Chicago Nesties
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
train question... midway to downtown
we're visiting chicago in may and hotel prices are INSANE for downtown... waaaaay out of our budget. how long of a ride is it from midway to downtown (orange line i believe)? we found much cheaper hotels by the airport... my guess is 20-30 minutes based on what i know from the ride from o'hare to downtown.
thanks 
also, any activities you'd suggest would be much appreciated. we go about every year and i grew up in WI (went to chicago several times) and have done all of the standard touristy stuff (millenium park, mich. ave., water tower place, hancock tower, navy pier, etc.). i'd like to show DH some other things this time!
Baby Charchie born 12/22/2011
Re: train question... midway to downtown
Midway to downtown only takes 30 minutes or so. We would do this all the time when we were younger to get downtown...still do for the Taste of Chicago.
I don't know really what to do besides those things you mentioned...I just love to shop downtown! But, if the weather is nice, you could do an architectural boat tour of the city. Those are fun.
Definitely hit up the neighborhoods for some fun non-touristy stuff. If Second City doesn't work out you can check out Improv Olympic. What do you like to do? Check out Chicagoist, Chicago Reader, and like PP mentioned, Metromix. That'll give you a good start on some local deals and events.
As for staying at Midway, I'm not sure. You might want to check out the Days Inn in Lakeview (on Hawthorne). Friends/family have gotten a pretty good deal there in the past, and it's smack in the middle of Lakeview, a couple blocks from Wrigley Field, which is a fun area even if you don't hit a game. There's also a Days Inn on Diversey that might have some good rates. Hope that helps!
You can also use Priceline to bid on hotels downtown. A few years ago, we bid $55 per night for a 4-star downtown and ended up at the Hyatt Regency on Wacker. So it IS possible to stay for cheap. For our wedding night, we used priceline again. This time we bid $70 a night for a 4-star downtown and ended up staying at the Palmer House Hilton.
This is no joke - we were really able to get 4-star hotels for this cheap. We usually start at $50 per night for a bid. If it's not accepted, we just try again the next day (or whenever the waiting period is to try again). We go up in increments of $5 to $10 until we get an offer accepted.