Any reason to change from Virgin?

We have 3 nights at Virgin booked in late October (Saturday-Tuesday) in a Ruby Tower corner suite/room followed by 3 nights at the Cosmo.

We wanted to be off strip for a couple of days as it’s our third visit. We specifically picked it for location as close (ish) to the strip, downtown and Ellis Island (for cheap tables) which ruled out Red Rock, GVR, South Point amongst others. Reviews are, fair to say, mixed about Virgin with quiet casino, dirty rooms being the main two that are having us consider our options.

Budget is around $400-500 a night and looking specifically for something a bit nicer than a standard room (which rules out Ellis Island itself) with decent food options and a casino (or at least slots / VP) so question is should we change and if so where to? I see Tuscany seems an alternative or possibly Circa/GN downtown. Keen to hear any first hand experiences. Bonus points if a spa available on site or close by.

 

The true ethos of the Virgin brand, disrupt the market with customer focussed improvements, then after a couple of months become like everyone else.

 

I just completed my 9th stay at Virgin a couple weeks ago. I was also a regular patron of the Hard Rock for 10 years previous to that as well.

My rooms consistently make me feel like I’m the first person to ever stay there and I always stay in a corner-suite, Ruby Tower.
I always enjoy my visits, enjoy good meals, good service and have a lotta fun at Virgin.

Yes… I read the reviews and I’ve also watched the YouTube video with that guy with his stupid Tophir teddy-bear. I can only say my stays have been enjoyable, which is why I always return.

 

I stayed one night at Palace Station this past May as I was arriving at around 11pm and $50 all in seemed a decent rate to just lay my head. I was really pleasantly surprised with the room. Seemed recently renovated, was spotlessly clean, bed was super comfy. Had a nice view of downtown and The STRAT as well. I would definitely consider staying there again if I wanted something cheap and off strip. Can't beat having the Oyster Bar right there too!

 

virgin is a good choice------rooms were clean-------casino is on the quiet side ,some see that as a plus-----good drink service-----friendly employees-----

 

Never had a bad time at Virgin. Love the restaurants, and I don't mind a quiet gaming floor, as I feel I have the run of the place.

The Ruby suites are among my favorite rooms in Vegas, ranking up there with Cosmo. I've never had a room that was dirty.

They do well in comping as well as sending future offers with not much play.

The spa is nice, and you'll get a 20% discount with a paid stay.

 

I've stayed at Virgin a couple times (across all three towers), and never had an issue with cleanliness. The casino is definitely quiet most of the time, but that is a huge plus for me. I've played $10 3/2 blackjack there on a Saturday. Throw five or ten bucks to a cocktail waitress here and they will ensure you don't go thirsty even for a moment. Getting a meal without a reservation is no problem. I'm sure they can't sustain this level of business forever, but I'm gonna enjoy it as long as I can.

 

I thought you meant Virgin but realized posters question. My bad

 

Great thank you all, will take the room reviews with a hefty grain of salt then and stick with Virgin. Good drinks service is a definite plus I hadn’t considered with a quieter casino !

 

I realized after I posted that I should have led with something along the lines of "If you're looking for an alternative..." sorry for any confusion!

 

From everything I've seen and heard, there are a lot of problems with Virgin, but cleanliness is not one of them. Their issues are primarily on the business side of things.

Always a good idea, especially in Vegas where people have varying degrees of what's considered acceptable. There are definitely folks who will see a scratch on a nightstand or a dusty shelf that got missed, and immediately proclaim the place to be "filthy", "uninhabitable", etc. Then there are people like me who probably wouldn't notice a dead body left in the closet as long as it hadn't started to decompose yet.

 

I happened to see that review recently.
Not stayed at Virgin, but seemed fussy, would have to see other reviews.

Bally's is the on the strip, but closer than Virgin to Ellis Island. Rooms are large. Paris is probably a similar distance as Virgin if cutting through Bally's.

 

Eh, I think it’s more a function of the Hilton Management. The property is likely suffering from too many cooks in the kitchen, which is only likely to get worse as things fail to turn around. IMO it’s a really a weird fit all around.

Virgin - Recognizable brand, brings a certain amount of “cool” cache, owner is one of the many investors in the property
Hilton - Curio brand on the hotel, huge database of loyalty members to farm, nominally in charge (see below) of the resort operations as they’re the designated management company
Mohegan Sun - Virgin/Hilton wanted no part of gaming operations, they brought experience and a player database but their operational needs don’t necessarily mesh with those of Hilton (see @maxev ’s inability to secure a simple late checkout as an easy example)
F&B/Retail/Nightlife Tenants - Same as any other property, lots of these are just folks paying rents. Some resorts are heavy on tenants, others are focused on keeping it in house. In House generally provides a more seamless guest experience (no RC from Afters, Money Baby’s surprise shut down - would be examples of why tenants can be more of a challenge)
Multiple investment firm owners - This is the one that puzzled me the most when I poked around after opening but I guess it makes sense given the disparate players involved. The capital firm that seems to have taken the lead on behalf of the many investor groups looks to have a whole operational leadership team at the property (Ops, Sales, Finance, etc) Presumably they are there to make sure all of the above players are working in harmony to deliver the results they want out of the property.

