I knew a few months ago I was going to be on vacation during the Labor Day holiday, so after talking things over with my wife, we decided to go to Las Vegas. Had been a few years since we were there last, and the bug was really itching.....
I made a few inquirers on the internet, and about a week later I received a delightful letter in the mail from the Imperial Palace.
"Dear Mr Kamer,
Get your butt down here, we need your money!!! "
The signature was smudged, so I'm not sure who sent it. But with such a hearthfelt letter, how could I refuse. I called and asked what kind of rate they would give an "almost invited guest".
The fellow I talked with told me they would let me STEAL a room for $29.00 per night. WOW! Set one of those puppies on the side for me, I'm on my way....
Now, being an avid reader of the Las Vegas Talk forum, I have read a lot of "negative" comments with respect to the Imperial Palace. What follows is my uncompensated first person review of this hotel/casino....
Check In:
When I walked in, there was no one in line for check in. Thats always a good sign, because that means I'm automatically Next! The good thing about being Next is, if someone comes in behind you, you can let them go ahead, and guess what? Your still Next!
Since I had reservations, check in went without a hitch. The woman who was taking care of me was very friendly. We breezed right through the paperwork. At one point she asked me for the first name of the person I was staying in the room with and I told her Marie. I asked her though if my wife should call, could she tell her I'm staying with some guy named Al. That got a chuckle out of her...
We were given our room keys, coupon books and a map of the casino layout. She then pointed us in the general direction of the elevators, and we were off.
The Elevators:
I have read several comments in this newsgroup that the IP had some of the slowest elevators in the world. Now, I'm no expert, and I did'nt actually time them, but they seemed to go about as fast as any elevator I've ever ridden. Granted, we were not pulling 4 g's going up or down, but it never took more then a minute or so to get to where we were going.
Even the Wait Time from elevator button push to arrival was not exceptional. We made our way to what I guess would be the Main Elevators, and headed for our room.
The Room:
We were assigned room 1207, on the 12th floor. Duh....
When we stepped off on the 12th floor, I looked at the signs directing you to various rooms. I could see which direction I needed to go in, since the 1200 series numbers were going down. Unfortunately, they started at 1298.
YIKES! I'm in room 1207, and the elevator is next to room 1298! I'm gonna need to pack a lunch just to go from the room to the elevator. The hallways were something of a maze, and we threaded our way through the maze, following the signs... Then I made a discovery....
There were other elevator banks scattered around this 12th floor! Things started to look up at this point. When we finally located our room, we were delighted to see that the closest elevator was only like a minute walk down the hall. And they even had pop and ice machines right there....I was starting to feel like a rated player, though my wife insists it was just a coincidence.
Room 1207:
As we entered the room, I was prepared for anything and everything. To my surprise, the room was really very nice. I asked for and got a room with a king sized bed. Besides the bed, the room came with 4 walls, a floor and a ceiling. I had to admitt, so far I was getting my 29 bucks worth. The room itself was fairly spacious.
Along with the above, the room also had a TV w/remote control. There was a hair dryer in the bathroom, which my wife was happy to see. There was a good selection of towels and 1 bottle each of shampoo and conditioner. I galantly opted to surrender these to my wife, after which she released her choke hold on my neck. There was also an alarm clock. A large dresser provided ample space for us to store our clothes. There was one little thing I didn't care for.
The clothes rack had coat hangers that could not be removed. This made it impossible for me to hang up any pull on shirts. All my shirts are pull ons.... Shirt buttons confuse me, among other things. The room had a small walk out balcony, and our room directly faced the pool. There was a sticker on the door leading to the balcony that warned the door automatically locks from the outside. It didn't. And the room cooling units shut off automatically when the door was opened. They didn't. But since we were on the 12th floor, it didn't seem like that big a deal.
There was a note on the bed that advised due to the energy crunch, they were tacking on an extra $3.00 fee to our bill. I thought that was fair enough, and immediately turned the a/c up to one level above perma-frost.
The bed was very comfortable, with clean sheets. I didn't break the bed down to examine the under sheets. The a/c worked great. The door leading to the balcony had a drape on it that was somewhat thin, and allowed some ammount of light to come through. But there was a 2nd much heavier drape behind it. When that baby was pulled across, the room looked like Oh Dark Thirty in the morning. It not only kept stray light out, but I think it would stop most high caliber rifle bullets as well.
Over all, I have to say I was more than a little pleased with the room. What the heck, for $29.00, how could I go wrong.
The Smell:
I've read where some people have posted about the "smell" in the casino. OK I gotta give you that one. There was a distinct "odor" in the casino, but it was not over powering, and in fact, after a short time I didn't even notice it anymore. Not sure what was causing it...
