Harrahs Casino - Why stay at Motel 6 when Harrahs charges $25 a night?
Written: Nov 14 '01
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Friendly staff, reasonable prices, downtown location.
Cons: Casino split into two parts on two different blocks.
The Bottom Line: You may not win any jackpots but you will find reasonable prices and an exceptional value.
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| colleenmf's Full Review: Harrah's - Casino |
Because Epinions has two categories for Harrahs in Reno, I will be splitting this review in two. My reviews tend to run on so this should keep them at less than 1000 words or so. The categories on Epinions are “Harrahs Hotel And Casino Reno” and “Harrahs Tower East”. As it happens we stayed in the east tower. And for reason, known only to Epinions, they do not have a category for the west tower. I will review the room in the East tower category and the rest of the hotel in the hotel category. The other review can be found at http://www.epinions.com/content_46342966916.
As we drove up to Harrahs Hotel And Casino Reno, we noticed well-marked signs directing us to free self-parking or free valet parking. At no time did anyone ever check our room key as we parked. I think anyone in Reno could have parked for free at Harrahs the week we were there. (Other casinos had free parking but with a validation stamp.)
Although check-in is listed as 4 pm we arrived at 2 pm and found our king bed, non-smoking room ready for us. While waiting to check in, an employee came by offering us a variety of cookies to help pass the time. I looked for him the entire rest of my stay and never once found another cookie. Bummer!
We were given a room in the east tower (see my separate review on the east tower rooms) and took one of the four elevators on up. After a tour of the facilities I realized that the east tower is smaller than the west tower. There were only about 14 rooms on each floor in the east tower and too many to count in the west tower. The east tower had one ice machine per floor while the west tower had two ice machines and several snack and soda machines on each floor. Each floor had a small sitting area with a sofa and stuffed chairs. The west tower also had six elevators (rather than four) that ran up to its floor. The four elevators were plenty for the east tower, as I rarely had to wait more than 60 or 90 seconds for an elevator in either direction.
The casino was on the ground floor of each tower but to get from one tower to the other we had to go up a level and walk across then down a level or go outside at ground level and walk across the street. There were plenty of slots and table games on both sides of the casino. I even found a bank of 1¢ slot machines. No, they don’t take pennies, just bills, but you can bet one penny at a time. I never had a problem finding my favorite nickel slots available and there seemed to be plenty of quarter slots, too. Actually about half the table games were dark and there always seemed to be at least one dealer with no players, just waiting for customers.
Harrahs does have a gambling club card. This is where you get credits for the amount of bets you make and can turn them in for prizes. Unfortunately, they don’t let you carry over the credits from day to day. You must earn enough credits in any one day to redeem them for a prize. You don’t have to redeem them daily but you must earn them daily. For example, if you earn 100 points on Monday and 200 points on Tuesday you cannot redeem them for the 300-point prize. You can only redeem them for the 100 and the 200-point prize.
For the younger set, Harrahs has an arcade game room where players earn tokens that can be redeemed for prizes. There were plenty of video games and pinball type games but I never did see anyone playing them as I was there in the middle of the week during a school session.
Harrahs has a health club but charges their guests $5 per day to use it. The health club consisted of a sauna, steam room, workout room with stair masters, treadmills, and weights, and an outdoor pool (which was closed for the season).
As with most casinos, Harrahs has a buffet. Breakfast was $5.99, lunch was $6.99 and dinner was $9.99. We ate there for dinner twice since the buffet included crab legs, shrimp, and prime rib. I thought the food was neither exceptionally good nor exceptionally bad but it certainly was worth the $9.99. They had a large selection of Asian entrees as well as pizza, salad bar, and some more traditional American dishes (roast pork, steamed mussels). Each station had a chef preparing or carving the food so you could watch them making pizza or stir frying the vegetables or even creating bananas foster (yum!).
Harrahs also had a coffee bar with pastries and a sit down deli type restaurant. The mochas at the coffee bar were fine (about $3.00 depending on size) but I thought the deli restaurant was expensive. A sandwich cost just about as much as the lunch buffet ($6.49) and at least the buffet included soft drinks.
I did check out the convention center at Harrah’s and it looked like it could handle about 500 people. They had a main ballroom that could be divided into four or five smaller rooms. My husband was attending a convention at the Hilton that had several thousand people. That convention never could have been held at Harrah’s.
Since I had to leave a day before my husband and he would keep the rental car, I inquired about the airport shuttle. Harrah’s offers a free shuttle service that runs every half hour during the middle of the day and every hour otherwise. As it turns out, my husband drove me to the airport but the shuttle would have been convenient, too.
On the few occasions I interacted with an employee, I found them to be friendly and helpful. Once I must have asked a concierge trainee for directions because she was able to find a map but couldn’t answer my question. She immediately found someone who could. Whenever someone won a jackpot at slots (not me) the slot service people arrived quickly and made the payout. The employees were always smiling which must be hard on them as the place was relatively empty and they could not have been earning much in tips.
Overall, we had a very enjoyable trip at a very reasonable price. Even if we had used the health club at $5 a day, our total hotel and meal expenses would still have been quite low. I feel we got great value for our money.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
colleenmf
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 - Top 500 |
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Member: Colleen Farley
Location: Lubbock, TX
Reviews written: 146
Trusted by: 147 members
About Me:
Happily married, mostly retired, and addicted to the internet.
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