Couldn't decide whether to put this here or in the Luxury Hotels forum but, since most of my issues were Vegas-centric, I decided to put it here.
To be fair, it wold be hard to expect this hotel to be at the top of the FS throughout the world since it is, after all, in Las Vegas. And it did have many of the qualities that we like in the brand: the service was gracious, the employees helped out in areas that weren't even theirs and they were generous with the bathroom amenities. We paid $349 for two nights, with the third night free. The Virtuoso amenities included a $100 spa credit, an upgrade to a Strip view room and continental breakfast each day, which we ended up taking outside. And all the guests with their little dogs really added to the cuteness factor. Had we not wanted to use the pool, I would have had little negative to say about the hotel.
I guess that I shouldn't book a trip over the 4th of July to Las Vegas expecting to get any relaxation, but when they show you a picture like
this one of the pool area, it's hard not to get sucked in.
When we arrived at the pool on Friday afternoon, we were told that it would be a 25-30 minute for chairs. Yuck. After 15 minutes, they called us to tell us that they had two chairs for us. Fair enough. I decided to take a swim, and that's when it got ugly. The scene was something right out of a fraternity party. Kids were doing cannonballs into the pool when they weren't shooting each other (and anyone nearby) with water guns. Adults were walking through the pool drinking bottles of beer and smoking (Yup, in the pool.). The lifeguard just sat there watching the scene. After about 90 minutes, we decided that the waiters weren't going to approach us and that we would have a better time inside.
We went to drop off our towels and mentioned that we know the staff didn't want to tell the guests not to have fun, but it was seriously getting out of hand. The staff apologized and said that there was nothing they could do, since these were all Four Seasons guests. The pool manager saw us and came over, saying that the lifeguard had said there were some guests that were upset. We told her what happened and she was truly apologetic, but there was not much she could do, other than talk to the lifeguard. While talking to her, we realized we weren't even the guests that the lifeguard had referred to her; there was another couple that was waiting for her. Poor Karen, she was overwhelmed.
So that's about all. We enjoyed the hotel and I'm pretty sure that we got a seasonal crowd, but we spent so little time at the hotel that I'm pretty sure our luxury dollars will be saved for other locations and our future Vegas hotel will be the Hilton Garden Inn.
Mike