Wynning in Las Vegas

When Steve Wynn began construction on the Wynn Las Vegas Resort, my wife and I agreed that we would stay there once it was finished. So, when we scheduled our trip to attend the Casino Chip & Gaming Token Collectors Club convention this year, we booked two of the four nights there. The convention was held at the Riviera again this year, which is only a 15 minute walk from the Wynn. And, the Wynn is directly across the street from Fashion Show Mall, where my wife likes to spend a good part of her convention time.

Unless you've been living under a rock since it opened, you've no doubt read descriptions of how beautiful the furnishings of the Wynn are, so I won't go down that road. Suffice to say that it's equally as beautiful as any of the other high-end casino resorts that have opened in Las Vegas during the last few years.

What I wasn't expecting was the level of comfort and elegance that went into each individual guest room. The first thing we noticed upon entering our room was the large, floor-to-ceiling windows, which in our case faced the strip, but more spectacularly the mountains that lay to the west of the city. From our vantage point on the 51st floor, we had a fantastic view of the grounds of the Wynn, which include a man-made mountain covered with live trees. We spent much of our time in the room with chairs pulled up to the window, just enjoying the view.

Another source of entertainment was the large, flat-panel television, which was mounted on a bracket so that it could be flat against the side wall of the room or swung out for viewing from the bed. Another, smaller flat panel was built into the wall in the richly marbled bathroom. The larger TV in the room also featured several HDTV channels. It was the first time either of us had watched HDTV for any length of time and it definitely lived up to its reputation.

There was another electronic device in the room that I had never seen before. It was a rectangular tray holding several containers of different types of snacks. It looked like the typical pay-for-what-you-eat snack selection found in most hotel rooms, but with one difference: If you remove one of the snack containers from the tray for more than 60 seconds, you are automatically billed for that item. NOT the sort of convenience you want to have if you have curious youngsters traveling with you.

When checking in at the Wynn, guests are assigned a permanent guest number that also doubles as a player number for the Red Club, which is the casino rewards club. Each guest's room key doubles as a player's card, which can be inserted into slot machines to track their play. I was hesitant to put my room key into a machine for fear I would forget and leave it there. I wasn't so much worried about somebody getting into my room, since each card only bears the users first name and first initial of their last name, I just didn't want to have to go through the hassle of getting another room key. I finally stopped by the Red Club desk and mentioned this to them. Their solution to this is to make the guest an additional card, this one only designed for slot play and not able to open the door to the guest room. The only visible difference was the word "Resort" printed on the room key in small letters.

While on the subject of room keys and slot cards, I should mention something I still haven't figured out. Each time we went from the casino area to the guest elevators, we had to pass by security. And, each time we had to flash our room key at them to verify we weren't a husband and wife cat burglar team. I began to wonder how much security this really posed when anyone can walk in off the street, join the Red Club and receive a slot card that looks exactly like a room key, except for the tiny word "Resort" printed in one corner.

Although we're not avid table game players, we were encouraged to keep to the slots at The Wynn by the table minimums. The lowest minimum I saw during my stay was $15, which cut a little too deeply into the money I had budgeted for purchases of new chips at the convention.

We were a little disappointed we never saw the Spam-themed slot machine during our stay at the Wynn, nor at the Palms or Riviera. We had played one such machine at the Palms last year and were looking forward to playing them again. I guess slot machines are like most other things in Las Vegas; once you get used to something it quickly becomes obsolete and has to be removed to make way for something new and different. The Wynn certainly qualifies as something new and different, but for how long? From our room on the 51st floor we had a birds-eye view of the excavation activity just across the street to the south, where construction of The Palazzo Casino Resort was underway between the Venetian and the Wynn. As Steve Wynn has learned from previous ventures, you can only be the newest game in town for a short time.