Fancy hotel room with dog

Beautiful bathroom with oversized tub and Ozzie’s dog dishes in the back.

Monday, January 21, besides being Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Inauguration Day, was one of the coldest days of the year. In Chicago temperatures stayed in the teens, but in Milwaukee, WI, which is where Bob and I were vacationing, the temperatures didn’t even hit the teens. Yes, we’re winter people and like heading north for our getaways, even in January and February.

We ended up “stuck” in our hotel for our entire stay because it was too cold to do the outdoor things with our dog we were planning on doing, but you know what? If you’re going to be stuck in a single building during the most frigid days of a Midwestern winter, make it Hotel Metro in Milwaukee. The huge room had a partial wall dividing the bedroom area from the sitting area, with a flat screen TV in each area. The bathroom was gorgeous, with a huge tub, gleaming fixtures and two exits. In the photo above you can see our dog sniffing the bar. We were very, very happy with this room.

The first night we tried the hotel restaurant downstairs, just to make it easy on ourselves. The food was excellent. Bob had the three-meat meatloaf with potatoes and vegetables, and I had the mushroom ravioli. SO good. Bob also enjoyed a bowl of chili. The next morning we headed back for wonderful blueberry pancakes that were actually crispy around the edges.  The eggs and potatoes were delicious, too (I liked the turkey sausage better than the pork links). In fact, the Metro Cafe was so good, we ate there for dinner again (porterhouse steak and scallops) and breakfast again (country fried steak and eggs). We also had the best dessert I’ve had in a long time: upside down apple pie with walnuts and vanilla ice cream. Oh!

We barely left the hotel between 3 p.m. Monday and noon on Wednesday, but still had a great time. We ventured out to the lakefront once, but only lasted about ten minutes before photographer Bob’s fingers began going numb and Ozzie began shivering and quaking under two layers of dog clothing, no matter how I tried to run around with him. Besides that attempt, Bob went on some brisk walks to take photos around our hotel, but the dog and I mainly stayed inside, on top of the nice firm bed.

For two days, I was happy to get plenty of novel reading done, Bob spent time taking/uploading photos and Ozzie got in some good napping. I use vacations for resting, not being active, so nothing was missing from this trip for me. Hotel Metro was the perfect place for us to hole up during days that were so cold our Chicago dog learned to take care of all his business in about 60 seconds flat (good dog).

I am stunned that a beautiful, boutique hotel with Aveda products and a detachable showerhead in the shower allowed our 50-pound dog to stay with us for an additional charge of just $25 a night (much less expensive than boarding him). We had excellent hotel and restaurant service, and if the weather had been warmer, we could have visited a number of museums and attractions during our stay. Maybe we’ll do that stuff next time (or not), but I don’t regret the timing of this trip at all because Hotel Metro was the perfect place to get “stuck” indoors.

The 10 minutes we enjoyed the lakefront in 10 degrees.

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