Harrah's Resort Southern California aka Rincon 4/3

New happenings at Rincon April 18th. Earl of Sandwich to open next to Pink's. New bar/lounge Spike to open where the coffee place & 7 Star/Diamond check in had been located. Last night and early this morning there was a lot of last minute cleanup going on in these areas as today they had a showing for the media and other Harrah's properties reps.

The Spa tower is now the"South Tower" access to the recently opened North Tower elevators is through a walkway next to Starbucks.

The new additions give the "resort" a new and refreshed energy.
Tonight (4/4) Joan Rivers is performing in the new Events Center.

We briefly saw a standard 2 queen n/s room in the new tower. The furnishings reminded me of the room we had at Ballys in the Jubilee tower. The standard rooms do not have a bathtub, just a large shower area. The soaps & shampoo etc were the standard Harrahs from Gilchrist & Soames.

We chose to move from the North Tower to the Garden tower room as next door was a group of nice, but very active kids.

These North tower rooms have a small frig and the. electrical plugs and computer connections are build into the desk. I didn't check for coffee makers. I noticed a coffee maker was absent from our Garden tower room.

Sionow-not sure when you were last at Rincon, but they've moved the Dream Card VP machines into the High Limit area now. Last time I was here, those machines were just outside the High limit area.

I had a great 30 minutes when we started to play, 2 sets of 4 dueces in a 5 minute span for $500 (playing quarters) and enough 20 coin pays to keep me playing for 4 hours without tapping into that $500. I'll pick up my sunglasses Saturday and head home.

Photography even with a cell phone is not my thing, but if I get some decent pics I'll try to post.

I'll check out the Diamond Lounge tonight, not going to see Joan Rivers.

Edit: Name of new bar/lounge is "Spiked" not Spike, this is open now. "The Earl of Sandwich" and "Pink's" are opening April 18th, just had the construction covers off for photo ops for media and show and tell for Harrahs employees from other Harrahs properties yesterday.

No improvement to Diamond Lounge.

The Sunglasses gift for Diamond & 7 Star renewal were given out in "The Events Center" It was scheduled to begin at 1pm, but they let us in at 12:15pm. There was a choice of 5 men's or 5 women's styles duplicated at each of 6 stations, so no waiting time to try on and select the style you wanted.

Note to those who would rather have freeplay instead of these gifts, ASK. The mailer I received did not mention this option, but the couple in front of me asked and it was no problem, they didn't need any more "gifts" they said.

For Sionow: If you enter the high limit(HL) area from Diamond Lounge/cashier entrance the Dream Card machines are straight ahead of you at side of HL area closest to new video poker area.

There sure was an emphasis on service to the guests this weekend and lots of staff due to media weekend. Anytime you even made slight eye contact with staff, they said "hello," "may I help you with anything?," "how's your stay?"
Unfortunately the memo must not have been sent to the staff today at "Rita's" We were seated, we were given chips and salsa by the busboy/chip distributor, and then we were ignored for 10 minutes as servers walked by our table. I finally was able to stop a server and ask if anyone was assigned as the server for our table. Only then did a server show up and with no apologies acted as if we'd just sat down and asked is we needed more time with the menu? Later the manager came by and asked if we had a server and was our order taken? He knew they'd messed up somewhere when he asked me, again no apology. I let him know it had taken 10 minutes for anyone to show up as our server, but our order had finally been taken. Later when we were leaving I spoke with the manager again and told him what bothered me most was being ignored by all his staff especially since all other employees I had seen at the casino, buffet, cafe, and hotel were all working to let me know that I was welcomed and valued as a guest.

This was in high contrast to the service and staff that worked Friday night at "Rita's. They were friendly, happy, and just great.

Interesting! Thanks for that!

In Los Angeles, I've been seeing the new commercials from them with their name change.

RecVPPlayer

Thanks for the info about freeplay vs a gift, I will have to try that next time the chance comes up!

We were there last Sunday and scored a comped suite in the new tower. It was very nice and big. We had a nice view toward the north from the bedroom, it also had a large balcony.

The bathtub is in front of the window and it and one of the bedroom windows have automatic curtains. I think the bathroom in the old spa tower suites are nicer, with bigger tubs and showers.

