REALLY VEGAS?

Just a rant to clear my spleen!

As my readers know, we love Las Vegas. We go there as often as we can to enjoy: A; the weather B; the ambiance C; the down time. We go in any weather and at any time of the year. As you know, we usually rent a condo or tow Piper (our fifth wheel) down and stay off strip and enjoy some of the actual “real Vegas” atmosphere. Occasionally though, it is expedient for us to fly into town, book a hotel and rent a car to maximize our time in town. We spend money, have a great time and have some favorite places to stay but lately the price gouging of the big corporate hotels is getting some of us down.

Let’s mention some great things first. I applaud Caesars for upgrading any U.S. veteran to a platinum players rewards level. Most of the big hotels are still catering to anyone with a disability or special medical need (within reason), free of charge refrigerators for diabetic supplies, extension cords or multi plug outlets for sleep machines, etc. There are some fabulous restaurants (pick a celebrity chef or two, they all have places here now) and high end shopping (do the Forum shops really make any money?) and don’t forget the shows.

THE RANT:

Prior to our decision to use other means of staying in town, I remember going to Vegas (yes, in this decade) with a reasonable budget. We would get on the internet and find a good price for hotel and book it, hit up the airlines for cheap airfare (everyone had a Vegas fare) and put aside money for our gambling and eating. There were inexpensive buffets to tide your hunger over while rushing from casino to casino spending your hard earned vacation money in a frenzy before your time there was up.

As of today, I can get a room at the Rio (let’s face it, not one of the best hotels in town) for $45 a night base fee. Not bad, you say, for a hotel not far from the strip that is “all suites” and I might agree (I stay here for a work convention every September) if it were not for the resort fee. This is a fee that you pay upon check in that almost doubles ($37 as of today) the room rate. You pay tax on this fee because the state of Nevada knows this is not a service fee but a retail charge. Your $45/night room just went to $100 for what is really just a basic room with a pool that you might get to use if there are no events going on and is only open during the day, mediocre (at best) WiFi, Fitness Center access and (gee whiz Aunt Bea why’s the phone got a cord) local landline phone calls! You can legally opt out of the resort fee but it takes a manager to do it so it’s an extra hassle most folks aren’t willing to go through. I have determined that the resort fee is not up my alley anymore and will be opting out of this up-charge every opportunity I get. My reasoning: Why pay for stuff that I have no need of? Let’s see…high speed internet via my cell phone hotspot (better than anything I’ve ever gotten in any hotel), forgoing the pool with hundreds of people vying for the last lounge chair while the sun bakes overhead, a fitness center that you are lucky to find and usually is sub-par anyway (who wants to exercise in Vegas…plenty of walking) and the aforementioned cell phone eliminates the need of the landline (i guess if there is a disaster you might need a hard wire).

How about parking on the strip? I know that the average visitor has flown in and the parking is not an issue for them. But how about those of us that need to have parking? Well, that’s going to cost you at almost every hotel/resort in town. Sure, the downtown places will validate parking for you in their casino’s for gambling there at certain games and that’s the way it should be. If you want to park on the strip, go to the Venetian where Sheldon Adelson still refuses to charge (YES, thank you Sheldon)! Every where else it’s gonna cost you and heaven help if you misplace your ticket, that’s a full 24 hour charge sir. You can alleviate these as well though through some offers by the corporations. As mentioned above, Caesars gives veterans a Platinum players card with no gambling tier restrictions, this includes free parking at any property. M-Life properties will give you free Pearl status if you have one of their MasterCard accounts no matter your actual tier rating. They do not give you free parking just for having a room…up charge, baby!

So, we recently had to rent a suite at the Delano, an M-Life property at the Mandalay Bay location. I have heard that it is a nice hotel and it fit the bill for what we needed at the time. There was no ability to check in early, even though we were arriving on a Tuesday morning. Really, no suite available on a Tuesday? Any bookies want to take a bet on that? We were told to come back and check later, desk would not even take down a cell number to give us a ring when “our reserved suite” was ready for us to check in. We went to lunch and when we got back at “check in time”, we were given the keys to our king room but were told that the queen side of our suite wasn’t ready yet. We were also informed that we could, under no circumstances put anything in the room refrigerator. The clerk was adamant that the “honor bar” could not be touched lest we be charged for items, even if they were not missing and only displaced (ummmm, okay?). We are old hands at this game so we requested a mini fridge for my diabetic needs and had it delivered at no cost to the room. We got to our room and found that yes (as advertised), it did indeed have a Keurig coffee maker, but it cost 6 dollars to use their sealed paper cup/k-cup and creamer/sugar pack. Again, being old hands at travel to Vegas, we had arranged for our other party members to bring a coffee pot and all the fixings from home as we were not sure there would actually be a machine in the room (these things change). I called the desk and was adamantly told that there would indeed be a charge for not only the coffee and anything that was misplaced in the mini bar but also that there was a charge to remove the useless overpriced coffee maker from the room. Wait, you are going to charge me to take an item away that I don’t want, can’t use and have been threatened that if I displace it will be charged for anyway?

I guess that Vegas has misplaced their long standing reputation for customer service. That is the base line for this rant in a nutshell. I miss the old days (5 or 6 years ago) when you could call the hotel and tell them you were a few hours out but going to arrive before regular check in time and they would go ahead and get a room ready for you. Or maybe walk up to the desk and ask for them to put you in a better room for an affordable up-charge or possibly even make an accommodation for you without an automatic add on fee.

It seems like the town, or at least the major conglomerations have forgotten about the basic visitor and are now only catering to a select crowd of people instead of going the extra mile for everyone.

We will not be staying away from or boycotting Las Vegas, we like it too much..in fact, we are looking to buy a condo in the area to retire to.

So, I guess, with having gotten a clean a pass from my doctor for having such a clean spleen we will be returning to Nevada and the city of Lost Wages to pour some more vacation dollars into the deep pockets of the mighty corporations and help Sheldon retire too.

BFD