I will be attending a meeting in Chicago on 2/13 with a married couple. We will be staying the weekend for some site seeing. We are looking for reasonably priced hotels in the MM area. Maybe suites or connecting rooms. We are from Florida and will freeze but will make the best of it. Also how about info on shopping, site seeing and restaurants.

Stay somewhere on the Magnificent Mile (North Michigan Ave) We enjoy a hotel that has either a river or lake view.(ie: Sharaton Towers) You could bid on priceline for a 4 star on North Michigan) Plan on walking Navy Pier, and having a drink on the 96th floor of the John Hancock building at the Signature Lounge. Do this during daylight for a great, great view of the city and lake! The 95th floor has a restaurant with equally good views if you want to have dinner and enjoy the city at night!(expensive) Also, the Shedd Aquarium and Museum of Natural History are favorites. Some of our favorite restaurants are: Berghoffs on Adams (German) and Parthanon on Halstead (Greek) Uno's for pizza and Ed Debevic's for hamburgers.

ps. The hotels might not have a Michigan Ave address but that is the neighborhood you want.

You can find info on shopping, sites, etc. by looking at Fodor's city guide for Chicago.

Go to www.biddingfortravel.com for good info on how to best use priceline to bid for hotels.

Have fun!

Best two websites for Chicago are www.metromix.com and www.877chicago.com, excellent info about restaurants, hotels, things that are currently going on....

Take a look at Priceline (check out biddingfortravel before you bid), I've seen people get excellent deals on Chicago hotels. You will probably want to bid for North Michigan Avenue if you want to be near the Mag Mile.

Since you are not bringing children you might want to pass on Ed Debevic's, the food I had there a few months ago was expensive and not very good. And although the younger people seemed to be enjoying the atmosphere, I just didn't find it all that entertaining.

Chicago is full of great restaurants, if you want to narrow it down a bit (type, location, price)you'll get better suggestions. You can also search Metromix by those criteria.

Check out the Chicago Tribune website at www.metromix.com for great hotel, restaurant, and theatre links. I'll second the recommendation for the Signature Lounge at the Hancock and would like to add the restaurant at the Shedd Aquarium (I can't remember the name, but it's located on the upper level.) for its great views of the city, Navy Pier, and the lake front.

You really want to be close to shopping and cabs in February. While the weather might grace us with temps in the 30s and 40s in the daytime, you should be prepared for cold nights (and some days) in the teens and 20s. Navy Pier is particularly cold and windy.

The Sheraton, IMO, has a poor location for walking to Michigan Avenue. Stick to hotels within a couple of blocks from the sights. The Omni, Doubletree and Fitzpatrick have suites and good locations.

I agree with patg. Mag Mile is walkable from the Sheraton but there are hotels with much better locations. I'll also second patg's suggestion of Omni or Doubletree. I've never stayed at Fitzpatrick so can't comment on that one.