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| - Huge, impressive. More than 4K rooms, each has 3 phones, 2 TVS (not plasma), bath AND glassed shower, separate WC, vanity counter, 2 sinks, a fax / printer, table, couch, desk, Internet.
There are enough people spending money here to support good shops and restaurants -- never had a bad meal here even in the food court. The feel is glitz, power, new money. But the size creates log jams, service that is professional on the strength of rules and systems but not personal attentiveness or courtesy. Check-in and taxi lines can be an hour each. They deliver room keys and shaving lotion, Fedex packages to your room, but not tylenol no matter how sick you are. You get around all obstacles with some ingenuity and generous tipping, if you are a girl you can try crying but that gets tiring.
Venezia concierge level is a world apart, a hotel within a hotel atop a parking garage. Here there is no gambling, just a garden. You get checkin, dinner reservations, VIP passes, anything else you ask, seated before a desk. Staff remembers your name one day to another. There are four receptions a day in the small lounge with food and an open bar, newspapers, a DVD library. Bath liquids are better. All that for $100 extra per day. The frustration is that you pay extra for services any first rate hotel should give for free, noticeable only because the rest of the hotel lacks it. All rooms are, in fact, identical throughout the property until you get to the very high end suites. So pay $100 to be well pampered -- or save your money, do it yourself, and cry, whine, and tip.
Back down on the floor, a three or four block walk through the casino from the guest elevators, the convention area has one vast level of ballrooms atop another, escalators up five or six landings before fading to the hazy beyond. Enough suites and ballrooms, I commented, that all the Jews in my home state Oklahoma could have weddings and bar mitzvahs on the same day they once a year in this hotel. My convention companion thought this was funny. "Jew day," she said.
I'm not raining on Saint Mark's square here by being first to give four stars. I'm not saying it's the Excalibur or the Imperial Palace. It's a good choice for Vegas, memorable. You should try it. But it's not Four Seasons, not St. Regis. Not as cool as The Hotel or as fun as Mandalay Bay.
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