centennial-wheel
Travel

2018-19 Winter Break: Day 2 Chicago

Day 2. Chicago: The Cheesecake Factory. Lincoln Park Zoo (ZooLights). Navy Pier (Winter Wonderfest & Centennial Wheel). [Freehand Chicago]

Confession here: I didn’t wake up until 1 pm. Looks like I am really tired.

Food

I went to get some food around 2:30 pm. One of my favourite YouTubers said that she loves the Cheesecake Factory, so I decided to give it a try. On my way, I passed by UNIQLO and there were carollers in front of the store. My guess is that they are employees. They even wore matching down jackets.

Carols and car horns.

The Cheesecake Factory in 875 North Michigan Avenue (previously John Hancock Center) is huge and was packed in the afternoon. I was so confused why people eat all day long. Being a party of one, I waited for about 10 minutes before they had a seat for me. Eager to try both a main course and a piece of cheesecake, I ordered a smokehouse BBQ burger with salad ($14.50 excluding tax & tips) and an original cheesecake ($7.50 excluding tax & tips), already knowing that it will be too much.

While waiting for my burger, they provided some good hot bread, and I ate them all. Having delicious bread is definitely a plus for any restaurant to me. Of course, when my burger came, I am no longer hungry. Though I ordered medium, I think it is more like medium-well. But apart from the doneness of the patty and the fact that the portion is too big even if I haven’t had all the bread, it was great. Sure, a bit too savoury and oily just like most burgers, but the pairing of the ingredients went pretty well. And the salad was good, too.

Yummy bread.
Smokehouse BBQ burger with salad. I didn’t use any of the sauce.

In the past few months, I have had multiple cheesecakes at many different places, and as a person who loves cheesecakes back in Taiwan, I have to say that I don’t really enjoy them as much here. Most tend to be sweeter and creamier than necessary, and even New York-style cheesecakes are, too. (For cheesecakes in NYC, I didn’t like Junior’s but Eileen’s Special Cheesecake wasn’t too bad.) So it wasn’t really a surprise that I didn’t particularly love the original cheesecake.

I ate the cake, not the whipped cream.

The working environment of the Cheesecake Factory seemed to be very demanding as all the servers were basically fast walking. However, they were still very cheerful, touching and fooling around with each other a bit whenever they walked past some other servers. It was rather entertaining to watch.

Christmas Lights

ZooLights is a Christmas event where there are lights everywhere in Lincoln Park Zoo. As a free zoo, ZooLights is also free. If it wasn’t free, I would not want to go to the zoo because I cannot bear watching the animals being stripped from their natural habitats and ended up confined in an area as small as a prison cell. Also, I thought ZooLights was in a garden of the zoo or something, and I wouldn’t have to see the animals.

For the 40 minutes or so of my time at Lincoln Park Zoo, I saw cute monkeys in a small display areas, and a few felines pacing non-stop in their cages. I couldn’t take it anymore and left. Still, I saw some of the lights but I didn’t use the 3D spectacles which supposedly enhance the viewing experience. It was kind of a pity.

Winter Wonderland

A few days ago, I bought a ticket to Winter Wonderfest online ($28 including a Centennial Wheel ride), thinking that it might be fun. I took the bus and then walked to Navy Pier, marking my second time there on my fifth Chicago visit. The route from the front door of Navy Pier to Winter Wonderfest wasn’t good, as visitors had to pass through the parking lot. Since today is Saturday, there were many people at the venue.

The first thing that I noticed as I entered Winter Wonderfest was that it was like a miniature amusement park. And my first impression was very accurate. There were a lot of inflated slides, Christmas trees, photoshoots, and food stalls. There was also a small skating rink, three spinning rides, and bumper cars. Since I went alone, it was pretty inconvenient to do anything as I cannot bring my bag to some booths. I really wanted to try skating in the crammed ice rink as I have seen many people posting videos of such ridiculous places throughout the States, so I left my bag on a nearby bench and went skating for several minutes, tops. I got so paranoid that my bag would be stolen before I could see anything, I left the rink and went strolling around.

Before leaving, I saw the carousel near the exit and decided that no matter how long the line is, I am going for a ride. I have always loved riding on merry-go-rounds as they are one of the few rides I can go on in amusement parks that don’t make me feel dread while on them. In other words, I am terrified of roller coasters. The carousel ride was well worth the 15-minute wait, and I left Winter Wonderfest right after.

My fav!

But the night was still young, and I wasn’t planning on going back to my hotel around 10 pm (it was 8 pm). Since I had that ticket to go on Centennial Wheel, and the weather was nice, I thought, why not go for a ride tonight.

Centennial Wheel.

Here I was, thinking that Winter Wonderfest wasn’t worth $28, when I saw that Centennial Wheel normally costs $18 ($16 if bought online). In other words, Winter Wonderfest wasn’t that expensive. Still, I don’t recommend it, unless you have a bunch of friends to go with or you bring little kids.

Centennial Wheel has 6 stations, meaning that passengers can board 6 cabins simultaneously. Unlike some Ferris wheels that don’t stop for people to board, Centennial Wheel stops, so you’d get 1 rotation of stopping-every-6-cabins. After all the compartments are full, the wheel goes around twice, so there are 3 rotations in total. The view was wonderful, and the cabin seemed fancy with leather seats and clean interior. Even though I am interested in seeing how the view would be in daytime, I don’t think it would be worth $16 for one ride. Overpriced Navy Pier.

Night view of Chicago from Centennial Wheel.

Summary

Today didn’t go very well. I was bad at choosing where I visit, but still, it was worth seeing everything I saw today. Tomorrow, I need to wake up at 6 am in order to catch my 10 am plane at O’Hare (ORD). As for where I am flying, you’ll have to wait till tomorrow to find out. I will be at the mysterious destination for 5 days, spending my Christmas eve and Christmas day there! I can’t wait!

If you have been to Winter Wonderfest, what do you think of it? Did I miss anything that could have changed my mind?

Feel free to share your thoughts!