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| - Did the buffet of buffets Thursday dinner to Friday dinner. $49 + tax per person. We visited all 5 buffets, which vary widely in quality. My ranking from best to worst:
1. Rio's. This buffet IS still included in the pass. You just have to pay an extra $20 upgrade for seafood station. We went right when it opened for Friday night dinner at 4 pm. Large selection of fresh tasty food including snow crab legs, chocolate fondue, made to order Asian noodle station (pho, wonton, etc 8 different options), nice salad bar, prime rib and roast beef. Drinks are serve your own.
2. Paris. Selection pretty much almost as large as Rio, but focused on French food. We had lunch at 11 am. There was hashed potatoes (just like Denny's, love!), raisin French toast, paella, made to order crepes both sweet and savoury and made to order omelette station. There was a big selection of pastries, I didn't have any but it looked good. Servers serve your drinks - OJ tasted fresh and pulp - but they give you a jug of coffee at your table to serve yourself.
3. Planet Hollywood. Had second dinner around 7 pm Fri night. No line up at all. Pretty decent selection all things considered. This was our 5th buffet in 24 hours so didn't eat much. They have cotton candy which was fun. Drinks machines again to get your own pop.
4. Harrah's. Went at 8:30 pm (1/2 hour before closing) on Thursday night. Chose this as our first buffet based on the positive reviews on Yelp that it is the best of the bunch. Maybe it was because it was close to closing, but definitely not impressed at all. Food was wilted, greasy, and looked like they'd been sitting under the heat lamp for hours. Had some snow crab legs, mussels and left. Selection was small compared to 3 above.
5. Flamingo. Eating here would be a punishment. The decor and colourless globs of food looks like something out of an institution from 1950. We went in, looked around and didn't even sit down.
With all the lineups and considering that Rio is not on the strip (shuttle no longer offered as of Nov 2017), you do need to be prepared to devote a good proportion of your day towards getting good value out of your pass. That being said, it was a fun experience and the food from Rio, Paris and Planet Hollywood were actually pretty good.
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