“Fifty shades of beige.” That’s the Boston Globe‘s verdict on the hotel rooms at Encore Boston Harbor. “There was nothing unpleasant about it, but that meant nearly every design choice was incredibly safe. Before the hotel opened, 
Encore Boston Harbor president Robert DeSalvio trumpeted that every detail—from carpets and drapes to beds and furniture—was created uniquely for the hotel. Yet the room didn’t feel particularly unique. Well, perhaps it’s unique for Everett,” writes architecture critic Christopher Muther. He rates this not entirely a bad thing, given the riot of colors on the main floor. If you’re suffering visual fatigue, the hotel rooms are just the place where you’d go to recharge your batteries.
He does fault the choice of Roy Lichtenstein paintings to brighten up hotel rooms, suggesting that somebody belatedly meant to add a dab of color and overdid it. But leaving the design failure aside, Muther enumerates several praiseworthy aspects of the rooms. For starters, there is their generous size—the largest in New England, starting at 650 square feet. Also, TVs are generously proportioned, with 55-inch screens in the main room and a 24-inch one over the bathtub, in case you’d like a little visual counterpoint while you soak. Thread counts on the linens are described as “ridiculously high” and the rooms are very quiet (unlike their counterparts at Wynncore).
Somebody forgot to integrate a reservation-making feature into the Encore intranet, represented by an iPad that controls just about everything in your room but wi-fi speeds are described as “brisk” and, in terms of the technology 
being state of the art—complete with Alexa—Encore gets topmost marks. Charging stations and USB ports are at several points within the room. The Wynn Resorts design staff obviously worked overtime to get this place right the first time.
If you want a view of the titular harbor it will cost you extra, presuming you stay in casino hotel for the spectacle from the windows. Muther recommends saving dough by staying at Everett’s nearby Envision hotel: “Envision has solid reviews and a playful, industrial vibe.” Besides, you can plow your savings into casino play at Encore.
Closer to home, Wynn is thinking outside the box in terms of dealing with pesky pigeons that swoop in for guests’ food and (we suspect) crap pretty much everywhere. In a word: raptors. Far from keeping this top-hush, the company has proudly tweeted about the presence of its new employees (of 
diverse species, if you’re a diversity fan), who cut a handsome figure. Wynn truthfully touts the “environmentally friendly and humane approach” represented by these natural foes of pigeons. It is hoped that the mere presence of the hunting birds will be enough to scare away the pigeons. (But if the raptors deter their natural prey, upon what will they feed?). Evidently the raptors have their own luxury digs at Wynncore, as the company says it only lets them out during peak hours for outdoor dining, when the falcons and hawks will presumably do a little al fresco dining of their own.
* Light up in your hotel room at Boulder Station and it will cost you $250. That’s the new policy now that Station Casinos intends to make scofflaws pay the cleaning. Bravo to Station, we say.
* MGM Resorts International CEO Jim Murren isn’t the only person putting his money on Joe Biden. PredictIt, political-prediction betting 
market out of New Zealand is taking wagers on the Democratic Party primaries and gives leading odds to Biden and to Sen. Elizabeth Warren. The latter’s volume of bets surged dramatically in the hours leading up to the first Democratic debate, while Biden’s price slipped a bit after the former vice president was biffed around in the second. Nobody else finished in the money. Also, punters are warned to look to history before wagering. “I do recall that President Trump was a very long shot to win the last election,” cautioned oddsmaker Sacha Park. “and quite a few people lost substantial amounts of money betting on Hillary Clinton.”
