Hi, Lee, how was your trip? Hope you had a good time.
I saw your post over on the free side as well. I hardly ever look at the free side, seems like people mostly like to argue for the sake of arguing.
We've always liked the Plaza; we're not staying there on our next trip (7/25-8/1), but only because I got a really good deal at the Four Queens (and the Plaza has pretty limited VP now, although there's still some fun stuff over at the LV Club). We normally get comped, and nobody has said yet whether the resort fee is waived on comp rooms (I think it usually is, although I've heard that Stations tries not to).
It's not a lot of money, but for me resort fees are a major annoyance just on principle. One way to look at it is to just factor it into the posted rate and see if it's still a good deal. But the other way to look at it is as a new and annoying trend in marketing, a shameless way to give the appearance of a cheaper room (and probably hoping that a few suckers won't notice). The same thing is happening with Spirit Air, their fares are dirt-cheap, but they charge you for bags (thank you, Southwest, for being the only major holdout in the industry), also for carry-ons, I think also for drinks. Yeah, you can work with that and get a cheap fare, but it annoys me to know that I'm doing business with a company that acts like that. Kind of like flying with Mr. Haney from Green Acres.
One time, we were going to one of the Out Islands in the Bahamas and we needed to stay overnight in Nassau to make the connection. Much less government regulation down there. I found a room at Cable Beach for $59/night but was smart enough to look further. They had the usual tax, also an energy surcharge. No resort fee, but they had a pool fee, with a pool service fee. Also a valet fee and a valet service fee. Also a laundry surcharge and a laundry service fee. All of these were mandatory. Final cost with all mandatory charges: $370. True story. Just a major annoyance to deal with that sort of thing. It's business, not personal, but it bothers me to do business with people whose goal is to scam you.
So I guess my bottom line is that I'd like to avoid such businesses on principle, although on rare occasions the deal will be too good to pass up, even with all the fees. Although last time I flew Spirit because the deal was too good to pass up, I regretted it; everyone on the plane was pissed for various reasons.
