Red Rock Hotel

The Red Rock Resort makes a great first impression.

It is officially in Las Vegas, but it is a world apart from Fremont Street in downtown.

Located close to the mountains on the outskirts of town, it feels comfortably luxurious. In cruise terms, it feels like a brand new, state-of-the-art Royal Caribbean ship, whereas downtown is more Fantasy-Class Carnival. That's to take nothing away from the fun experience downtown.

Our room itself may not have been much larger than the room at the Golden Nugget, but it was much more modern and impressive. Plus, you have to love a television in the bathroom to watch from the tub or while shaving. From the fifteenth floor, we had an awesome panoramic view of the strip and other parts of Las Vegas through our floor to ceiling wall of windows. Interestingly, they included a CD of the same kind of thumping electro jazz music played throughout the hotel to be played on the room's Bose stereo.

The pool area is visually stunning, with cabanas and luxurious poster beds along with padded lounge chairs around the large circular pool centered by a fountain, with smaller rectangular hot tubs close by. On breaks from Julie's seminars, we would sit on lounge chairs while Julie conducted business on her Blackberry.

Some of the bars and restaurants would actually be more at home on a new upscale Celebrity ship than even on Royal Caribbean. After sessions were over at about 9 PM, Julie and I went to the chic Cabo Bar for drinks and chips, but other than that, we didn't hit the more upscale places. Venti Skinny Caramel Macchiato from the Starbucks near the Casino, however, was how we started each day, a splurge from our usual coffee order.

On Sunday I watched the Packers beat the Bears on two enormous screens in the Sports Book. At the adjacent Bagel Cafe, I dined on two humongous slices of pepperoni pizza. It was good pizza and certainly worth the $6.95 price when it came with a side drink. I had some other meals at the food court in the casino over the course of our stay.

I particularly enjoyed the Feast Buffet for breakfast, although I had to wait through the line twice when I found out the $4.99 price only applied if I belonged to the player's club. That is something I didn't like. It should be sufficient to have a room key to get the better price, since I assume that buffet is considered a perk for staying there. If the bottom line goal is to attract gamblers, then I have to say the buffet was an utter failure as a loss leader. From what I could tell, most of the people eating there lived in the area and returned home after taking up table space for a couple of hours and eating a week's worth of food. That dining crowd was quite a contrast from the hip urban professionals that the rest of the hotel seems to be geared to attract. For lunch and dinner, the lines were so long that I decided it just wasn't worth the trouble, despite the fact that the food was good.



With an IMAX multiplex theater, bowling alley and luxurious spa on site, the hotel should have something for everyone, but much went unexplored by us. Julie was in training sessions from 8 AM until 9 PM, and I worked quite a bit, using our room as my office. I spent some time playing video poker, which I understand more than the wide array of slot machines, and on the last day, I found a cool Texas Hold 'Em machine where I actually won back some of my losses. I would have won more, and in fact was ahead for my whole time in Las Vegas, but I got suckered into a big hand when I held pocket aces that were full to three kings at the river. Unfortunately, the "opponent" held a king and a jack as hole cards. With a jack on the table, only an ace for the last card would have bailed me out, but how could I have known that?



In the final analysis, I still have to say that a cruise beats a land trip hands down, if for no other reason than it doesn't nickel and dime you to death unless you choose to go off script. Your necessities are handled, and, of course, you have different destinations arrive at your door. While a land trip can cost less up front, it usually ends up costing more than a cruise by the end.

As a personal aside, our primary purpose for going to Las Vegas was for Julie to attend a wellness conference on behalf of her company. It occurred to me that my three girls were all approaching wellness in their own ways. My oldest daughter Gina's career in epidemiology serves to find the macro answers, like how the built environment effects health. My youngest daughter Amy writes a Healthy U article for her college paper that helps on a micro basis, directed at helping individuals find better health personally. As a Director of Human Resources at a major corporation, Julie is working to improve wellness of her employees in order to help them be more happy and productive, consequently holding down the cost of health care for their self-funded insurance and hopefully improving the bottom line. The decisions made by the high powered human resources executives attending these sessions with her would have a ripple effect on wellness throughout the American workforce for years to come.