Notorious -- TheBucket LV 4/28-5/2 Pre-TR

Now working on the writing of the letter to the GM at the Riviera... So far, it's 2 pages long. I dare not make it longer, and while I'm tempted to edit it down to one page, I don't want it to seem informal or arrive without sufficient explanation as to why I am requesting such a very-odd thing. Before I actually type-and-send it, however I have to make sure my travel dates are set in stone. It would be terrible to get things arranged at the Riv only to have to miss out on it or inconvenience them with a change-request for my custom-request...

 

As I settle into full-on planning mode with the experience/documentation of the last days of the Riviera in mind, I have a question for the community at large. Are there any specific facets of the property, or historical places within it, that should be visited? Of course I've already done (and shall do again) the empty pool on top of the casino, which was mis-engineered and never filled, and still creates leakage onto the casino floor to this day when it rains heavily (fortunately for them, LV isn't well known for its rainfall, and at least it doesn't float cars out of the parking garage like IP/Linq does). Beyond that particular point of interest, and my room of choice, is there anything I should be traveling there in search of? Any and all input is quite welcome.

 

A photo with the bronze bums is a given. My husband and I went to see Crazy Girls about 4 years ago. -- Cheesiest show I have ever seen. Going into the show there were lots of old photos accompanied with trivia -- I may be wrong but I think that Dean Martin's photo had a caption about him being afraid of elevators and that they converted on of the lower floors into a suite just for him. -- But also that particular suite did not exist anymore. I wish I would have taken pics of all the photos that lined the walls. -- Val

 

Skyboxes - skyroom?

http://www.rivierahotel.com/image-gallery.aspx#!prettyPhoto%5Bgallery1%5D/34/
http://www.conexpoconagg.com/PDF/2014_ExhibitSuites.pdf

1975 Riviera Sign.

Not sure if that's the 1975 neon or were they talking about the small sign seen in Oceans 11?

 

hotel

 

And... It's ON!!!!

Though it was a bit of a given... I just got final corporate approval for my trip. Yaaay! This comes with sufficient funds to stay at Mandalay Bay (where the convention I will attend during the trip is being held)... But without the stipulation that MB actually be used for accommodations (I'd go by Delano rates, I suppose, as The Hotel has been an acceptable choice in earlier years). Given the way they like to jack up the room rates when there's a big convention in there... I've got some fairly serious hotel-money to work with. Especially considering that if I need to enhance my level of investment by shortening the time I spend as a guest of the Riv, I have plenty of comp offers other places that would serve to make the Riv the only actual hotel charge involved.

I'm goin' to Veeeeggaaassss!

 

That's great news for everyone!

 

What other hotels other than the Riv are you thinking about?

Side question... Out of all of the places you've been (and I know it's been a lot), what was the WORST room you have had to date. I know you've tried the CC manor rooms and the old garden IP rooms, so Im curious as to what room you have had in Vegas rated out the worst

 

Weeellll... I'll have to qualify my answer a bit. The worst room I ever had was a standard room at Mandalay Bay. But that's by my standards. It took two hours to check in, turned out to be non-smoking rather than smoking, and was just utterly bland with nothing whatsoever about it to make it memorable. And it was expensive as $%#. That said, by most people's standards, it was a perfectly good room. My standards are hopelessly skewed by the delusion that I'm some sort of Vegas tourist version of Indiana Jones, plunging headfirst into each and every funky situation I possibly can hotel-wise, and considering being chased down a hallway by a massive boulder to be 'local flavor' and 'a rush'.

