I bought 4 City Passes on eBay for $40 each. Saved $50 total when you add in the high shipping cost of buying them from the CityPass web site.

I really appreciate this thread. We are going in June and are looking for bargains also.

Lots of great tips here Governator...
To answer your question, the Blue line goes straight from O'Hare into downtown pretty efficiently and depending on traffic, a lot quicker than a cab.

Also, definitely check out the Chicago greeter program-free tourguides of all sorts of neighborhoods-can't beat it!

http://www.chicagogreeter.com/

PS, one of our favorite cheap Italian places is Pasta Palazzo on Halsted at Armitage in Lincoln Park-super fresh pasta and pretty much under $10 per dish. I'm just ticked that Rachael Ray "discovered" it and now the secrets out since we've been going for years!

More food options from a Chicagoan living in the loop:
1) Lou Malnati's pizzeria on Wells (just north of Merchandise Mart) is, in my opinion, the best pizza in Chicago (thin or deep). Very reasonable and kid friendly.
2) Cafe Iberico on LaSalle just south of Chicago: tapas, so you can make a meal of just few $3-$5 dishes. Great variety. Cheap and good sangria. A scene after 5:30, but open all afternoon and fairly quiet.
3) Macy's (formerly Fields) on State has "7 of 7", a higher-end food court. The cheap steal here is the Frontera counter, which offers Rick Bayless mexican for amazingly low prices. Other counters have soups, salads, noodles, but are less of a deal (I think).
If I think of anything else, I'll post again.
Enjoy the city!
melissa

The Chicago Architecture Foundation does the wonderful Architecture River Cruise, but just checked their site and unfortunately the boats don't start til April 28. However, since you're interested in architecture, they offer a number of other interesting tours and you can search by date. Go to http://www.architecture.org/tours.aspx.

I'd recommend a stroll through the Gold Coast neighborhood to check out the beautiful old mansions and tree-lined streets. The best streets are in the area north of Division, south of North Ave and east of Clark St. Don't miss Astor St. Nearby is my neighborhood, Old Town, roughly centered at North Ave and Wells St. It's the home of Second City (tickets are easy to get and inexpensive) and tons of great reasonably priced restaurants and pubs. Bistrot Margot is a wonderful french bistro.

I will add to the voices saying don't get a car! If you're willing to use the buses and the El, you'll get everywhere you need to go. And taxis are always a back-up plan.

Glad to hear you'll see Wrigley Field! Make sure to plan to hang out in the surrounding neighborhood bars before and after the game. An Italian place that everyone loves is Mia Francesca, just a couple of blocks south of the ballpark.

Metromix is a great resource for restaurants...I love to read the reviews.

Enjoy Chicago!!

What a great thread! Wish it had been here last June.

We did a couple the tours given by Chicago Architecture Foundation and they were great.

Purchase your 7 day CTA passes right at the airport and start using them on the Blue line. You'll find more than enough to see along the bus/train/ and L routes that you'll have no use for a car.

Excellent suggestions above. Here's one, if you happen to be in the Lakeview/Wrigleyville area: Bittersweet on Belmont, about two blocks west of the brown and red line stop. It's the best bakery I've been to. And they also have decent sandwiches and salads.

One word of warning about Metromix and restaurants, it's not always updated. If you read about a restaurant that you're interested in, call ahead and make sure it's still there! I've seen instances in our area where, not only is the restaurant listed on Metromix not there any longer, the restaurant that took it's place is no longer there!

We visited Chicago in November for the first time and fell in love with the city.
I agree that the John Hancock Signature room is the best. We went two days in a row. Unbelievable view.
Lou Malnati's pizza is sooooo good I have it delivered to us here in Boston.
If you have time read "The Devil in the White City" Great book about the Chicago Worlds fair and a serial killer. True story. Everyone on our cruise trolly had read it and I wish I had known about it before we went.
The city is soooo clean.
We were there for a wedding so loads of our time was tied up with that.
We hope to go back this summer just to explore.
Enjoy, I am jealous.
Nancy

CAPH52, that is so true about metromix. Also find it is the same in other cities. And web pages too.

We saw a restaurant on a webpage for D.C. when we were just there. Also one rec'd here. One gone. One open at lunch and not for dinner, and closed with signs "by takeover" whatever that means on the very night we were going.

Lots of our favorites in Chicago have gone in the last 5 years. So do call, CAPH52, is correct- if you are traveling across neighborhoods to get there, especially.

This is a really comprehensive list, so not much to add, but, as I spent nearly 5 months working in Chicago last year (and had a bit of time to explore when I stayed for a few weekends), I wanted to add 2 things:
1) I second the idea for Boston Blackie's on Grand for cheap food/ great burgers. Not a big menu, but known for the burgers for $7 (sans fries - they're extra). It's been there over 20 years, and neighborhood regulars/locals frequent the small place.
2) There is a stained glass "museum" at the Navy Pier that is free, and I believe that I read it's the only one in the US or world. Not big, but has Louis Tiffany examples, as well as many local shops' work (apparently glass works were strong in Chicago in the early 1900's (don't quote me on the dates!). Although I don't like the Navy Pier itself (b/c too commmercial & crowded on weekends, if you're there for one of the boat rides, you can check it out then.

