Spring Trip 2016: About those Flamingo FAB rooms...

For rooms that were recently renovated (except for the bathrooms) the FAB (or entry level) rooms at the Flamingo are really odd.

Water Damage on the ceiling

Dead space in the bedroom.

the 80's called

For rooms that were given a courtesy once-over these rooms really are in need of some help. Of course, the bathrooms are old, but there was at least working hot water, the carpet is industrial and the separate sleeping area, off of a living area, was just barren.  Ours had a king bed, two night-tables and the big-assed empty space in the wall that you see above.

That said, having the segregated sleeping area, with no windows, made getting some shut-eye easy. One big problem though is that they didn't vent that sleeping space at all.  Because of this it would be ice-cold in the living room/bathroom area, and sweltering in the sleeping area because of no air-flow. As someone who likes to sleep cool that was a problem for me.

From the window, we had 1/2 a view....

Bad view

High Roller View

LINQ view

Fortunately, the blackout curtains worked well, and the room would get DARK during the early morning, when we were usually sleeping. As far as cost goes, the room, for us, was comped for two of the four nights and $29 for the other two. This does not include the $32/night resort fee that we still had to pay.

Part of the reason for the bad comps is my rather anemic game play on the last couple of trips. Two trips prior, I caught the worst case of food-poisoning I've ever had and spent two days shut-up in my room, shivering, sleeping and yarfing everywhere.  On the trip prior to this one (in October 2015) I played a little more, but the wife and I were staying at the Linq and spent most of our time riding rides.  My play on this trip was much more robust this time, so I'm waiting to see if that has any impact on the offers I get.

I was in a take it or leave it mode with the Flamingo. I'm a guppy, not a big gambler, so I don't expect much in the way of offers.  My chip-porn isn't rated XXX, or even R, compared to others I'd be PG. So when it comes to gaming and service I don't expect much in Vegas when we go.

The thing is though, after about 5 years dedicated to MLife I decided to switch over to Total Rewards last year and have noticed something completely different. Whether or not you are a big roller or no, you at least get treated with something resembling customer service at the TR resorts.  Yes, the hotels/casinos are not as flashy, or gimmicky as are the MLife properties, and TR doesn't have anything that compares with Bellagio, Aria etc.  But when it comes to being treated like a damn human being they run circles around MLife, who have clearly decided that it's perfectly acceptable to plug people into an algorithm, and treat them accordingly.

My next post will be a brief introduction to MiniHam, our new travel mascot and something that the wife and I are having a LOT of fun goofing around with.