Hotel Review – Bally’s Indigo Tower Suite

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BigAzMarty Checks In and Checks Out Bally’s Indigo Tower Suite

Okay, I’ll admit it.  Sometimes I see pictures and think “Well, this couldn’t be that bad. It looks nice”. But once you look a little closer, things come into focus.

Such was the case of my recent stay at Bally’s Las Vegas Hotel Casino. I was assigned a suite in the resort’s northeast tower, also known as the “Indigo Tower.” Suites are at the far end of the hall, so it’s a long walk from any elevator bank. After checking in and checking out the suite, I took plenty of photos of everything…both good and bad.

So, let’s walk through the arrival process, do a “Pros and Cons” of the room, then the overall atmosphere of Bally’s itself.

First impressions:

• Valet is tricky. Coming from northbound I-15 and onto Flamingo Road, it’s a right turn onto the property, a loop to the left, then around to the front of the hotel (located between the lobby and Grand Bazaar Shops).  The valet garage is under the Jubilee Tower (southwest), so it’s small, and you have to be in the left lanes to drop off.  Bellhops were not readily available to get bags, so we hoofed it in.
• Diamond Check-In: Free water, quick results (for some reason I didn’t try the $20 trick) and got assigned our room keys.
• There are two elevator banks for Indigo Tower…one up to floor 16 and others for above.  So far so good…casino floor still has that smokey smell, though.
• Up the elevator banks and down a long hallway to the suite. We opened the door, went in and “Hmmmm…interesting.  Built in the late 1970’s for sure”.

Pros:

• Excellent housekeeping for the basic routine. They even called at 1 PM (when we were taking our time after a long night) to ask if we were wanted to schedule a later housekeeping visit.  Now this is for the basic stuff — clean the bathroom, fresh towels, bed-making.  At no time did the dreaded Caesars “No Room Cleaning” happen while we were there (yes, we are talking to you, Harrah’s and Planet Hollywood).
• Room Size: This is really a decent-sized room. Nice floor-to-ceiling windows. The sliding doors are sealed shut.

Gross, stained loveseat. The round table had a stain scraped away on the side facing the TV.

Nice TV console/dresser. We moved the chair to match up with the footstool that was in the middle of the room.

• His and hers closets.
• His and hers bathroom vanities. Not a double-bowl, mind you, but two different prep areas on opposites sides of the bathroom.
• Firm bed.
• Big rattan chair and footstool.
• Large chair and desk, which doubles as a nightstand, on one side of bed.
• Console with three wide drawers.
• Sizeable nightstand with two drawers.
• Separate Jacuzzi tub and shower.
• Enclosed toilet room and another for the European-style bidet, which was locked by maintenance.
• Quiet…this is one of the quietest rooms I’d been in a long time…except for 4th of July night.
• LV Monorail access – HUGE plus. $56 for 2 – 72-hour passes…and was used 2-4 times a day. Our car stayed parked the entire time.

Cons:

• OLD Furnishings. 1990’s style furnishings at the latest.  Nicks, scratches and a love seat with giant spots. Carpet needs the edges to be taken care of (starting to fray) and a good professional heavy-duty cleaning. It hasn’t been done in a long, long while.
• The bathroom area is two steps up from the bedroom floor, but the bottom step is not even twelve inches high. So if you have big feet, expect at least one stubbed toe during your stay. I did it at least three times before reminding myself to approach at an angle.
• Everything is LOW…bed, love seat, chair….even the toilet is super-low.  If you are elderly or have other difficulties, this could be an issue.
• Jacuzzi tub was not usable. Hard to see in my photo is the 4″ ring around the tub, which pretty much meant my wife was never going in there. A complete turn-off.

Nice-sized tub but gross…and foot-eating steps.

Jacuzzi tub. That is the gunk at the bottom of the gold center overflow area.

Tiny, tiny doors…you have no idea.

Super low-to-ground toilet.

Low-flow shower head and just a funky smell in here. You basically slid sideways through the tiny door to get in here.

Guy’s side sink area.

Girl’s side sink area. Notice the normally-required makeup mirror is completely missing. My wife used the stool as a knee support and leaned towards the wall mirror.

Awesome view of Paris/Bally’s self-park garage and Monorail and pool….but surprisingly quiet.

Now for the rest of the property:

My pictures don’t entirely show what Caesars conveys on a lot of their properties…”basic don’t-give-a-sh*t attitude” at both the management and maintenance levels.

Maintain the air duct and vents!!!  I saw black dust/spider webs blowing the whole time. At no time was it ever wiped down during our visit…should have been noted by housekeeping to maintenance.

Even worse was the size of the doors to get into the toilet, bidet, and shower. I have no idea who the designer was, but in one photo I have my hand out and that’s exactly at the entrance with about maybe 1-2″ of clearance to each side.  So if you are under 5′ 5″ and under maybe 140 lbs., you wouldn’t have an issue.  My wife is 5′ 6″ flat footed and has nice curves and she had to go through these doors sideways to get in. At 6 feet, I felt like I’d been squeegeed after slipping through.

Caesars, consider this: Kirk Kerkorian built this hotel, the former MGM Grand (from 1973 through 1986), AFTER what is now Westgate Las Vegas (1969). And Westgate, with their new ownership, is still a very nice property for its age.  Clean yours up, fix broken floors and replace dirty carpeting!

Perhaps they should shut down the Indigo Tower, pop out the balcony doors and do true floor-to-ceiling double-pane or Lexan windows.  Do something with the tiny doors in the bathrooms. Stop taking things away like 24-hour room service (but as the wife said, “I’m not eating in this room”).

Bally’s has HUGE potential, and you are completely wasting it.

More observations:

• Pool – Huge…has a 13′ deep end, and it’s 2″ tiles.  They don’t give a crap about maintenance, though. The pool floats had 2-4″ of grunge in a nice dark brown/gray color at the water line. Strap chairs have not been wiped down or at least re-strapped in a long while. Get at least two towels per person…you will need them.
• Grand Bazaar Shops are all new, but the main corridor has no roof to block the sunshine and no misters like the side aisles do. Skip the center and go down the side aisles in the summertime.
• The underground Bally’s Promenade Shops seem to have some newer tenants, but still not where they were even ten years ago.
• Restaurants – They have okay offerings like Buca Di Beppo, upscale BLT Steak, Tequila Taqueria Bar and Grill, SEA: The Thai Experience and a food court.  Missing are Las Vegas staples like a 24-hour cafe and a buffet.
• Casino – fix the stuffy/smoky feeling, clean the machines and loosen them up and you would be fairly busy…they are horribly tight. We had better luck everywhere else except for Linq and Westgate. 7/5 DDB is just not good policy on a quarter machine.  Loosen up the floor a bit and watch it come alive again.

All in all….Bally’s is a fixable property. But until it has been fully renovated and given the attention that a prominent Strip resort deserves, the wife says “No bueno.” And unless it’s a guys’ weekend (and we just don’t care)…I’d agree.

Photos: [BigAzMarty, Bally’s via Facebook]