I'd like to suggest a stop in my neighborhood. I live in Lincoln Square. Just take the Brown Line north to Western and walk east to Lincoln. It's a German neighborhood with a lot of German bars...and mainly just a nice place to walk. You could walk all the way up Lincoln and pass tons of cute bookstores and end up in the North Center neighborhood, which is also nice. The more you get out of the loop, the cheaper the restaurants will be!

I love Nacional 27 you can see them at www.nacional27.net They offer a tasting of 5 different tapas for only $8.95 per person on tuesdays....and they have a live jazz band on tuesdays too! Also, if you swing by Ethels chocolate lounge in the Nordstrom mall (400ish N Michigan ave), you get TWO chocolates truffles w/purchase of coffee drink.

If your adventurous and looking for cheap but good you have to go into the neighborhoods. Argyle and Broadway has many Vietnamese restaurants. Tank on the corner could be done within your budget and then walk around and check out the local bakeries and shops. Also, on Milwaukee Avenue, in a Polish area, is Red Apple buffet where you'll roll out the door and still stay very close to your budget. Navy Pier is fun - the restaurants are above your limit but there's a food court and it's fun just to walk around and view the city, especially in the evening when the city lights come on. There's a free trolley to get you there. They sometimes have "street" performers. GArfield Park Conservatory, available by EL train, is having an interesting exhibit of huge fanciful sculptures mixed in with the plantings, but I'm not certain of when it starts. Oak Park has a Frank Lloyd Wright tour of house and neighborhood, or you could do a do-it-yourself walking tour. If you're interested, you might want a car for a day or two to go out to places like the Bahai Temple in Wilmette, and for shopping, the outlet malls in Gurnee and Pleasant Prairie, just over the Wisconsin border - that is if you don't have them at home. If you like theater, some of them have last minute tickets at a good price, or you could check Hot Tix. Have fun

If you are interested in architecture, you must come to Oak Park and see some Frank Lloyd Wright buildings! You can tour the inside of his home and studio and Unity Temple. There are also walking tours where you see the exteriors of houses he built. Oak Park is the first suburb directly west of Chicago and easy to get to via the Green Line from downtown. The closest stop to Wright's home is the last one on that line, Harlem-Marion. (The Marion exit is closest.) If you go directly to Unity Temple, then the Oak Park Avenue stop is the closest. This web site will tell you more about the tours:
www.wrightplus.org/tours/tours.php [NOTE: for some reason this address appears twice - just type in the first one, not the whole thing]
Oak Park is also an attractive village and very historic, and a nice addition to a trip to Chicago! (OK, I admit, I live there ;-)) If you'd like more details on this, let me know.
I also agree that you don't need to rent a car to see the city. Some neighborhoods are difficult to visit without one, but others quite easy. The transit map should hopefully guide you in that. Easy to get to the museums via public transportation, harder or more time-consuming to get to the University of Chicago area or Devon.
I'm sure you'll have a great time. I'm crossing my fingers that the weather will be good!

I don’t usually write trip reports but I’ll give it a shot.

Took our ‘budget’ trip to Chicago and had a great time. Used some of the budget tips in this thread and did a few splurges as well. We were there from 4/5 – 4/11, the weather was cold but it didn’t rain (and snow) until the last day. To begin with our roundtrip fare was only $100 per person from Newark. Cheaper then walking. For a hotel we used Priceline and stayed at the Hyatt Regency 6 nights, for 80/night, a four star hotel for about the cost of a motel.

The Hyatt is a great hotel, very comfortable rooms, friendly staff and a vibrant atmosphere. We went to the Big Bar once and spent a lot for two 48oz cocktails. Not being drinkers we hardly put a dent in them and it would have been smarter to share one. But it was fun for the novelty and the picture taking, anyway.
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We saw a fair share of museums and only had to pay for one. We went to the Art Institute, Museum of Contemporary Art and Chicago Historical Museum all on free days. We also went to the free Smart Museum at the University of Chicago. The Chicago Cultural Center had free art exhibits housed in a building that is itself a beautiful piece of art with its two spectacular glass domes. While we were there we also got to hear a free chamber music concert. We did go back to the Art Institute a second time and paid the $12 each, well worth the price.

Wound up avoiding the major museums not wanting to pay a big fee and not wanting to spend too much time indoors, as we like exploring the city itself. I guess we’ll see them next time.