I have a feeling you wanted to know what room I might have had which could top the charts for having been subject to 'deferred maintenance', and a generally funky (not in the pristine-mod-furniture sense of 'funky') atmosphere. I'd have to say that award goes to my room in the original (not the Mint) tower at Binions shortly before they closed that tower (long before closing the Mint tower). The elevator was priceless, a real vintage job with a mechanical floor-indicator in the car... The hallway itself had uneven floors... The door to the room was covered in several layers of paint and had one of the numbers missing (though it was quite clearly my room as the outline of where the number had previously been painted over was quite evident). The room itself was tiny, featured a 1970s era window-air unit (not a hotel HVAC unit, a consumer window air conditioner) that sort-of worked and was missing the cover over the evaporator coil. The window let out right by the roof, and was not equipped to lock properly, so I think that anyone with any room on that level could venture out onto the roof (I did) and enter any of the other rooms (I didn't).

So there you go... I can see the headline now:

Travel Expert Rates Mandalay Bay Below Binions Original Tower Room

Heheh.

 

Especially me!

 

Good to know, thank you! I'll have to get a shot with/of the Crazy Girls statue, of course, but will also seek out this hallway you speak of, the photos and captions would make great photos for historic preservation via secondary photography. Thank you!

 

Oops, missed that part of your query... Here's the game-plan (very subject to modification depending on how things go down with the Riviera room quest:

We'll start with 2 nights at Boulder Station. This will give us laid-back, inexpensive accommodations for the first night as well as coverage for the second should we:
a) End up out on Boulder Highway the second night
b) Not score the right room at the Riv right away

On the first full day in town (Monday) convention attendance will make my day begin early and not end until about 4:30pm. After that we will proceed to the Riv, where we will hopefully check into a fabulous vintage suite. We'll keep this room and check out on either Thursday or Friday.

On Thursday, we'll go downtown and use a comp offer to check into either Plaza or El Cortez. This will keep us from having to pay a premium for the Friday night stay, and preserve more of the hotel budget for 'hitting the high note' with the Riv room, the combo of the downtown comp and Boulder Station making our first and last night virtually cost-free.

So there's the short-list as it sits:
Boulder Station
Riviera
El Cortez
Plaza

 

Yep, we'll be all over the Riv like ants on beets.

Do ants even like beets?

Hmm... Anyhow, yes. The hotel is #1 on the list.

 

Wow, thank you! That .pdf detailing the skyboxes was really neat! And the information about the 10th floor skyroom - perfect! Since it was a 1959 remodel, it must be atop the Med. North tower (the others didn't exist yet)... With an original intent to offer all-day dance parties? Wow! I'm going to put that right near the top of my 'must see' list.

Edit to add... Now, after seeing that still, I'm going to have to watch the 1960 Ocean's Eleven again. Quite possibly right... now.

 

I did this. The original Ocean's movie is an amazing historic document, a tremendous amount of time devoted to shots of active casinos in 1959 (The Riviera inclusive). In a day and age where filming something was hugely obvious, and heavily discouraged inside casinos, the making of a movie within the confines of the resorts made for an unsurpassed high-quality document of what they were really like to be inside at the time (well before my time). As I watched the many segments where the characters dropped silver dollars into slot machines, I remembered the recent podcast of the 'Gambling With an Edge' radio show put on by Bob Dancer and Richard Munchkin. Their guest was Michael Gaughan (South Point owner/operator), son of Jackie Gaughan (Owner of a whole lot of downtown, R.I.P.). The interview focused on Michael's memories of his dad and days bygone. As I watched the Ocean's characters pull the slot handles, I thought immediately of Michael's revelation that in those days, the slot machines were considered a diversion for ladies in the company of 'real' (table game) male gamblers. It was a bit odd, therefore, that such an emphasis was put on the men playing slots... But the one tidbit of information that Michael dropped during the interview played back in my head with every 1959 slot pull... He mentioned that back in those days (approximately), the slots held about SIXTY percent. Holy cow. And I thought CET slots were tight on the strip. Evidently even the most brutal reel-strip on the strip today doesn't hold a candle to what the mechanical slots did back in the day. Sixty? Wow.

Just hit Bob or Richard's website and have a listen - it's an amazing trip down memory lane.

