(25) Rio vs (8) Skylofts at MGM Grand
I stayed at the Rio for next to nothing, once again using the Priceline Trick though maybe I was fooled myself as the price and star rating may have been right but the location ‘Las Vegas Strip’ was not. The Rio is located across the bridge in its own corner of Las Vegas. This makes it especially inconvenient since my friends and the rest of the tourists are not right outside my door.
The hotel’s carnaval theme is supposed to conjure up feelings of being in Rio De Janeiro but that’s quite a stretch. While I have heard great things about the Penn & Teller show and maybe some of you would be interested in the Chippendales Male Revue, I never had the pleasure of attending either.
Instead, I split my time between my suite (nothing more than a big room with a gigantic CRT TV, a nostalgic throwback to life before high definition) and the best bar in all of Las Vegas, the Burger King Whopper Bar.
For two nights I was treated like royalty and would order my usual double whopper, no tomatoes, extra ketchup and a Diet Coke. Then I’d make my way through the empty casino all the way to my room in the exact opposite location of the BK. The Rio must know that their Whopper Bar is the star attraction of their hotel and purposefully place it on the other side of the casino forcing those with empty bellies and no restraint to play a few hands before entering the kingdom of the flame grill.
Since Vegas has some of the best restaurants in all of the world, I’m sure I will take heat (pun intended) for my choice to dine with King. However, sometimes you want to eat what you know and love without being charged a fortune for it.
Although Whoppers and onion rings are easy on the budget, they don’t go hand in hand with my favorite Vegas pastime- the pool parties. So unless you’re going to Vegas in the middle of winter or don’t have a Whopper Bar in your neck of the woods, I wouldn’t roll the dice on a 3-Star Priceline hotel lest you want to end up binging on BK out of boredom.
With that I have to say, “Adeus Rio!, see you in Brazil.”