We saved money by eating a breakfast two times at a Japanese express food place in the mall under the Hyatt, yummy spicy tofu soup and brown rice. Not everyone’s idea of breakfast but we like that stuff. We also had some delicious multi grain bread and strawberry cream cheese from BreadSmith in Old town, which we ate for breakfast a couple of times. One breakfast we had hot dogs ‘dragged through the garden’ at Gold Coast under the El, also not everyone’s idea of breakfast.

A great inexpensive lunch was had at the food court in the Marshall Field/Macys. That was some gourmet fast food there, grilled steak and grilled salmon for $10 each. Another reasonable good lunch we had at Trattoria Roma in Old Towne. That was the some of the best Lasagna and thin crust pizza I’ve ever tasted.We also had a good inexpensive meal at Mellow Yellow in Hyde Park.

We ate one meal at Subway and I was amused to hear a woman, when she was picking her sandwich toppings, apparently a native, saying ‘The onions’ with accent on ‘The’ (Thaa), I thought that was only a SNL joke.

Spent a lot of time touring the great Chicago architecture, checking out all the historical ‘skyscrapers’, like the Reliant building, the Rookery, the Wrigley building etc. The new architecture is really cool also; I didn’t know that Chicago has 3 of the 4 tallest buildings in the U.S. I saw what JJ5 had mentioned about the stones from many sites built into one of the buildings. We took the Wendella architecture boat tour, froze our butts but it was really great.So many interesting buildings which I wouldn’t have seen while walking around. I love the 333 Wacker and the Marina condos. My wife liked the black curvy glass building near Navy pier which Oprah has an apartment in. We enjoyed looking at all the public art like the Chagall mosaic and the Miro sculpture. Also enjoyed going into the Thompson building with the huge interior space, and taking the elevator ride.

Checked out some neighborhoods like Hyde Park (and the university) Old Towne, Gold Coast, Oz Park, Lincoln park (and the zoo), Wicker park, Magnificent mile , Navy pier, Wrigleyville, Lakeview. My wife enjoyed shopping on Belmont Ave. where she got a good deal on some fashionable shoes and a bag at the Pink Frog. She said she would have paid double in NYC for those shoes. She also bought a cute wool hat at Filene’s on Michigan, which helped her through the cold weather. We took the Ferris wheel at Navy Pier, was a little disappointed (yet relieved) that it only went around once. It also goes really slow, I guess because of the winds.


As for splurges, we went the day after opening day to Wrigley. For me it was very satisfying to go there as I had seen it so many times on TV when I was a big Mets fan in my younger days. I didn’t know there were bleacher seats on top of the roofs of the neighboring buildings. I experienced what Bob Murphy used to call the ‘friendly confines of Wrigley Field’ , I was surprised to see the ivy was brown, does it green up later in the year or has it died? It was quite cold though and the cubs were losing 4-0 so we left after 5 innings. Was surprised to see how much warmer it was outside the stadium. Stopped in at the Cubbybear and saw the impressive array of TVs , must be a great place to stop in and watch the game.

We went to the Signature Room and enjoyed a pretty good meal with a spectacular view. Expensive but worth it. We stopped in at the bar, afterward, and saw a spectacular sunset. It surprised me to see how flat the land surrounding the city is. With the lights lining the highways it looked like an airport runway.

We took in a play , the Rabbit Hole at the Goodman theater with tickets purchased at a discount from Hot Tix. The show was pretty good , I loved how comfortable the seating is there, compared to NYC theatres where there is so little legroom.

We went to Second City for comedy. I must be getting old , the lines come so fast I had trouble catching some of it. Had a good time none the less. The Starbucks next to the Second City was probably the biggest one I’ve ever seen.

Anyway, thanks for all the advice. We loved Chicago and hope to go back again sometime.

I really enjoyed reading this thread. So many good suggestions for Chicago! I live about 3 to 3 1/2 hours drive to this exciting city, and after reading this thread (and nice trip report!!) I have some new things to do the next time I've there!
Thanks for all the great information!

Oh, BTW, governator, did you try the blue line into the city? I tried this for my first time in February. I came into the city the night before a flight to Bangkok and stayed close to Mich Ave and took the blue line the next morning. Very convenient!!

Carol

Yes we used the blue line, to and from the city. It's very fast and convenient. I wish we had a similiar arrangement here in New York.

At first I was annoyed at myself for not buying the unlimited transportation pass. But being as we walked a lot and that you can ride for only 25 cents within a 2 hour time frame , I don't think I spent much extra by paying per ride.

We used the brown line mostly , I was surprised how quickly it takes you to the upper reaches of Chicago.

Great trip report, Governator! So glad you enjoyed Chicago. And, yes, the ivy does "green up" later in the season!

Sounds like a great trip!
I'll be coming to Chicago next weekend for a conference and will have Saturday to spend playing tourist with a friend. We've both been to the Michigan Avenue shopping area before and would like to spend at least part of the day exploring Chicago architecture and shopping and possibly see a play or musical. What area of the city would you recommend to explore? We have dinner reservations for Blackbird at 6:15. What options are available for night time entertainment afterwards?