A Truly Retro Time at the Sahara

Sitting through a time-share presentation can be nearly fatal for a yes-girl like me. Especially when you have to say NO, not just at the end, but all the way through, so many, many times. But it can also lead you to a free three-day, two-night, Second-Honeymoon-type, 10th Anniversary, Free trip to Las Vegas, which is what happened to me and Seth.

They paid for our airfare and hotel, plus gave us a whole fistful of coupons, mostly worth a lot less than promised, but some worth using. First can I just say, our flight was on Southwest, and I am now working my way up to Pretty Loyal to Southwest Airlines. They didn't charge us extra fees. They have no-nonsense check-in online or at the airport. They gave us drinks and snacks. It was the snack that won them my loyalty: we had to get up for our flight so early that I didn't really have time for breakfast. By the time we had done all that waiting for the security-check line in Denver (the security-check line in Denver does NOT win my loyalty. They win my frowning thumbs-down.), I was not only difficult-ly pregnant and hungry, but also very thirsty and tired. So the stewardesses bring me a fabulous ginger ale and some sort of soft and chewy appley-fruity bar and it was SO DELIGHTFUL. I proclaimed my loyalty right then, since I want to practice making mostly positive comments to Seth instead of Debbie-Downer comments.

So the flight was great. We used one of our fistful of coupons for a rental car, and I am SO GLAD we did, even though it cost us like a whole week's grocery-bucks-worth. But even that's not the main point of this post. This is: The Sahara Hotel.

Bless its heart. This hotel used to be pretty grand. It's pretty old, built in the early 50's. We found out at the end of our stay that the casino is spruced up WAYYYY better than the rooms are. So that's something. There are pictures in the lobby of the luminaries that used to haunt the Sahara halls, like the alleged Rat Pack, and so on. The room was ok, if you didn't look too hard. I did look too hard, though. First, on our way in from the parking garage (good thing about Vegas, if you're going, is there's plenty of parking and it's all free--if you can get to it and find the right entrances. I knew this going in, which made it easier to say yes to renting a car), we encountered what I like to call "The Ancient Elevator." Two elevators, actually, side by side from the top levels of the parking garage to the ground level. Original Otis elevators. The funny thing is, you push the button and here comes the elevator, and then the door begins to open and you think,"oh, yes, I'll just step in," but then the door is still opening and opening, slowly, slowly, until it only has maybe a foot left to go to be all the way open, and it slows down and comes to a stop. You're standing there wondering the whole time, is it going to make it? Is the door going to be able to open? Will we be trapped in the elevator on the other end? But it's open enough, so you get in. And slowly, slowly, the door closes and you are elevated or de-elevated, also quite slowly. And they're not taking any extra care to make sure the elevator's clean and inviting either...

And because the Ancient Elevator is in the parking garage, I may as well add this: there are huge concrete beams all across the ceilings of the parking garage levels and they are all COVERED with shoe-prints. COVERED. I didn't see or hear any shoe-gang activity while we were there for three days, but someone has to have been SO busy, smacking shoes up on the beams, to get them ALL so covered with shoe-prints. I should have gotten a picture.

So but up to our room, though. The inside elevators aren't real winners either, but they're better than the outside ones. Just to get from the elevator to our room in "Tunis Tower" we passed two room-service trays and one glass sitting on the floor in the hall, and they were there the whole time we were. One day there was a bug scuttling away from one of them, but I think it was a cricket and not something so much fouler. Inside our room, there was a track of pretty thick dust around the edges of the room, you know, where the vacuum doesn't reach all the way to the wall. But they weren't sucking it up with anything else, either. And then the bathroom was the scariest part. The floor: fine. The shower: fine. Toilet: fine. Sink area: fine. Wall, Ceiling, and Light Fixture: SCARY. You think, there have been how many decades-worth of people coming in here, in Las Vegas, and doing who-knows-what, but couldn't they at least wipe the brownish spatters off the light, wall, and ceiling??? I'm sure it was just that the morning coffee was so hot, someone was startled and whoops! Coffee spattered everywhere! Or else, probably a root beer that got "all shook up" on its way in from the car and whoops! Root beer spray!! That's what I'd like to think happened in there...

There were some good things about our room in The Sahara. First, we had a breath-taking view of the parking garage, RIGHT outside our window. So, pretty fabulous. But seriously, one thing I thought was awesome was the curtains. I woke up after the first night not having ANY IDEA what time it was, because the curtains were so effective at blocking light. That's super-nice in Las Vegas especially where you could come back to the hotel in any state and not want to know when morning comes; so the curtains were really good. Ask Seth. I kept remarking to him how great the curtains were and how effective the curtains were. Then the other good thing I was remarking to Seth about was "they don't build them like this anymore." I couldn't hear ANY noises from other guests, during our whole time there. It was seriously so quiet. Maybe that's because they were all out at Casinos partying when were were wet-blanketing it in our room, actually going to sleep at bedtime, but I also couldn't hear them in the morning or in the afternoon, or ever. It was nice and silent. So, good curtains, silent hotel.

My recommendation would be two-fold. First to anyone going to Las Vegas who has enough money to avoid the Sahara Hotel, Avoid the Sahara Hotel. Again, bless its heart. It means so well. And the second piece of advice is for the Hotel itself: use some of that casino money and remodel, but in remodeling, totally PLAY UP your history and your 50's chic architecture. Everyone on the Strip has a theme and you could really make yourself something, like the Art Deco Hotels in Miami or whatever, if you could just play to your strengths instead of remaining a dingy relic.