The final night of the trip was in a Tower Deluxe room at the Mirage. In my 66 trips to Vegas, I have never found myself staying there which really is a shame since the Mirage is the place that started what is modern Vegas. I left Aliante Station a little before noon on Sunday and was at the Mirage in less than a half hour. On this stay, I got to experience both a remodeled and non-remodeled Tower Deluxe room during my check-in saga which I detailed below.
First off, the un-remodeled room... The Tower Deluxe rooms are larger than a standard room, located at the top of hotel and have a Jacuzzi tub in the bathroom. The room was decorated in light browns and beiges and is dominated by a giant armoire in the middle of the room. Instead the beast resides a tiny 21" CRT TV! There is also a small desk as well as table and chair. Aside from the armoire, the room seems big for the amount of the furniture in it. Despite the age of the room which I am guessing is at least 5 or 6 years old, it has held up pretty well with only minimal stains on the carpets and little wear showing on anything else. The bed was a bit lumpy but not terrible by any means. The bathroom is large as billed and covered in marble. There are 2 sinks and a vanity area on the counter with the tub and shower on the other side. As with the rest of the room, the bathroom looked great for its age. My only complaint would be the water pressure I had in the shower. If I hadn't known any different and this was the room I was given, I would have been more than happy with what I got. It is definitely a step above a standard Vegas hotel room. Unfortunately, I saw the remodeled rooms and watching the dinky little TV was a bit of a bummer! That's what I get for being a smoker!
The remodeled room was even nicer as you would imagine though it did seem smaller than the other room. The design is similar to Aliante and Red Rock with a lot of dark brown and instead of an armoire dominating the room, its the flat-panel TV. The bathroom is actually pretty much the same in both rooms with just the sinks and counter top replaced. The one awesome feature of the room is the media access center. From a panel in the desk area you can connect virtually any device to the TV. There are USB, VGA, HDMI and Composite/S-Video connections so you can use your laptop of portable DVD on a giant screen. I wish I had gotten the chance to use it!
As for the rest of the Mirage, it is still a pretty nice place. The casino is largely catering to mid to high rollers with virtually no tables under $10-15 even on a Sunday. There is also no decent video poker worth playing either unless you have gobs of cash. Needless to say, I keep my money in my pocket. So were others it seemed as well. The only real busy place was the sports book, which is expected on a Sunday during football season. I did get a chance to eat while staying here a few times. I had a late lunch at the Carnegie Deli which almost requires you to get a pastrami on rye. I am originally from New York and have eaten at the original many times. The sandwich was decent enough with a ridiculous amount of meat but in no way like in NYC. I guess you just can't get a good Jewish rye in Nevada. Go figure. One thing that was similar to New York was the price, $12.95 but does include pickles! Later that night, I was in the mood for some late night dining and wandered over to the coffee shop to find out that it closes at 11PM on weeknights! Yet another example of the on-going death of the Casino Coffee Shop (see my Dec 14th rant below.) You can however go back over to the Carnegie for a $15 burger and that is the scam they are pulling. Why offer a burger for $6.99 when you can charge $15 at the name brand restaurant! It is stingy little moves like this that are driving people away from Vegas, especially those of us who come to town frequently. They need to remember what made Vegas great to begin with but that is another rant all together! Anyway, I ended up with a giant potato knish and a coke for dinner and managed to get out under $10. Although I didn't eat there on this trip, I have eaten at the Brazilian steakhouse Samba in the past and if you are a carnivore I highly recommend it.
Now for the details of my check-in saga.. I got there at about 12:15 on a Sunday so I wasn't surprised when I was told that my room wouldn't be ready for a half hour. The desk clerk was very pleasant and offered a line pass to any of the restaurants to bide my time. I didn't use it instead going over to the Sports Book to watch the early NFL games. After 45 minutes, I go back to the Invited guest line as instructed where I am at first told it would 3 hours. I say I was told it would only be a half hour, 45 minutes ago. So she starts clicking away. After a minute of searching, she tells me she thinks she has a room for me and calls housekeeping to check. On hold for what seems like forever, she finally gets the OK and sends me on my merry way off to the top floor. I get up to the room and open the door to find a very UN-remodeled room but at least they got one part right, it's a smoking room. Now, I am not a 5-star room snob but I reserved the "Tower Deluxe" specifically because they sent me numerous emails bragging about the remodeling so I nutted up and paid the extra $20 a night. I debated whether or not to call the front desk to change rooms and decided it would be worth the effort. I spoke with a very friendly person who apologizes, puts me in a room several floors down and switched my key over so I didn't have to go back to the lobby. Great, that was easy. I proceed to get downstairs and into the elevator for my new room when I notice on the button for the floor is a "No Smoking" sign. Damn! So I go to the room, which is quite nice by the way, and call again. At this point, the 4th front desk clerk finally explains to me that there are no remodeled smoking rooms Tower Deluxe rooms. I really wish that would have been explained to me upfront, I would just taken a regular room to begin with! So I now drag my stuff back to the original room only to get there and the key doesn't work. Fortunately security was up in no more that 5 minutes to get me in and he assures me it will work in a few minutes. Sure enough, on my next trip to the room the key still doesn't work. Once again, security was quick about getting up there. I finally went back to the front desk and got new keys and didn't have any more problems.
Overall, it was a decent stay at the Mirage despite the room snafu and the late night dining issue. A few days after I got home, a survey request can via email so I filled it out noting my problems. A day or two later I received a reply from a person in customer service apologizing and offered me a discount or upgrade if choose to return. I may take them up on it on a trip with the wife since the location is great and pool looks like a lot of fun but it definitely wouldn't be my choice as a new home base anytime soon.
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