I stayed at the Embassy Suites, Deerfield IL from 2/2/12 through 2/6/12 with my husband, and two children 1 and 9. Upon arrival I was very pleased. The hotel is very pretty with lots of cool scenery (atrium, small waterfall, fish pond). The suites were fine with plenty of space, clean, and all of the girls at the front desk day and night were all super friendly and helpful. Nothing fancy, but overall great for the value. The breakfast is good in the mornings, but the people that clean up after are pretty rude which was very surprising. There was everything you would hope to find at a standard hotel with a pool, lounge, business center, fitness center, and restaurant.

The restaurant is where they started to lose us. If I were reviewing based on that alone I would absolutely rate it as terrible. Absolutely terrible. Let me begin by saying that I was aware that they were in the process of transitioning to this CG place that very week we were in. I get that, and I get that there are bound to be bumps in the process. I actually made a reservation for 10 for that Saturday night because I had friends driving in from the city to have dinner with us that I've not seen in 15 years. When I spoke with them on the phone before we arrived I was advised that they were offering a buffet style dinner, but absolutely could offer the room service menu or a few made to order items for our dinner party. The woman I spoke with was nice enough on the phone, so I figured how bad could it be? Well just to see what we were in store for we ate there the night we arrived with my Dad who was also staying at the hotel in from CA. The service was so awful - so awful. The server had a bad attitude, she seemed bothered by anything that we needed, left us sitting there with no drinks from the time we arrived until about 15 minutes after we ordered. We asked her if we could order from the room service menu she told us no - we had to order the buffet which was $20 per person, and offered fish, pork potatoes, a vegetable medley, salad, and soup. I was not paying $20 for my 9 year old to eat salad from a buffet because there was nothing else that appealed to him. I explained that I was told we could order from the room service menu - she made us wait another 10 minutes while she checked with the chef. Then she came back and read off the room service menu. (by this point we could have just ordered from our rooms, and have eaten already) We asked if we could look over the menu for a few minutes - she told us no. She was not comfortable leaving it at the table. By this point my 1 year old is fussy, and turning on us. I asked her if she had any crackers or croutons we could give her - she told me no. I asked for a high chair - she told me she didn't have any. It was so terrible. She was cold, rude, and by far and way the most unaccommodating server I've ever had. Finally, we order the burgers off the menu and a couple deserts. The burgers were dry and nothing like what the description read. This is a $13 burger. We sat with empty drinks for another 20 minutes while we waited for her to finally come back with the check. I could not believe how bad it was.

After this naturally I called the restaurant to explain what happened, and to discuss if I needed to cancel my reservation for Saturday night. The girl I spoke with was super sweet, apologetic, and promised the manager Dear would call me in the morning to address my concerns. The next morning, afternoon, and evening came and went with no phone call. I called the hotel front desk and explained all of this all over again. I then got a call back right away from the chef. She was super polite, apologetic, and basically won me back over. I still never received a call from the manager or was offered any apology from anyone on a management level which blows my mind as a manager myself. We met for our dinner party, and wouldn't you know it my side of the table had that same horrible server with the bad attitude. They had a high chair ready for us this time, and offered the room service menu as well as the buffet. The food was much better - good, not great. Not anywhere near worth the menu prices. The same thing happened again - after we were served our food our table was in no mans land. We actually ended up having to go to the bar ourselves to get more drinks. All in all I would say if you want to charge $13 or $14 for a burger, then your service needs to correlate to that level of dining - and it doesn't at all. They actually wrote our credit card numbers down in pen on the receipts after we settled our checks at the table. Who does that? It was such a horrible experience, and such a poor reflection on the hotel. It's a shame we spent money there with so many other amazing options to near by.

All in all the hotel is pretty good, as long as you don't plan on eating or drinking there.