A clarification (though it doesn’t change the latter half of Stranger’s statement): technically, ORD is within the city of Chicago, though it represents the far northwest corner of the city’s area, and is on land that was annexed by Chicago in 1956. The portion of Chicago that O’Hare sits on is connected to the city proper by a very narrow strip of land, and it is, otherwise, surrounded by suburbs on all sides.
As others have noted, it’s not a short trip to get from O’Hare to downtown Chicago, or any of the city’s real points of interest.
There’s an “entertainment district” in the suburb of Rosemont, which is immediately east of ORD, with bars, restaurants, a movie theater, etc., but even that probably isn’t worth the hassle of leaving and coming back to the airport in the short window you have.
If …IF!.. I really wanted to try to get out of the airport for a few hours and grab a local bite, I’d take the Blue Line (electric communter train to and from ORD) seven stops and get off at Addison. There’s a Portillo’s an easy walk east from the stop. It’s in 16 or 21 on the map @kenobi_65 posted.
OP, if you really want to leave the airport it depends on your gates, arriving and departing. And it would help if you compromised on your requirements, e.g., no Uber. If the gates allow for you to leave, you could go by Uber to a nearby location and walk around that. Looking at the map, Loyola University isn’t far away, if that would interest you.
It’s a possibility but in general 3 hours is pretty tight.
That was what I was thinking too… in my experience, a 3 hour layover is barely enough time to get out of the airport and go have lunch before you have to do the whole TSA shuffle and everything associated with being at your gate on time.
The only airport I can think of that you could do something interesting inside of 3 hours would be Las Vegas, and that’s because Reid International is literally right there at the base of the Strip. Most others I’ve been to (Houston, Austin, Dallas, Kansas City, Seattle, New Orleans, etc…) have the airport located fairly far from the parts of the cities where the cool stuff is.
Assuming both your flights are domestic and with the same airline, here’s how it will go. Let’s assume your flight is scheduled to arrive as 12noon and the other leaves at 3pm.
1205: airplane parks
1225: you sitting near the rear actually step off the airplane
1230: you and wife find restroom & finish using it.
1245: you’ve walked from the gate to where you pick up the people mover to ride to the elevated train (“L”) station.
1250: the people mover arrives at the terminal & you get on.
100: the peoplemover gets to the L station
110: the L train arrives and you get on.
Here’s the countdown in reverse for coming back to your departing flight.
300: the plane is supposed to back out of the gate.
250: they lock the gate door from terminal to jetbridge.
215: they start boarding; you should be at the gate by then.
200: you start walking towards gate after completing security screening.
130: you enter the line at the security screening point. On a good day.
120: you get off the peoplemover at the terminal and walk towards security
110: you get on people mover at the L station.
105: you get off the arriving L train.
The point being that when you consider all the real frictional little steps along the way, your “trip downtown” really amounts to “you can get from the arrival gate to the L station, but by the time you’ve done so, you need to have started back towards the departure gate 5 minutes ago to make your flight”.
As Chicagoans have said the ride downtown is 40-ish minutes each way. So with 3 hours plus 40 minutes plus another 40 minutes = 4 hours 20 minutes you could ride the L to downtown and back, as long as you didn’t get off the train. Want 90 minutes to find and eat a lunch downtown? If so you need 6 hours between your flights.
One nitpick about this schedule. He could get in and out of the bathroom in five minutes, but his wife is never going to be able to do it, especially after a flight (his) has landed. Unless it is maybe in the middle of the night. There is usually a line for the women’s restroom in any airport I’ve been at.
So he’d have to start back ten minutes before he arrived.
Plus there is the chance of the plane being late, etc.
I’ve done it before where I go into town during a layover, but I just do it by myself. Like has been mentioned, a lot of things have to go right and you need to keep an eye on the clock. I wouldn’t want to depend on someone else or deal with their frustration at having to eat quickly or whatever. I don’t mind since it’s part of the “fun adventure” aspect of doing a layover trip into town. When I’ve gone into town recently, I check the TSA lines to see how busy they are. If they are pretty empty, then I might give it a try.
I have even done it before in Chicago, although a long time ago. I went into town to get some pizza. This was pre-9/11 for sure. I don’t remember how long my layover was. I’m sure going through security was not the time sink it is today. But hearing all the stories, even if the TSA lines were empty for some miraculous reason, there would only be enough time to ride the train for a few stops out and back. Not really worth it in that case.
The length of the queue ebbs and flows all day long as waves of passengers arrive to take the flights that are themselves scheduled to depart in waves. The line may be almost zero at 1pm, very long at 2pm, and short to nil at 3pm again. Lather rinse repeat until late at night.
And just as the supply of incoming passengers begins to dwindle in the later evening, that’s when TSA starts sending their people home and shrinking or shutting down checkpoints. Their goal is their own maximum personnel efficiency, and that comes when they can keep the lines uniformly long, but not too long.
If it’s already a disaster or bad weather day at the airport the lines will stay reliably very long. But otherwise, it’s very dangerous to generalize from just one minute’s snapshot to how the lines will look in an hour or 3.
Yeah, the best part about retiring has been that there’s rarely such a rush to get anywhere. I’ve completely abandoned the idea of trying to minimize stopovers to reduce overall travel time, I just go for 2-3 hour layovers and chilling. Airports these days aren’t unpleasant places to hang out in. They are just unpleasant if you’re in a hurry.
They are expensive, though. Recently we each had Bloody Marys (doubles). We each had two. They were good, but not $30 good. Yeah, a couple of drinks to start vacation $150 with tip.
That is insane. A tip from me. Don’t drink beer. Margaritas or Bloody Marys are good. But beer may make you really want to use the restroom on on plane when you inevitably get stuck on the runway.
I agree airports are expensive. But I think you meant
eight drinks
which improves the math a lot.
Cocktails at decent restaurants where I live run $13 for the old standbys to $18 for frou-frou or call brands. A shot of decent single-malt starts at $20 and goes up (way up) from there. And that’s miles from any airport.
Booze while out in public is not a cheap hobby. The inflation rate on that stuff is much higher than on other stuff. And has been since long before “inflation” became a common conversation word.
I can still remember back in my drinking days, after a tough trip in Cincy flights were delayed, and I bellied up to the bar, knowing I just needed to pour myself onto the plane. Well, a couple of hours and SEVERAL stiff drinks in, my flight was cancelled and I had to scramble to find another flight. I remember wishing someone would come along and help me!
Somehow, I made it onto a flight. Flying used to be so much easier…
We were at ORD in December after making arrangements after the Southwest debacle, and I was actually surprised Tortas Frontera was reasonably priced for an airport. Their sandwiches were delicious, filling, and $12 (I had the choriqueso). I remarked to my wife that I would normally expect to pay $8-$10 for a sandwich of that quality in the city, so it was not the typical 100% markup (or so it seems) that I normally find for anything at the airport. Hell, I might even pay full price for it in the city, it was that good. A complete shock to me. I don’t remember how much a beer was, though, as my drinking days are behind me, and their online menu doesn’t have pricing for drinks.
