canyonwalker (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
canyonwalker) wrote2023-05-21 10:22 pm
canyonwalker) wrote2023-05-21 10:22 pm
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One Hour in Vegas Reminds Me Why I Hate Vegas
Vegas in May Travelog #2
Caesars Palace - Sun, 21 May 2023, 8:30pm
An hour in Las Vegas today was enough to remind me why I hate Las Vegas. After 90 minutes I was seething.
For one, Vegas is too crowded nowadays. The airport is running beyond capacity. Mid-afternoon flights were all delayed because the airport just can't handle them. Why do they even allow airlines to schedule flights that can't be accommodated? And the layout of the airport, with slot machines lining all the aisles, does no favors to busy travelers trying to get from Point A to Point B.
The overcrowding extends to the Strip. It's overbuilt. It's overbuilt and the casino chains are building more. Traffic is ridiculous. There are jams everywhere. Every major casino is surrounded by gridlock.
Caesars [sic] Palace is easily the worst designed casino I've stayed in. It's beautiful but terribly designed. The passenger drop-off point is at the very furthest end of the casino complex from where the hotel registration desk is. Yes, I know it's a thing in casino design to make sure guests have to walk past slots and table games en route to their rooms, but this takes it to an absurdist extent. I had to walk through several gambling halls and past at least a dozen restaurants just to get from the door to the registration desk.
Then the registration desk was a mess. I joined a queue with 50 people in front of me. Yes, I counted them. Engineer. There were 5 staffers working the desks. And each check-in transaction was slooow.
When it was my turn to check in, after literally 30 minutes of waiting in line — yes, I timed it. Engineer— my transaction took forever, too. First one agent took my ID and typed, I swear, hundreds of keystrokes. I don't know what she was writing. She then swapped with another agent, who only then started to enter actual information from my ID, like my address and phone number. That agent told me I reserved a pool-view room and that she would give me a slight upgrade. She then swapped with the first agent again, who finished the transaction unceremoniously.
When I got to my room I found it was actually a downgrade. It's not a bigger room, and it has a view of the parking garage and the freeway.
I called downstairs to complain about the bait-and-switch. "Just come to the front desk and we'll see what other room we can find you," the operator promised sweetly.
BULLSHIT! I decided I was NOT going to deal with that mammoth line again just to "see" if maybe they could move me to the room I reserved and not lie about it again.
I decided I was done for the evening. I decided I just wanted dinner. I had expected to get dinner at 7, but here it was almost 8 already. I went downstairs to eat at the food court, figuring I'd pay casino prices to minimize the time spent getting dinner. First, tons of walking, not even leaving the casino. Second, crazy prices. Pizza was $10 a slice. TEN DOLLARS. One slice of pizza and a beer set me back $28. At least it was a kind of big slice.
Edit: Oh, and it's all Pepsi here. Every soda everywhere in the whole Caesars Palace is Pepsi. What a fucking nightmare. I walked half an hour out and back to a CVS to buy a 6-pack of Coke Zero to keep in my room.
Caesars Palace - Sun, 21 May 2023, 8:30pm
An hour in Las Vegas today was enough to remind me why I hate Las Vegas. After 90 minutes I was seething.
For one, Vegas is too crowded nowadays. The airport is running beyond capacity. Mid-afternoon flights were all delayed because the airport just can't handle them. Why do they even allow airlines to schedule flights that can't be accommodated? And the layout of the airport, with slot machines lining all the aisles, does no favors to busy travelers trying to get from Point A to Point B.
The overcrowding extends to the Strip. It's overbuilt. It's overbuilt and the casino chains are building more. Traffic is ridiculous. There are jams everywhere. Every major casino is surrounded by gridlock.
Caesars [sic] Palace is easily the worst designed casino I've stayed in. It's beautiful but terribly designed. The passenger drop-off point is at the very furthest end of the casino complex from where the hotel registration desk is. Yes, I know it's a thing in casino design to make sure guests have to walk past slots and table games en route to their rooms, but this takes it to an absurdist extent. I had to walk through several gambling halls and past at least a dozen restaurants just to get from the door to the registration desk.
Then the registration desk was a mess. I joined a queue with 50 people in front of me. Yes, I counted them. Engineer. There were 5 staffers working the desks. And each check-in transaction was slooow.
When it was my turn to check in, after literally 30 minutes of waiting in line — yes, I timed it. Engineer— my transaction took forever, too. First one agent took my ID and typed, I swear, hundreds of keystrokes. I don't know what she was writing. She then swapped with another agent, who only then started to enter actual information from my ID, like my address and phone number. That agent told me I reserved a pool-view room and that she would give me a slight upgrade. She then swapped with the first agent again, who finished the transaction unceremoniously.
When I got to my room I found it was actually a downgrade. It's not a bigger room, and it has a view of the parking garage and the freeway.
I called downstairs to complain about the bait-and-switch. "Just come to the front desk and we'll see what other room we can find you," the operator promised sweetly.
BULLSHIT! I decided I was NOT going to deal with that mammoth line again just to "see" if maybe they could move me to the room I reserved and not lie about it again.
I decided I was done for the evening. I decided I just wanted dinner. I had expected to get dinner at 7, but here it was almost 8 already. I went downstairs to eat at the food court, figuring I'd pay casino prices to minimize the time spent getting dinner. First, tons of walking, not even leaving the casino. Second, crazy prices. Pizza was $10 a slice. TEN DOLLARS. One slice of pizza and a beer set me back $28. At least it was a kind of big slice.
Edit: Oh, and it's all Pepsi here. Every soda everywhere in the whole Caesars Palace is Pepsi. What a fucking nightmare. I walked half an hour out and back to a CVS to buy a 6-pack of Coke Zero to keep in my room.