Rio Hotel and Casino quickies
 

Staying three nights as the start of a trip...

Guests park outside or in a parking structure?

Best place to park with a handicap sticker?

Difficult or easy to find check in?

Check in is stated as 4pm. What is your experience with earlier?

Any way to get buffet at a discount, without spending $1000 at the tables?

Pool (s?) have shaded area? During what hours?

Leaving Monday (9/21)...thanks

You can park in an open lot or inside a parking structure, both are available and plentiful. If you are staying in the Ipanema tower, you will probably want to park in the garage around the back to the left of the main hotel entrance. I find it most convenient to drive in the rear entrance off South Valley View Drive instead of looping around the hotel entrance every time.

If you are staying in the Masquerade tower you will probably want to park on the other side of the hotel, around to the right.

I would recommend parking in the garage due to the heat. Handicap parking is available all around, and at least on the Ipanema tower side, there is a convenient air conditioned hallway from the garage to the casino, including automatic door openers.

Check in is exactly where you would expect it to be, in the front door to the left, smack dab in the middle of the casino. I stayed there a week ago and I had no problem checking in early (around 1pm IIRC) and staying late as well.

The best deal on the buffet is to buy the 24 hour pass for around $54, but on weekends the price goes up to around $75 ($69 for TR members). The price jump happens at 11am Friday, so if you get there before then you can buy a 24 hour pass at the weekday rate. If you time it right you can eat 4 full meals on a 24 hour pass, so it works out to a reasonable price per meal.

Another good "bargain" food option is to go across the street to the Palms hotel (10-15 minute walk, or drive with easy parking) and eat at the food court. There's several fast food restaurants to choose from, including one of my favorites, the Earl of Sandwich. Palms has a great movie theater as well if you get bored.

Rio has several pools and there is lots of shade. Dunno the hours though.

Pro tip: Rio has two different Starbucks -- one near the Ipanema elevators, and the other one near the Penn & Teller theater. If the Ipanema tower one has a long line (it usually does in the mornings) try the other one. The one near P&T also has a Diamond line that lets you skip to the front if you are a TR elite.

Best of luck, enjoy the trip.

One more thing about food... to the left of the sports book is a little restaurant called the Sports Kitchen. They sell pizza and subs and things like that.

My friends and I ate there several times over the week and we were always impressed. Everything there was fresh and delicious and fairly reasonably priced (for a casino). Pizza was great. The onion rings are highly recommended.

Thanks RevJim

I was hoping someone would be familiar with the Rio!

We do not know which building/tower or wing we will be in. We paid about
the same for each night as the resort fee added to the cost!!!!

Good to hear the checkin is not a big issue. It will be Monday, so the Sunday rush to checkin will be over.

The buffet deal sounds good, but not so much for we seniors. We were thinking one buffet a day, with snacks to supplement the day! Guess we
are back to a pizza or subway in the room...with some wine we will bring in
our cooler. Your sports pub may be the place to try for that.

Good they have a garage, that will help our coolers to survive with the ice
blocks. It will be a hot one, but it is plenty hot here in Escondido too!

Actually, in a 24 hour period, there is NO restriction on the number of times one can dine [excluding Caesars and Rio Seafood--unless you paid the supplement.]

I didn't suggest that there was a limit. Just that most people eat 3 meals per day, so if you buy a pass at 12:30pm, you can eat lunch, dinner, breakfast and a slightly earlier lunch the following day. Of course someone could eat 10 meals in that time if they wanted to.

BTW ranles, according to the website, the Rio buffet opens at 11am weekdays, so this plan might not actually work if you stick to the Rio. I could have sworn they opened at 8am for breakfast, but I might be thinking of the weekend.

Anyway, the 24-hour pass is good at most of the other Caesar's properties (see details here) so you can pop over to one of the others for breakfast if you want to. Rio has a free shuttle to Harrah's that is definitely open for breakfast at 7am.

Challenge accepted! :D

Man, the title on this thread was quite misleading.

;)

Mike

I was thinking the same thing. Curious what the reference to quickies might be!