The room also has automatic sensors for the lights, which isn't so bad, but one in the corner of the room would flash anytime we moved in the dark, even to roll over in bed.

We looked all over for a room service menu and never found it so I ended up just calling in because I pretty much know what's on the menu. I found out the menu is on the TV, yet there's nothing in the room to tell you this.

I like the location of the new tower, it's easy to get in and out of the casino, but I still prefer the view of the pool from the garden tower, I like to people watch.

I thought the new bar, Spiked, would be a little bit bigger (set deeper back) for some reason. We didn't try it out.

I'm looking forward to the Earl of Sandwich. I sometimes want a quick bite to eat and I don't care for hot dogs or mexican food.

I'm going to talk more about this in my next chapter (long overdue) but I was there for the Joan Rivers concert, so it sounds like we missed an opportunity to have a chat.

I stayed in the North Tower (the new one). The room was fine but some glitches such as the shower knob was loose and the drain in the shower was very slow...I brought this up to the registration upon checkout.

Agreed...the Garden rooms are still better. TVs are larger, rooms are larger, and ease to the casino better.

I'll be curious to see just how well Earl of Sandwich and Pinks do. They're in the back corner and if memory serves...Pinks was never all that busy before. Now with Ritas, Earl, and the other food choices, I don't believe Rincon (Southern California Resort...I stick with Rincon) pulls in enough guests to keep all these places going, considering there is no walk in traffic that the Vegas Strip properties have.

I saw the Joan Rivers show...she's not everyone's cup of tea considering her extreme language and acid observasions of celebrities. However, knowing she's completely innocuous and it's all entertainment, I loved the show. Considering she's 80 years old and is all over that stage and even on top of the piano, just amazing. Her opening act, The Alley Cats were simply terrific.

Overall, I'm very happy with all the new improvements. It really is more of a resort now than just another Indian casino.

Yes, I knew about the move of the Dream Card machines to the high limit area. I'm simply glad they're still there AND they still have the good pay schedules.

Thanks!

I was surprised they kept Pinks as well.

I agree, I think it's become more of a resort destination and not just some casino.

We drove out on Sunday to take advanatge of some freeplay and played VP at the new Spiked bar. I like it, the way they have the speakers directed you can hear the music and it drowns out a lot of the noise from the casino. I also liked the lounge area, a nice place to kick back and have a drink.

I don't know if that huge bar/lounge in the non-smoking area is going to make it. Although I like sitting back there to play and get away from the smoke, it's really cold and there is never anyone hanging out at that bar. I haven't been back there in the evening, so maybe it's more croweded then?

I finally made 7*'s. I asked about getting the companion card and they told me it would take a few days to upload everything. Well a week later and my status in the system still hadn't been changed, although they gave me the card right away. I checked in a total rewards this past weekend and whoever was supposed to submit my account for review hadn't done it, so it can take up to 2 weeks to get everything uploaded and in the computer correctly.

Sionow, I really appreciate all your 7* info, I would've never known about the free movies, etc...

Just went to make an online reservation and it looks like they are now calling the Garden Tower the Dive In tower. The regular rooms(not the suites) in the Spa Tower had no tower designation while the Spa Tower suites are labeled as South Tower.

The new North Tower had both regular rooms and suites labeled North Tower.

LOL, well they certainly are into renaming everything!

We really like the garden, ummm I mean Dive In tower, but I was told starting in May, I think, they're going to have an outdoor party every Friday night. That will be a bummer for someone like me who's a light sleeper with that music going on until late in the night. I will probably start staying in the new tower. I wonder if they will start remodeling the spa tower soon, those rooms really need it.

We are headed up there this Saturday. I guess it's the grand opening weekend and I think the Earl of Sandwich and Pinks wil be open.

Earl and Pinks are now open. I was suprised they weren't more crowded, a lot of workers at Earl just kind of standing around.

I used my weekly $100 food comp because we were just grabbing a bite before we left. I ended up taking a bunch of stuff to go (soups, salad, mac chesse, chips, drinks, baked goods), lol. I ended up spending $67 and the girl kept asking if I was sure I didn't want anything else.