One of our young customers got it into his head that we should stay in Bellagio. We indulged him for two nights and enjoyed some of the architecture, e.g., the Conservatory, but the hotel felt crowded despite a 50 percent occupancy limit imposed by the state’s COVID-19 mandarins (subsequently reduced to 25 percent). Lines developed at the breakfast restaurant, for example, and it wasn’t practical to keep a 6′ distance from others when navigating from the parking lot to the room. (Partly this was due to the Swedish MD/PhD prediction that humans wearing masks feel invulnerable to coronaplague.) The air was always a bit stale/smoky. The kids were exposed to scenes of gambling every time we wanted to go out and do anything.
The Trump hotel, by contrast, is all non-smoking and there is no casino. It is conveniently located about one block off the Strip abeam the Wynn. There is a good restaurant in the lobby (“DJT”) with reasonable prices and also a shopping mall across the street with a bunch of additional dining options. We got a corner suite on the 53rd floor. Senior Management: “The bathroom here is as big as our entire room at the Bellagio.” (It was finished with enough marble to entomb a communist leader.)
Our suite had a full kitchen (Wolf, Bosch, Sub-Zero appliances; they must have gotten a screaming deal when buying hundreds of these!), but the plates, silverware, and pots had been removed due to local COVID-19 restrictions.
Valet parking is included.
If you’re a light sleeper, be aware that the hotel is close to some train tracks and heavy/noisy freight trains roll by periodically. (But they’re mostly carrying coal, so President Harris and AOC will put a stop to these soon?) On the plus side, the bed and linens are both top-of-the-line. The photo below shows the train, a sex shop, and a marijuana dispensary (though, as with San Francisco, the sidewalks are now so empty that you might need to buy your own marijuana if you want to get high).
As at other Trump hotels, the staff is superb. We had a great breakfast at lower-than-Bellagio prices and, unlike at Bellagio, the servers got our order precisely correct.
The pool is huge, open longer hours than the casino pools (7a-6p in mid-November during our visit), heated to 80-85, and blessed with open southern exposure for nearly the entire day. It is a perfect late fall/early spring pool. The gym was large, well-equipped, and empty.
Depending on your politics/religion, the strongest or weakest spot might be the lobby’s “Trump Store” with Trump logo items (suitable for wearing in most of America’s counties, if not in the big cities where bigger government tends to spend taxpayer funds). For the Age of Coronapanic, the WiFi is also a weak spot. It seems to be provisioned at 70 Mbps download, but only 3 Mbps upload, a marginal speed at best for video conferencing.
Summary: An almost-perfect hotel in Las Vegas. It would be nicer with outdoor balconies for each room (only a handful of Vegas hotels have these, which is a shame considering the wonderful shoulder season climate) and with a higher WiFi upload speed for Zoom/FaceTime/etc.
It really is a shame for the people in his organization, because they do such a good job running these hotels. It’s cosmic that he just didn’t stick to that and reality TV, for all their sakes. And that’s no ordinary Sex Shop Down By the Railroad Tracks – that’s the Harry Mohney Erotic Heritage Museum, which is currently hosting an exhibit on Weimar Berlin while the coal trains trundle through the back lot!
Based on the book by Mel Gordon, Professor of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies, Emeritus. UC Berkeley. 1947-2018.
https://www.eroticmuseumvegas.com/voluptuous-panic-the-erotic-world-of-weimar-berlin/
https://www.amazon.com/Voluptuous-Panic-Erotic-Weimar-Expanded/dp/0922915962
So many people under 30 today think that all this stuff about sexuality and gender is somehow fundamentally new and postmodern. It isn’t. It was all there in Weimar Berlin, and we’ve seen it all before – just not on Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.
> It would be nicer with outdoor balconies for each room (only a handful of Vegas hotels have these, which is a shame considering the wonderful shoulder season climate)
It will be increasingly difficult for anyone to install outdoor balconies on big hotels in the future. I notice the rather heavy greenish tinting on the windows (which you probably cannot open), but under the Harris Administration, I expect a lot of Trump properties to come under increasing scrutiny because of their current lack of LEED certification. In New York right now, Mayor de Blasio has been eyeing all the Trump properties as targets for violations of his Climate Mobilization Act.
“Reports show Trump Tower and other properties are among the dirtiest emitters in the Big Apple. These are the bad actors we need to hold accountable, because their emissions make everyone’s air dirtier, fuel more violent weather and put the future of New York City in jeopardy.”
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-climate-change-trump-tower-and-other-buildings-could-go-green-under-new-york-city-climate-mobilization-act/
Steve Wynn’s Encore Boston is either LEED-Gold or LEED-Platinum.
https://press.encorebostonharbor.com/press-releases/wynn-resort-in-everett-targets-leed-platinum-certification/s/dacd249f-af6c-44a3-b5e1-cf2d75185818
Outdoor balconies aka ‘sniper nests’ will become an endangered species in Las Vegas. It’s surprizing that any of the doors/windows will open.
joe
The Mandalay Bay where the mass shooting took place, did NOT have windows that open.
Instead he used a glass window breaking hammer.
As for LEED, will there be a “Covid” level? After buildings are airtight enough to obtain LEED-Platinum, the next step is to ensure the air is so stale that COVID persists indefinitely.
@Steve: Paddock also planned that shooting for months (probably a year or more) in advance. He had the assistance of the hotel staff toting all the guns and ammo. into the suite. Nobody ever asked him to open up his heavy travel bags to look inside. He never passed through a metal detector. He also had a staging operation using a rented condominium in Las Vegas so that he could transfer all his gear into the hotel piecemeal and nobody would notice. He was a “medium roller” and lots of people at the Mandalay Bay knew him by name. That’s why he was able to finagle access to the “back of the house” and move the guns right up the freight elevator. It wasn’t done on an impulse. He had investigated other locations, including Lollapallooza in Chicago, but I think he chose the Mandalay Bay because it was “soft” in terms of the security and logistics. High IQ evil. And he had plenty of money.
I saw an interview with Steve Wynn the day after the shooting and he inadvertently let it slip that Paddock had access to the “back of the house.” I hope they don’t do that any more in Las Vegas no matter how high a roller the individual is.
Obama always says if you like staying at your Trump branding hotel you can keep staying there!