Chicago 360 Views

Our last full day in Chicago was a pretty relaxed one. We actually got to sleep in! Well, to be honest I don’t know what sleeping in is. My internal alarm clock always wakes me earlier than I would prefer. So after breakfast we walked over to the John Hancock building to check out the views of the city from the 94th floor. Even with the 360 views (hence the name 360 Chicago) I think the attraction is extremely overpriced at $18/person plus an additional $7 for the optional Tilt feature, which we didn’t do.

“Insider” tip: Go to the Signature Lounge on the 95th floor instead. You can order a drink (or two) for the price of one admission ticket and you don’t have to deal with the lines. And ladies, check out the bathroom. Apparently the views are amazing. Since we visited on a Sunday morning, the Lounge wasn’t open but that’s what I would have preferred to do.

The views ARE pretty fantastic, but the attraction didn’t have enough to offer for me personally in order for me to recommend paying the $18 to someone else. One perk of going on Sunday morning was that there was no line to get to the top. I will say, though, that I wish St. Louis’ skyline was more like Chicago’s. It makes the downtown area seem really big, even though in reality it’s not.

Looking South to Downtown
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Looking East to Lake Michigan
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Looking South—Beaches!
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Looking West
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Between the glass being a bit dirty and using my iPhone to take the pictures, they could have turned out a bit better. Oh, and you definitely get a bit of vertigo while looking down. There were a couple of instances where I had to stop looking straight down!

For not doing a lot of tourist activities, I had a ton of fun in Chicago and would definitely come back to check out other attractions and museums that we didn’t see. The art museum and attending Lollapalooza are at the top of my list.

—m.