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| - I've been trying to think of the words to express my experience here, but first I had to check Yelp's policy on "maximum characters". I was disappointed to see it capped at 5000, because I could write a thousand times that -- and it would only cover the first hour I had to endure here.
If I had to boil down the 5 million letters of this hypothetical anthology, it would be tough, but I'll give it a try. In three worlds, Drais Las Vegas is HELL ON EARTH.
First off, when you go to a pool in Vegas, a large part of the vibe is the "scene". Beautiful people, tanned bodies, stylish swimwear. Women and men alike indulge their voyeuristic tendencies from the comfort of a pool chair as they sip cocktails and bask in the scorching Las Vegas sun. Well, at Drais you can expect a slightly different experience. The people-watching here is categorically abysmal. If you want to get an idea of what we had to look at, go to your nearest Sizzler restaurant and picture everyone there in swimwear plucked from a roadside clothing donation box. To put it another way: When you're a group of average-looking people celebrating someone's 40th birthday, you don't want to be "the hot group" at the club.
But it's not just the sub-par crowd or the $595 per bottle of liquor paired with expired mixers from the 99¢ Store that makes Drais so awful. None of this holds a candle to the colossally inept people that run this place. Their consideration of client experience is non-existent.
For starters, they told us upon reserving a bungalow that we'd have a safe for valuables. Upon arrival, we found the safe was missing. CUT TO: The $2800 that the organizer of our group had collected from us went missing from the drawer they told us to put it in.
Next, they tried to eject one of the girls in our group for dancing. Not sure what the impetus was, but given the rapey vibes the women in our group experienced from the staff, I think it was so they could separate her from the group and commit sexual assault without their workplace-permitted ankle monitors going off.
At this point I'm 2/3rd of the way through the character limit, so I need to jump to some bullet points. Here's some "features" you can expect to find at the day club:
-Drais has somehow perfected the magic Goldilocks pool temperature whereby it's warm enough for bacteria to breed and thrive, yet too cold for a human to comfortably stay in the water for more than two minutes, even when it's 100º outside.
-Not sure if they're trying to cut costs by eliminating their chlorine budget, but the water didn't have that slightly clinical "clean pool" smell that gives you peace of mind when bathing with 500 randos in Las Vegas -- rather, it smelled like a wet sponge in a frat house kitchen.
-Enough hair in the pool to loom-weave about 50 shoulder-length wigs. Honestly, if the pool wasn't so unsanitary, they might consider a partnership with Locks-for-Love to at least do some good for the world.
-No access to drinking water. After spending a combined total of nearly $5000, they denied us access to complimentary water, and instead charged us another $80 for 6 small Evian bottles.
-Furniture that you couldn't get rid of on the Craigslist "free" section.
About two hours into our event -- as if a sign from God that we should flee -- a torrential rain began. We retreated for cover to the interior section of the cabana we'd rented. On par for the course, a security guard -- who I think I recognized from Season 2 of "To Catch a Predator" -- told us he would not let us close the rain curtain for "visibility reasons".
Believe it or not, the coup d'état was what happened AFTER we left.
A few hours later, I realized that in my cathartic exodus from the club, I'd left my tab open at one of the side bars. I returned in the evening to reclaim it, where I found their night crew had taken over. I didn't think it was possible for these employees to be any worse than day shift -- I was tragically wrong. Long story short, I was at the airport 3 hours before my flight home filling out a "lost ID" form.
Seeing as though I'm trying to fit ten pounds of shit in a five pound bag, I won't get to everything, so I want to make one thing clear. Some might see Drais as an "insurance plan". As in: If you can't get into one of the decent pool clubs, you should give it a try. But I advise against this in the strongest possible terms. In a city known for highs and lows, this place is the irrefutable nadir. I'm barely being hyperbolic when I say there were drunk passengers on the maiden voyage of the Titanic that had a better experience with alcohol and swimming in cold water than we had at Drais.
With the ambience and clientele of a flooded trailer park, this shouldn't be your last choice of pool day clubs. It literally should not even be on the list. You'd have a more pleasant people-watching experience at Luxor's "BODIES" exhibit, and you can swim in cleaner water at the Venetian's gondola canals.
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