Hotwire Hotel: 3 star hotel on LV strip?

[Yellow Hammer]

checking in 8/13 for 2 nights. Casino, resaurant, pool only. Best value at $85. Any ideas?

[thereuare]

Welcome to BetterBidding!

Unfortunately this hotel has not yet been identified. However, i would be fairly cautious with this one as most of the Hotwire 3* rated hotels on the strip are not very desirable. For example, the Holiday Inn Boardwalk is rated 3* on Hotwire and my fear would be that this is the hotel you're seeing with amenities different than what is shown elsewhere in the Hotwire system. There are other 3* possibilities as well and they're not in the 'main' part of the strip.

What is the most you'd like to spend on this stay, maybe we can find some alternatives for you?

[Yellow Hammer]

thanks for the welcome! It's actually 6 of us going, two couples with a kid each. Original thought was to get two rooms. I myself only care that the rooms are nice, with two beds instead of one and that it is reasonable driving distance to the Strip. The other adults on the other hand are adamant about being on the Strip and having a casino downstairs.

I can get a government rate of $79/night for a 2 bedroom double bed suite at the 3-star Emerald Suites Las Vegas. The bad thing is that it is 6 miles south of everything and there's no casino. This is doubly good because I probably could get away with only getting one room per night as opposed to two. There's also the Emerald Suites Tropicana which is $79/night, but only has one bedrooom double-bed suites, so I would have to get two rooms at $158/night.

As far as on the strip, I can get in at the Riviera for $79/night and the Sahara for $85/night, so $158 and $170 per night each with two rooms. Everything else seems to be much more expensive.

So my parameters are with say $150/night combined for the two rooms (or one for a 2 room 2 bed) for a 3+ star hotel with a casino inside, and on the Strip preferably (but near Strip is probably ok too).

[thereuare]

First think i would do is doulbe-check with your friends and see if they consider the Sahara and the Riviera to be 'on the strip'. Technically it is (as is the Stratosphere) but it's not what many consider to be the strip.

I don't know much about the Tuscany Suites but it comes up for $103 on QUICKBOOK (although a bit higher if you search for more than 2 adults) but maybe that will work well for you? It states they have a casino and it 1 1/2 blocks from the strip. Even if two rooms are necessary this may be better than the Sahara or the Riviera since it's more centrally located to the 'main' part of the strip. (may or may not be a concern, but many hotels in Vegas won't allow more than 4 in a room... whether it's enforced or not is probably hotel specific)

Let us know how it goes and what you decide to ultimately do.

[TravelGuy]

As far as the quality of the rooms of all the choices given, I think Tuscany Suites would be the hands down winner. As mentioned, they also have a casino. It would be about a 10 minute walk to the Strip at Bally's (which is a prime location on the Strip). Using Travelaxe, I see it available for your dates for $75, booked through The Reservation Company.

With the monorail open, the Sahara and Riviera might not be that bad location-wise, but you're probably taking somewhat of a gamble on room quality and service.

The best value I see from Travelaxe is Gold Coast for $49, booked through Places to Stay. This is an off strip hotel & casino, fairly vanilla, but directly across the street from hip, trendy Palms. I would guess also about a 10 minute walk to the Strip. They also have a free shuttle to the Barbary Coast, it's sister property with an ideal Strip location. As you can see from the reviews, people seem to be quite pleased with it. I try to get to their buffet when in town, which I consider to be the best for the money.

[thereuare]

TG provided some great info, but i'll add that the Gold Coast is MUCH further than a 10 minute walk from the stip... but the shuttle does provide easy access to/from the strip, although it requires watching a clock and a schedule.

[bbbb]

The Gold Coast is also across the street from the Rio witch has a free shuttle to Harrah"s on the strip.I will add that I would not want to walk to the strip from here.

