Hotel Hell

Last weekend, my wife and I were subjected treated to what is undoubtedly — without any question — the worst hotel stay of our lives. So-called Affinity Gaming wanted to show off its $8 million retrofit of Primm Valley Resort & Casino. Most of the money has, understandably, gone into the casino floor (we’d seen some new PTZ domes being hung over the table pit earlier this summer), with whatever largesse was left sprinkled around the remainder of the property. Hotel-corridor carpeting and wallpaper are new, for instance, although you could have fooled me. Some ancient-looking video poker machines were parked in the long, mostly empty passageway between the casino and the adjacent outlet mall, so an extension of the casino floor may be in the works.

“Damn, it’s hot in here,” observed Mrs. McKee, when we got to our room. Primm Valley Resort‘s hotel is arranged in a hollow square and the air conditioning peters out as you get to the far side of the stockade. Attempts to coax cool air out of the AC unit were unavailing, despite running it full blast for 12+ hours. When I tried adjusting the thermostat, the air conditioner began belching smoke, forcing me to shut if off altogether and settle for opening the windows. (The night, fortunately, was mild.)

On the plus side, our room had a small assortment of new, comfortable furniture, handsomely redone wallpaper and a mattress that was firm but very conducive to sleeping. However, it was in many respects The Room That Renovation Forgot. There was a niche for a mini-fridge, but none had been installed. The shower had no curtain — and I have the photographic evidence to prove this, and more. A newly installed frame around the bathroom mirror had already come loose. The brand, spanking, new LCD TV set (screwed into the wall off-plumb) was “controlled” via a cheap, generic remote that failed to interface with the network-TV option on the menu. At least in-room checkout worked like a charm.

Guest service is a novel concept out at Primm. Requests to have the AC fixed, for two additional pillows and for a shower curtain were to no avail. We have nothing but praise for the cuisine at GP’s Steakhouse, including some splendid and generous servings of escargot. But you’d better budget at least two hours for dinner, even on a slow night. No wonder the hostess seemed to need a Valium … or three. Our initial server was unaccountably replaced with another, rather forgetful one. By the time we left, the hostess had disappeared, too, no doubt wheeled out on a stretcher.

The glacial pace of the waitstaff at GP’s meant we missed a Howie Mandel performance. This was more upsetting to the missus than to myself, as I have irrational issues about germophobic, standup comedians who resemble Satan. (Seriously, would you purchase a used soul from that guy?) And there was worse still to come … An ill-advised 10 minutes in the al fresco hot tub left us dehydrated and coated in a dusty film that floated on the surface of the overheated water. Oh, and somebody had left a drenched tube sock on the pool deck. Niiiiiice.

The coup de grace was dealt at approximately 3:40 a.m., when the fire alarm was sounded, rousting many hotel guests from their beds and causing my wife to fall in a dead faint. (No joke, this was an extremely frightening moment.) Probably somebody had been trying to adjust their thermostat and experienced the same smoky result that I did.

Other observations included that there is now a dinky little business center (two workstations in a corridor) that you have to pay to use. Also Affinity is continuing predecessor Herbst Gaming‘s miserly practice of rationing ice, in an obvious effort to confine guests to one bucketful per day. “That’ll show those whippersnapper customers who bring booze and bottled water up to their rooms!” Of course, since magnetic-stripe locks aren’t interfaced, the obvious workaround is simply to go from machine to machine, until you have as much ice as you need.

Amazingly, Affinity — which seems to have precious little affinity for anything – – is trying to reposition Primm Valley Resort as its “boutique” hotel. I’m told that neighboring Whiskey Pete’s is to be a “trucker property,” complete with a $5 million, new gas station. Buffalo Bill’s has already received a makeover on its casino floor and in its rooms, thanks to the proceeds of the big clearance sale at  Uncle Carl’s Carpet Barn (aka Fontainebleau, some of whose appointments also found their way into Primm Valley). It will be targeted to the family crowd, which hopefully means that fewer thrill rides will be out of service.

In other words, it wasn’t a Terrible’s experience … just a terrible one. If that’s how media is treated, I shudder to think what Affinity has in store for paying customers.

Where there’s smoke … there’s a great new show at Green Valley Ranch (with a hard-working smoke machine). But catch it quickly because only two performances of Smokey Joe’s Café remain. For $10, you get terrific staging, superb singing by nine local vocalists and more Leiber & Stoller hits than you can shake a phonograph needle at. Heck, for the four remarkable — and distinctly different — vocal talents of Sandra Huntsman, Skye Miles, Francesca Camus and Stephanie Sanchez alone, ten bucks is a steal. Station Casinos should find a way to hold this over, somewhere in its network of properties, for another month or two … at least.