Summer is getting pretty hot in Texas, and we need to escape to places with nicer weather. In addition, the kids summer events are done by now so it's good time to travel.
We flied to Chicago Midway airport with Southwest airlines using our Southwest points and companion pass. There is a hotel shuttle bus that take us from airport to our Hyatt hote. The shuttle bus seems to be contracted by few hotels at the hotel zone area closed by to the hotel and it stops at different hotels. We stayed at Hyatt by using our Hyatt points that was transferred from Chase Ultimate reward points.
We didn't rented a car at the airport since it was a little more expensive in terms of fees and airport tax. There was an Enterprise rental car closed by to our hotel and they provide pick up at our hotel. If you are planning to schedule a rental car pick up, make sure to verify them ahead of times if they do pick up at your location. They have a certain distance limit.
Have you celebrated Christmas in July? Why not! There is a
Santa Village Amusement park about 1-1/2 hour from Chicago. We arrived there about 10+ am where they just opened. Do check their business hours as it varies on different days.
The kids were excited when we realized they are going to the Santa Amusement park! There are many rides caters to different ages. We weren't planning to get wet so we mainly stay at the dry land for the rides. We bought our tickets online so we check-in and went into the park pretty quickly.
Gege's first full size pendulum ride (Viking Sea Dragon). He loved it!
Fire fighter ride.
Tilt a whirl. This made daddy dizzy..
Balloon race
Tri-Nado
Bumper car
Route 66 cruiser
Mommy made them do the midge-o-racer ride.. can you tell kids are growing fast?
More kiddie ride with space invasion :)
We didn't get the chance to do the roller coaster ride as it was closed for maintenance just minutes before it was our turn.. Luckily, we got the thrill later at somewhere else!
After saying good bye to Santa, we headed to Kopitan restaurant near Chicago downtown for our dinner.
We went to Hyatt Regency Chicago right after the dinner. We parked our at the parking lot. Daddy make a mistake. There are multiple parking lots and the charges are quite differently. Our plan was to park at Millennium parking garage for its cheaper night rate but mistakenly we parked at a different parking lot for a much higher rate. Lesson learned, pay closer attention to the sign before entering the parking garage especially in downtown.
Luckily we were just in time to catch our Chicago Architecture River Cruise right across the street. We have previouls booked the cruise with a time slot at Chase travel port with our Chase points. Our cruise time was at 7:30 pm so we were able to see the day time view as well as the night time view. This is our second time
visiting Chicago with the kids. They seem to pay more attention to building architecture and learn more this time around from the river cruise.
We chose to stay at Hyatt Regency Chicago due to its proximity to our activities. The hotel is quite expensive so luckily we were able to reserve it with our Hyatt free night certificate earned from the brand explorer award.
Early the next day, we walked toward the popular Cloud Gate at Millennium park. It is actually a very park with multiple attraction and activities. There is a play garden on the east side and kids love that place.
We then walked to The Adler Planetarium. It was quite a walk but the weather was nice and we enjoyed the beautiful view of Chicago and Lake Michigan on our way there. The planetarium is huge and ton of things to explore. We spent a couple of good hours there and took a bus back to our hotel.
Chinatown in Chicago is very famour for their delicious food. We met with one of our old buddies who came to see us from Michigan. It was great to meet up our friend since it has been quite a while. The kids get to know each other as well while eating some delicious dim sum at MingHin Cuisine restaurant.
With full stomach, we headed out to
Illinois Railway Museum located at Union, IL. Our friends' kids are big fan of trains, and so are ours. Illinois Railway Museum has the largest collection of historic railway equipment in America. Ticket can be purchased online or at the location. The price is pretty reasonable. This place have tons to see., and it also have train rides and street cars. We all really enjoy it.
After spending the whole afternoon here, we went back to Chicago to have our dinner at Hawker Delights restaurant. The Malaysian food is very good and authentic. We part ways with our friends and head north to
Milwaukee.
After our fun trip at
Green bay, since our flight back to home was in the evening, we visited the Lincoln Park Zoo. We visited
this zoo in 2017 when the kids were much younger that time. However, the visit this time were quite lackluster compared to the last. We didn't see the polar bear and penguins and some other animals this time. The zoo also felt pretty run down and lack of maintenance. It seems like the Covid has quite a huge impact to this zoo sadly.
On the way to the aiport, We made a small detour to downtown and stopped by at Pappa Roti to get some yummy bun. It was worth it :)
Chicago is famour of popcorns. Last time we got some Garrett popcorn at the airport. We found Nuts on Clark popcorn at our terminal so we got this instead this time. Pretty good too. Good bye Chicago.
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