You go to Star Wars Celebration every year, right? I'm thinking about going to Chicago and bought a 5 day pass, but I'm uncertain what the best lodging/transport hack would be; from what I can tell the options are only to stay quite far away from the venue and incur exorbitant Lyft/Uber fare if not wishing to deal with public transit, stay in an extremely expensive hotel next to/attached to the venue, or stay near but not at the venue but in a neighborhood reputed to be unsafe. Any tips?
Celeration is a moving convention, so while I went to the ones in London and Orlando that doesn’t really give me any basis for what Chicago’s like. (And I’m not a big con-goer, so don’t have any general tips -- the other con I go to is also a commute of about an hour, since I just sleep at home and take public transit to downtown Atlanta.) In London I stayed with a friend who lived quite far away from the ExCel and took the Tube in every morning, which was about 30-45 minutes; in Orlando I stayed at a hotel that was in the area of the convention center but wasn’t a walkable distance and took public transit to get there, except for one 4 am occasion where we took a Lyft. For Chicago I think my roommate and I actually have one of the hotels attached to the convention center, but I had nothing to do with actually obtaining the rooms and left it all up to her (which also happened with Orlando. Don’t make me book a hotel, I can’t make decisions). There’s an official room block (which you can find on the Star Wars Celebration website), but I think it sold out completely within about half an hour of becoming available.
Anybody more familiar with the Chicago convention scene want to chime in?
