An un-bias fair review
So I was a little unsure about this place after reading some reviews. Here is my review: My wife and I stayed there 3 days. I was surprised. The bad reviews here have no validity in my opinion. The bad reviews must be either from people expecting a vegas high caliber atmoshphere or are people that might be a bit uppity.
In short - this place was awesome.
In detail, please read on:
The older section of the hotel is smoking. I am a smoker. I do not smoke in my home or my car though. I can admit smoking stinks and is a bad habit. That being said, we stayed in the smoking tower. It was clean, smelled good (though some areas of the hall did in fact have a stale smell). The room was clean and perfect. Was it decked out in marble with diamond chandeliers? no, of course not. Was it a super 8 as someone suggested? Absolutely not. The bed was clean, the room was large. The rooms even have central air that you set (not an under the window thermostat).
Not sure how one person never found the pool or exercise areas. All you have to do is go look around. The pool area was actually QUITE nice with a large hot tub area as well. There are actually 2 exercise rooms - one in each tower. They have the basics: treadmills, stair climbers and bikes. The one in the new tower has some dumb bells as well.
The new tower section of the hotel is really decked out high class. I cant speak for their rooms but I do know they have jacuzzi rooms available. The dark walnut woodwork and common areas are really high class areas. They have 2 community computers available for use and plenty of room for sitting and watching TV.
Next - Food:
The buffet was great in my humble opinion. Sure, it wasnt a "huge" buffett but everything was fresh and done well. There was always a prime rib or pork cutting station, an italian section, a latin/mexican station and seafood station. Also a good salad bar and soups as well as a good dessert station that even offered sugar free pies. For 9.99 I do not see how anyone can complain about this.
There is a 'fast food' type place next to the buffet that offers sandwiches, burgers, cheese melts, dogs, etc. We ate there once too as it stays open until 2am. Then for a higher class experience the steakhouse on the lower section of the new tower is available. We didnt eat here. The menu prices are an average of 25 to 30 dollars for their meals.
Next to that is a bar which seemed like it would have been a lot of fun as well, though it was not open while we were there. Perhaps its only open on weekends or maybe its still too new and hasnt opened yet at all. I am not sure. I was disappointed in that because we did want to sit in there for some drinks the one night. There are two more bars on the casino boat though so that is what we did. There is also a starbucks in the hotel main lobby.
As for the casino...
Yes, it smells like smoke. Sure it has some sections designated non smoking but obviously that just means you wont have smoke right in your face from the player beside you. You will still be in a room where a lot of people smoke though. There were three levels of the boat. The top level is a poker room only. The main level is a mixture of 5 cent, 25 cent, 50 cent and dollar machines, along with a smaller area for high rollers ($5, 10, 25 machines). The main level is also the table games (craps, poker, BJ, roulette etc). The lower level is mainly penny slots. They have the new slots of Jaws and Happy Days which were just recently released. They were a big hit.
We signed up for player cards and to our surprise, the casino sent us back to the hotel since we were first timers there and comp'd our room to $29.00 a night. That was awesome!
The slot payout is marked at 91.6 while we were there and we had our ups and downs. If I had more discipline we would have walked away $1300 up.
Overall, I highly recommend this place and we will definitely go back. We had a really great time!