(Note to IP Management: Glade Plug-in's)
The Staff:
Most everyone I dealt with in the casion was very friendly and helpful. Of course there are always exceptions...... Some of the cashiers, while not overtly rude, made it clear they would rather be someplace else. There were 2 noteable exceptions to this....
The Players Club:
I don't know what these people were drinking, but I sure wanna try some. Everytime I walked up there, they jumped up from their seats, smiled and basically seemed to bend over backwards to be helpful.....
Signed up for our players club cards first thing off. Our coupon book had coupons for a FREE scratch off ticket. We both turned in our coupons, and to our amazement, both tickets were WINNERS!!!!!
I won a stunning hot pink Imperial Palace ball point pen. My wife won a blue one.
Baggage Check:
They have a room in the hotel, where guests can check their baggage if their room is not ready. Or, if they check out and have some time to kill, they can store their baggage there while they wander around. I suppose if you were not coming or going, but just carrying a suitcase around with you, you could still check it in.
The room was run by a fella named Mustafa.... He was great. Big smile, polite conversation, and helpful to boot. If he wasn't working, I would have invited him to have a drink.
(Note to IP Management: Appoint Mustafa the training person for your cashier staff.)
The Casino:
Not really exceptional, but it had all the workings. Table games, slot machines, lights, bells and crowds. We are slot players by trade, so thats what we were concerned with. Our slot of choice is the Blazing 7's slots, quarter machines.
After we got our players cards, we proceeded to look for some of those Blazing 7's. I found a few next to each other. I stuck a $20.00 bill into mine, and after a few spins lined up 3 7's for a 250 coin payout. My wife, who only put a fiver into her machine, lined up 3 7's for a 300 coin pay out. Not too shabby. Unfortunately, with the exception of a few minor hits, we didn't do any better than that start.
Buffets/Resturants:
The buffet is located on the 3rd floor. The resturants are on the 5th floor. We only ate a few times there but heres a quick run down.
Lunch buffet on the 2nd day. The selection was limited, but there was no line. They did not have any drink runners (at least none that I saw). I decided to stick with the sandwich bar.... Several choices of meats and cheeses with all the toppings. Made myself a couple of "Dagwoods" that lasted me well into the night. Drinks are included, and by getting my own, I saved a tip.
Breakfast buffet on last day. Again no line, and a limited selection, but it came with all the breakfast essentials. Scrambeled eggs that were not runny, beacon, sasuage, french toast and waffels, lots of different fruits and the usually other stuff. A word of caution here. Steer clear of the corned beef hash.....This stuff was actually awful...
(Note to IP Kitchen Staff: Cornbeef hash is NOT supposed to taste like shredded beef burittos.)
Other than that, I would rate the food in the buffets as good. Not GREAT! Not NEWSWORTHY, but good.
The Resturants:
We only ate at 2 while we were there.
The Pizza Palace. I ordered a calazone, and this baby was HUGE! By the time I finished that sucker, I didn't have room for anything else. The waiter was polite and attentive. Kept our water glasses full without being asked, but didn't make a pest of himself... Why do waiters always wait until you have a mouth full of food before coming over to ask if everything is alright? Can't they see your cheeks look like a chimpmunk working over time and could not speak a word without making a huge mess????? The wife had a shrimp salad, but the shrimp were kind of small and tended to get lost in the croutons.
The Teahouse Cafe. Ate there late the last night. Had the Night Owl special, which was a ham steak with eggs and toast. Cost was about $5.00. This ham streak must have come off a hog the size of Godzilla. The eggs were a little "looser" then I like, but edible. The waitress here was also friendly and attentive. Kept refering to us collectively as "guys" and my wife as "Hon". By the 3rd cup of coffee I was ready to invite her to go bowling.
Security Staff:
I only had a few occasions to talk to the security staff members, but like most of the rest of the staff they were polite and helpful. I found if I had questions about the casino these were the guys to ask. Since they spend their whole day wandering around they know it like the back of their hands. And there sure seemed to be a lot of them. Seems everytime I turned around, there they were. I wasn't sure if I should feel safe with all this security around, or apprehensive that they felt they needed this much security. In the end, I decided to just ignore it.
Well there you go folks, an outsiders review of the Imperial Palace. If someone were to come up to me on the street and ask if I would stay there again, I'd tell them to mind their own business....
No, actually, I'd tell them sure, for the price, I think you would be hard pressed to find more bang for your buck.
Part 3
The Slot Tournement follows.....
Back to Part 1
The Trip
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