When you pay nearly $2,500 for five nights at Caesar’s Palace, expectations begin to creep upward.
Not unreasonable expectations, mind you.
We weren’t expecting Julius Caesar himself to rise from the dead and carry our luggage.
But for five hundred bucks a night, you start imagining a certain level of imperial hospitality.
Maybe marble.
Maybe plush robes.
Perhaps a masseuse concealed in the closet, waiting patiently to rub your shoulders while feeding you grapes and addressing you as Your Excellency.
Something.
Then we discovered the roughly $700 in additional resort fees.
Now our expectations went from luxury to full Roman emperor.
For another seven hundred dollars, I expected somebody to personally fan me with a palm frond.
When I entered the casino, trumpets should have sounded.
Citizens should have lined the hallway shouting:
“HAIL CAESAR!”
Instead, we found vomit.
Welcome to Rome
The journey to our room took us down a hallway apparently preserved exactly as it had been abandoned following the previous evening’s collapse of the Roman Empire.
There was food on the floor.
There was trash.
There was mystery debris.
And yes, there was vomit.
Not hidden vomit.
Not some tiny unfortunate stain requiring forensic investigation.
Just the sort of hospitality detail that makes a guest pause and think:
“Ah. So this is where the resort fee went.”
Housekeeping apparently encountered several of these artifacts and made the bold curatorial decision to leave them undisturbed.
Perhaps they were exhibits.
I don’t know.
For approximately $3,200 after the room and resort fees, I wasn’t expecting to have to determine whether something lying outside my room was garbage or an archaeological discovery.
Then We Saw the Room
After traversing the Imperial Corridor of Questionable Fluids, we opened the door to our expensive accommodations and discovered…
A hotel room.
That’s about the nicest way I can say it.
It wasn’t some horrifying dungeon with rats dragging away our luggage.
It was just meh.
And meh becomes considerably more offensive when meh costs more than many people’s mortgage payment.
I’ve stayed in Motel 6 rooms that left a stronger impression.
Maybe Caesar’s was going for historical accuracy.
After all, ancient Romans didn’t have USB chargers either.
But Sweet Jesus, That View
Then we opened the curtains.
The Strip!
The mountains!
The glittering lights of one of America’s most famous destinations!
Nope.
Roof.
We had been blessed with an expansive panoramic view of the casino roof.
And let me tell you something:
Until you’ve stayed at Caesar’s Palace, you simply don’t appreciate how roofy a roof can be.
It stretched majestically toward the horizon.
Gray.
Flat.
Rooflike.
Occasionally adorned with mysterious mechanical equipment, presumably included in the resort fee.
We stood there silently taking it all in.
People travel thousands of miles to see the Grand Canyon.
Fools.
Have they seen the roof of Caesar’s Palace?
At sunset, the roof becomes slightly darker.
At sunrise, slightly lighter.
At night, you can’t see the roof quite as well, which I eventually came to consider the room’s premium amenity.
Somewhere, Caesar Is Pissed
There’s an impressive audacity involved in naming a hotel Caesar’s Palace.
You’re invoking emperors.
Rome.
Opulence.
Power.
Gold.
Marble.
Decadence.
You’re basically promising guests the accommodations of rulers who conquered half the known world.
And I’ll concede one thing.
There was decadence.
It just seemed like most of it happened in the hallway before we arrived.
For roughly $3,200, I didn’t need an actual palace.
I didn’t need servants.
I didn’t require somebody standing beside my bed feeding me peeled grapes.
But I would’ve appreciated a hallway where nobody’s dinner appeared to have made a return appearance.
And perhaps a room that caused a reaction stronger than:
“Well… here it is.”
Still, I’ll never forget the view.
Long after the casino lights fade from memory, I’ll remember standing at that window with Las Vegas somewhere beyond my field of vision, staring across that vast architectural tundra and thinking:
Damn.
That roof looks roofier than hell.
💩💩💩💩 The Crap Rating: 4/4 Poops
Full of Crap
Normally, four poops are reserved for something that fails spectacularly at the thing it claims to be.
And that’s exactly the problem here.
Yes, the room contained beds. The plumbing worked. There was a door separating us from the hallway, which became considerably more important once we saw what was happening out there.
But we didn’t pay nearly $2,500, then get smacked with another roughly $700 in resort fees, because we were searching for a building that successfully contained mattresses.
We paid for luxury accommodations at Caesar’s Palace.
What we got was an underwhelming room reached through a filthy hallway decorated with abandoned food and vomit, followed by the breathtaking discovery that our expensive Las Vegas view consisted largely of the casino roof.
And what a roof it was.
Possibly the roofiest roof in Nevada.
For that kind of money, “at least there were beds” isn’t a compliment. It’s the minimum requirement necessary to continue legally describing the place as a hotel.
💩💩💩💩 4/4 Poops: Full of Crap.
Caesar promised us a palace.
We got a bed, a dirty hallway, and an excellent opportunity to study commercial roofing.