 

Glad to see you back Bucket it's been awhile. We're on the same mission it sounds like. Besides checking out the "Casino" suite, the two story job which is apparently in the Monaco tower, think Sam rothsteins pad when Nicky walks in and first sees ginger. Yes I know the view is cgi but the suite is real. Want to see the Sinatra suite, the top floor hall, think wedding reception in the movie, and whatever suite that is in med south tower that looks like it has green grass on the patio, yes probably fake, check google earth to see what I'm talking about.
I am prepared to shell out a franklin or two to a kind soul who will offer a quick tour. Heading there Friday the 13th may have to start calling my host, like he'll remember me.

This thread, subscribed!

 

Hey, acoluzzi, thanks for the welcome-back! (And my apologies for my extended hiatus)

Yep, sounds like a similar mission indeed. Good luck on your trip and quest for sights to be seen... You're on the right track in my experience - it's surprising how loudly Mr. Franklin can speak in the right circumstances (a voice surely amplified further given a staff facing soon-to-come termination). If you don't mind, and have the opportunity to, I'd love to hear of whatever images and/or experiences you manage to collect in your quest. It should be nicely complimentary to my own, as you would seem to be looking into the resort as a whole, and I shall be addressing the original 1955 structure rather specifically. Good luck!

(It occurs to me to wonder how many folks there are with such interests in the exploration of the Riv in its final days... Which would be most amusing if there were eleven of us in total, to be discovered in a penthouse suite obsessing over blueprints, old aerial photographs printed out as D-size prints and hung on the wall, a mag-stripe writer, big CRT television displaying a video feed from the surveillance system, 82nd Airborne patches on modern satin casino jackets, some vintage Scotch and some Cuban cigars... Hatching a plot beyond compare to explore the most hallowed parts of the Riv...)

 

The first night

My thoughts turn now to the first night in LV...

We have (well not quite, I'm still trying to get the $@*$* resort fee waived) a room at Boulder Station, rather appropriately on Boulder Highway, where the spacing, sizing, and style of the casinos is a modern-day homage to what the strip was in days bygone. But that first night shall have to be a bit different than my typical alcohol-and-gambling-fueled night of debauchery that characterizes my normal first night in Vegas... As I do have to be up early the next day for a really key part of the convention I'll be paid to attend. I must attend to that properly... And the rest of the week can pass without such an air of responsibility.

That said, I'll have to be to bed fairly early that first (Sunday) night. But I do arrive early in the afternoon, and will have a good chunk of the day to do 'stuff'. What 'stuff' to do, is the question. I'm beginning to formulate a plan. In the spirit of Ocean's 11, I think that we may head from the airport to Boulder Station, check in, have a good time, enjoy an early dinner and perhaps an hour or so of 21... Then take the car back out and head to Westgate. Why Westgate? Because if we're going to case the joint (Riv), it wouldn't make sense to put the car there, or show our faces inside (really, we aren't actually up to no-good, depending on one's perspective). Park the Stang at Westgate, and take a leisurely pre-dusk walk over toward the Riv. I want to know everything about the current layout at ground level.... Quite possibly photograph it in a manner that can be put together into a reverse-panorama of the exterior. I want to know where deliveries come-and-go from. Where employees go outside to smoke. Where the fire exits are. Everything. Survey the place, document everything... And head back to Boulder Station for a bit of VP, a nightcap, and a well-reviewed bed for the night.

 

The number of people interested in this can probably be counted on two hands
Yeah since you're there now lemme know if there's something in Med North that warrants further investigation.
I suppose I should get a room there for the one night we'll be in town. I think my weekend rates are $19. my play has been so pathetic I don't even qualify for free weekend rooms at the rib. Have fun bucket

 

Maybe I'm biased, because I actually really like the Riv, but I think it's more than that. The thread about the Rivs closing had a ton of posts, whether they were good or bad. I think the main difference between this and the Sahara or Desert Inn, etc, is that the Riviera is the last one of its kind, more or less. The other older hotels have eliminated most of the older areas, so seeing the Riv go to me is seeing the last hotel of the old school area fall