaster with breads, english muffins, and mini muffins. Not too many whole grain selections, unless you count instant oatmeal. The breakfast area was clean and well-​stocked. They use real plates and utensils, not disposables, which was wonderful.
The price was terrific. Since we stayed 2 nights, we got a 15% discount. Including tax, our stay was less than $ 190. We would stay here again without hesitation.

To stay at Hawthorn Suites is to be confident nothing shocking, jarring, or otherwise outside the experience of the average upper middle class traveler will occur. It’s entirely possible to somnambulate through the entire check-​in, residence, and wedding reception experience blissful in the knowledge that, within the confines of the establishment, nothing interesting or untoward will assail the senses.
The bride evidently picked Wedding #2 and color scheme #6 from the menu, causing her wedding planner and Hawthorn to swing into action like a well-​oiled machine. The evening was perfect — I’m certain it adhered exactly to the script. It was entirely without drama … or passion … or a pulse. The bride has an attractive and strong personality, yet the evening was flavored with vanishingly little of her personal touch. Instead of spending the evening feeling happy for her, I passed my time wondering why anyone (and especially she) would invest time and money on something so generic and cold.
My impressions of …
The reception hall: Pre-​fab room, completely conventional, mercilessly well-​organized and intelligently arranged. It was «personalized» with dyed sashes, luckily of a different color than those chosen by the evening’s other bride, who was installed in the otherwise identical adjacent reception room. Without the color-​coded accents to identify the rooms, there would doubtless have been substantial unintentional co-​mingling of guests from both parties.
The entertainment: DJ with a table-​mounted disco ball — playing every hackneyed wedding-​centric song I’ve grown to hate. Fireworks (I am not making this up) set off outside, clearly visible through enormous windows, creating a backdrop for the bride and groom’s first dance. I somehow did not … ah … feel the moment.
The staff: Completely unobtrusive, quick, efficient, and numerous. They masterfully executed each of the tasks entrusted to them that evening: performing the ever-​present-​but-​never-​underfoot dance of dispensing hors d’oeuvres before dinner, serving dinners to every person in the room nearly simultaneously, making the for-​show wedding cake vanish directly after it was cut, distributing perfectly cut pieces of cake immediately afterwards, and whisking away the used place settings and utensils with magical speed.
The food: Well prepared and admirably tweaked versions of old standbys — one or two unusual ingredients in the entrees had a good effect. The improvised vegetarian kabob was quite nice.
The suite: Quiet, comfortable, and tastefully appointed — a veritable refuge. The only time I heard the hysterics of the other bride’s bridesmaid, who had the suite directly across from mine, (apparently her bf cheated on her that night with another girl in the wedding party) was when I ventured into the hall. I slept well and heard nothing from my neighbors while inside the suite. The appliances were all very nice, but the pots in the cupboards were cheaper than anything I’ve encountered outside of a child’s playset, and there were only a couple utensils in the drawer (good thing I didn’t have guests).
The parking: One complaint — multiple advertisements stuck under my windshield wiper — whatever’s on that slip of paper is not worth making me unbuckle and get out of the car to retrieve!
Amenities: The fitness center was nice (if limited) and the vending machines got some late-​night love. But, I feel like I missed the point of staying here, since I didn’t indulge in the big draw (golf).