What it actually looks like happens in reality is you have a disjointed resort experience that’s not true to any of the operators involved. There’s a big difference between say Cosmo paying Marriott a brand fee for the hotel and cutting deals with F&B Operators but keeping 90% of total operations in house with their employees, and Virgin farming every last piece out to a different management group.

-You aren’t getting the cool, boutique Virgin Hotel experience with Hilton running it. See reversal of mini bar, no RSF, and general lack of personal service in reviews. Not sure Virgin would have been able to deliver at a resort on this scale anyway, but we’ll never know for sure. I’m sure it took one month of missing metrics before Hilton showed the opportunity in increased prices and resort fees.
-Mohegan Sun players aren’t getting a frictionless experience because they have to negotiate with Hilton in order to take care of their players rather than being able to set those standards internally. There’s always going to be disagreements within an operation on the balance needed between hotel ops and casino ops, but that’s much easier to deal with when everyone is on the same team.

 

Given the franchise model in hoteling, you are pointing the finger at the wrong people here, IMO. Hilton didn't mandate they have a resort fee. That wouldn't be in a franchise agreement standard for the Curio brand. The hotel's actual owner did that. They also set their own minibar prices.

When you have a bad experience at a Hilton (or a Marriott, or whatever), 80%+ of the time what you are experiencing is that the franchise operator is bad, because they are the ones who own and operate the hotel (not the brand). It's like going to a bad McDonalds or a bad GM dealer.

Hilton expects them to meet a brand standard (things like lobby design, is there a restaurant/bar/pool/fitness, etc. what toiletries do you use, honor the loyalty program, pay the licensing fees, etc.) They don't set their prices this granularly or have nearly anything to do with something like their restaurants, their casino, their inability to find a sportsbook partner that is licensed, managed their cabanas, manage a club, etc.

Frankly, charging street prices for a minibar is something you do when your brain is leaking out of your ear. The labor costs alone of stocking a minibar to offer $2 sodas is not worth it. What it shows is that the owner didn't have a clue when they opened the place which is why you end up with absurd things like a sports book with no operator

 

It’s a Hilton managed property, it’s not a franchise. So, every decision (within reason, they still ultimately answer to ownership regardless) is “Hilton”.

Which goes back to my overall point about it being a weird soup of different players. Throwing a name on a place, using some mandated IT systems, and being held to brand standards is a much different animal. That’s part of why I used Cosmo as a comp. Cosmo feels like an integrated resort, because they owned/operated the vast majority of the property. Virgin feels like a bunch of disparate pieces because that’s what it is.

 

I'm with Topher, place was filthy

 

I don't know who that is... but now I'm pretty certain I'm not interested in his YouTube channel

 

Especially when the entire point of a minibar is to fleece people who are too lazy to go outside to get street-priced drinks. The guy who desperately needs to chug a bottle of water at 5am after a night of heavy drinking is not comparison shopping. From a business perspective, you absolutely charge whatever you can get away with and still make the sale. It's free profit on something that people don't make where-to-stay decisions on.

 

Except that was the whole Virgin branding and marketing campaign they attempted pre-opening. They were supposed to be Vegas for the people sick of the Vegas prices/fees. There was a long thread on this board with people talking about how great it was to see a spot without a resort fee, which was clearly the type of push they were going for. We can argue if that was necessarily a wise strategy, and the fact that they abruptly switched gears would point to it not being one, but it was how they were trying to differentiate the property. Maybe if the place was fully operational at open and had better than Strip gaming conditions that message would have gained more ground. To me they seemed DOA once they rushed to open a construction zone property prior to vaccines even being widely available that offered shit gaming conditions.

I liken the minibar thing to hotels offering record players in the room. Only a knucklehead would be actively looking for that amenity to make their room decision, but it’s something a property markets in the hopes of catching a possible guests’ attention, creating a vibe, and hopefully drawing them in more. Also, even with labor costs, no hotel is going bankrupt selling cans of coke for $2 in their minibar. Still plenty of margin in there to play with.

They’re still advertising it on their site, so good communication between ops and marketing.

“Let the Vegas games begin in this king-sized chamber with spacious luxe bath, separate dressing area and mini bar with street level pricing worth raiding”