[TravelGuy]

Ok, ok, I just checked on MapQuest and it's 1.2 miles to the Strip (3 minute drive), so I guessed wrong. :) For me anyway, that would be about 20 minutes or so walking. I've never actually walked it myself - although I've seen people doing it.

Maybe the Tuscany is actually a better value come to think of it given the larger rooms, but the $49 at Gold Coast for that weekend is pretty striking as well.

P.S. You can get the Riviera on Orbitz for a few dollars less - $76.

[bbbb]

TG you gave some great ideas that took some time to research.I want to Thank you for all the time you spent helping out,thats what makes this board great.

My choice out of all of those would be Tuscany Suites,I have driven by this place a few times and it looks much nicer then Riviera and Sahara.

[thereuare]

Take it from somebody that has walked it and enjoys walking.... it's a hike (and a half!)

There's no sidewalk most of the way so you're constantly aware of the traffic flying by you and the hotel looks 'so close' but you keep walking, and walking, and walking but the hotel doesn't seem to get much closer.

It's not fun in the early evening when i did it and it certainly wouldn't be fun during the daytime in the Vegas heat.

I also did take the shuttle from Harrah's to the Rio and then walked to to the Palms... that's do-able.

[TravelGuy]

TG you gave some great ideas that took some time to research.I want to Thank you for all the time you spent helping out,thats what makes this board great.

My pleasure.

[Yellow Hammer]

I ended up staying at the Riviera for one night only Friday 8/13, then drove home the following afternoon. Got two rooms, one at the regular $79 weekend rate, one at a AARP-discounted rate (my mother-in-law was with us) of $57. (I would have considered the $76 Orbitz rate but I was actually holding out until the bitter end for a good rate at another hotel and so by booking through the Riviera it offered me slightly lesser-hassle cancellable privileges). Not bad, two rooms on a weekend night in LV for an average of $68 (before taxes of course). The Riviera offered a 2 bedroom Penthouse Suite to me for $139 but since there were 7 of us (2 families plus mom-in-law) and there was only one bed in each room, that wasn't too practical. They would have charged us more for the rooms had we said that there were more than 2 persons for each room, (yes, even children), so a few of the family members stayed in the car while we checked in. There was computerized check-in, but since we wanted adjoining rooms, we decided to wait in the short line to check in with a human.

Lowdown on Riviera - older hotel, rooms were actually a bit nicer than I would have thought. Bathrooms were pretty nice and the beds weren't bad. Decent-sized rooms, no carpet problems. Got rooms in the San Remo Tower, so that was a bit closer to the casino and the strip than the other towers.

Unfortunately the rooms were smoking rooms, the smell wasn't bad but required that the A/C be on all night to keep the smell to a minimum. Also, the first hotel that I have stayed at in a long time without a blow dryer. Phone call charges are crazy - $3.00 for 3 minutes, then 10 cents a minute after - and that's for local calls. No dialing up on my laptop Friday evening that's for sure. Didn't even dream that there would be a high-speed connection available. Also the rooms were next to each other but not connecting, no big deal but a bit irksome, since I had to watch two kids while the others were gambling late at night, and as such I had to put the two kids with me for half the night. The ratings say 3 star, I'd say that it's no more than a 2 1/2 star hotel. Especially considering that we also stayed at the Hyatt Disneyland and the Del Mar Hilton (both gotten cheaply off of Priceline) and both were far superior hotels yet both are marked as 3-star.

I did check out Tuscany Suites when I was in LV (couldn't get in at the $73 rate, all sold out when I checked 7 days prior to arrival). That is not a short walk to the Strip. I would say that it is a good 20 minute walk to Bally's on the corner of Flamingo and Las Vegas Blvd. I'm glad that I didn't get into the Tuscany in this regard. Riviera turned out to be great actually, I was able to entertain the kids by walking across the street to Circus Circus, and the gamblers in the family were sufficiently entertained by all of the Riv's happenings to not have to hop around from casino to casino.

[thereuare]

Thanks for the follow-up.