Upscale 4BR Retreat: Wicker Park

Great location with lots of space. The apartment was very clean but a little run-down (especially in the bathrooms) to be called upscale. It was quite dark during the day and the kitchen could have been better equipped; there was a Keurig machine but only 3 K-cups in the cupboard (for four people for three nights), for example. Overall, a comfortable stay in a great neighborhood for a girls' trip.

Great place in a great area. Would definitely stay here again!

Once we got there, the stay was fine and quiet. However, there is a non-disclosed requirement to share personal information, and only after payment and confirmation. We booked last-minute, at 10am for the next day. We got the typical correspondence from the owner requesting our names and ages, which we shared. A couple hours later, we received a message saying we needed to submit a pic license or passport through a link to a third party service that said To personalize your stay, use our services, and verify your identity, the details provided in the check-in form may be shared with third parties. We were not comfortable sharing this information without assurances of how the info would be used so I contacted the owner directly to express concerns and to offer to provide additional information directly. We have positive VRBO ratings, I shared links to our professional bios, and offered to help verify identify through other non-open-ended means. The owner said we could share details directly with her, which I did. We woke up to a new message that was sent after midnight saying that we, in fact, needed to use their third party system in order to be given check-in details. Scrambling to finish packing and get to the airport, we were not pleased with this change. Pro Tip: An old student id worked. We didn't appreciate the booking process, privacy concerns and lack of/misinformation. Also, there was an old contact lens on the bathroom floor, so not very clean.

We had a good stay. I will say the place has a great deal of wear and tear (walls and baseboards scuffed up, rugs not fully vacuumed as there were some little rocks stuck in them so when walking barefoot would step on them, a few things somewhat broken ie handrail, etc). Otherwise clean and the beds very comfortable. For the amount of background checks that went into verifying that we were good guests I would've expected a more polished place. Great and speedy communication with the host.

Place was clean, safe, parking was easy along side streets. Very spacious and reasonably priced! Will stay again!

The host was a really great communicator! There was a slight issue that was out of their hands with our original location and they immediately figured out another place we could stay instead. They were also very helpful in giving me answers to any questions I asked. The place was super nice and for being in a big city, it was pretty quiet. Check in was super easy and it was really nice being able to take care of it prior to arriving. This was our first experience staying in this type of place and we could not be any happier with how smooth of an experience it was. I definitely recommend staying at a place managed by this host!

Communication was fantastic. The back area kinda creepy to enter in, especially at night, but the apartment was beautiful. It would be a neat idea to clean up the basement outdoor area for a sitting area.