Downtown hotel advise

If anyone has stayed at any of the following properties recently, can you offer any advise as too the pros and cons of each? I would be booking a standard room with King-size bed. I'm not expecting anything swanky, but if you have had recent experience that would help me base a decision, please let me know.

4 Queens
Main St. Station
Freemont
Fitzgeralds
El Cortez

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El Cortez - The new Cabana Suites are really nice. The tower rooms are also decent, and if you're not looking for swanky then they'll work, too. I would strongly lean towards the deluxe rooms in the Cabana Suites building (they're not suites, and they're not expensive).

MSS - The last time we stayed there was a few years ago. The rooms had just been remodeled, and are nice. The shower heads are too low, but that's the only really bad issue with the room.

Fitzgeralds - A basic "Holiday Inn" motel room. The beds are pretty crummy (unless they've actually changed the mattresses as they once said they were planning to do to all the rooms). It's cheap, it's fairly clean, and it's a place to sleep, but not much more. That said, I love the casino at Fitzgeralds.

4 Queens is clean and fairly centrally located. When I stayed there in 2009, it was nice and quiet. (stay in the North tower it faces away from the FSE.)

Pro's - lower room rates than strip properties, easy walking distance to other downtown casinos, good food values and within walking distance of lots of other cheap eateries. Lower table limits ($5.00), and cheaper beer than the strip. Also less crowded than the strip.

Food at the other other locations is generally good. Main Street has one of the best buffets downtown. (very affordable) Although I'm not too sure about the food at the Fitz, as I didn't eat there. Hit Tony Roma (I stand corrected)'s inside the Freemont for some good BBQ. Bring a small flashlight as the indoor lighting really sucks at Tony Roma's.

Only,

We have gambled at all the places you mentioned, but have only stayed at Fitzgeralds, so let me start with that one. The rooms are certainly nothing swanky but we've stayed there the last three years in September and they are perfectly adequate for "regular folks". We've never had a problem with noise from Fremont St, but then again we ask for a higher room in order to enjoy the view. The slots are okay but there are better selections elsewhere downtown. We don't play table games so I can't speak to that. Any problems they used to have with the elevators have been fixed and the employees are friendly enough. The Courtyard Grill is average but we've never eaten at Don B's.

As for the other places - my favorite place to gamble would be a tie between Fremont and Main St Station. Four Queens is right up there too, and I thought the couple meals we had at Magnolia's were great. I know some people love the ElCo, but I was kind of indifferent about it.

Of course all these options are so close together that you can easily walk between them if you decide you like the rooms at one place and the gaming at another. Hopefully others will chime in about the other accomodations so you can make an informed decision. Have a great trip!

I did forget one thing. Flame, the 'swanky' resturant inside ElCortez, has one of the largest baked potatoes I have ever seen. The damn thing must have weighed in at 16oz at least. Also their sauted mushrooms were quite generous (more than would fill one large 16 oz can)

Tony Romo apologizes for the lack of lighting.


(I think you meant Tony Roma's)


I agree about the baked potato at The Flame steakhouse in the El Cortez. Unfortunately, that was about the most memorable part to our dinner there. We felt that we got coffee shop food and service at steakhouse prices.

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This is an objective, no-nonsense review site for Vegas properties, sorted by Strip, Downtown, and other. It's also written in an amusing way.

if you are a nonsmoker, your two best choices room-wise are mss and the el cortez (tower or cabana suites).

if you are a smoker, the el cortez only has smoking rooms in the pavillion tower and those rooms are not nice.

We ate at Tony Roma's on Dec. 22nd and it was still good as usual. We try to eat there when we are down town. Gambling there (in the Casio not the restaurant) and at Binion's on slots paid off quite well.