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The Rapid Traveler cares little about hotels, typically for his travel style he judges a good trip by how little time he spends in hotels, and when there, has simple requirements. But this week in Las Vegas was different in that he was working remotely and tied to the room for much of the day while Mrs. Rapid Traveler tended to her business meetings. Her company is paying every cent of the room at Aria, so it is perhaps ungrateful to poke fun, but a little jest is in order for the New Year.
Aria is the latest and greatest, a massive development including CityCenter, a Mandarin Oriental, Vdara, and the Crystals luxury shopping mall, plus a tram, if you can find it, connecting the complex to Bellagio and Monte Carlo.
Aria’s shtick is modern rooms, presenting a vision of the future for travelers, where:
- Travelers will have evolved telepathic control of the lights and entertainment, obsoleting the wonky tablet control that turns lights some lights on, some off, in the same click, seemingly at random.
- Smart phones will brew coffee and tea, and travelers will have their own supplies in mini sachets, so those few who come without modern phones must pay $25 to rent a kettle.
- The sun can be repositioned in windows so the one-way mechanical curtains block the sun at all times (as in when the sun is on the left the only option is to close the curtains all the way rather than just move them to the left).
- Electronic gadgets will charge through microwaves in the air, so the only two electric sockets in the bedroom area will be obsolete, as well as the other two near the floor by the door or the final option, two over the sink.
- Towels will either instantly dry or suspend in air, so towel racks will be superfluous.
One-way curtains and a loaner kettle from a colleague who took pity
Seriously though, Aria is a very nice hotel, but it is often puzzling the choices designers make when they try to wow with a future look.
And a final note, showing how naive The Rapid Traveler is of Las Vegas: the first night he went down the gym at 9 pm to find it closes daily at 8. The closed sign might as well have said, “Get gambling, you knucklehead!”
Happy New Year!
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Aria recently rolled internet into their $20+tax/day resort fee, which also includes a daily newspaper, that requires guests to find and trek to the Elements store, at which the salespeople say “USA Today only!” And of course that $20 doesn’t even buy a coffee maker/water heater.
The only real “luxury” property I have stayed at was the Encore, a couple months after opening. It was $109 per night, and it is rated as the best hotel on the strip time and time again, and I certainly see why. It was originally intended to open at $300-$400 per night, but the economy killed that plan. I have relatives who have been to the Bellagio and Aria, and their ordering is Encore > Aria > Bellagio (although Bellagio rooms are getting a remodel, but the reviews on those are mixed). My biggest annoyance with higher end hotels is… Read more »
The shape was ok, this was a City View room. The shower is a bit weird, shower and tub in the same room, need to cross the shower floor to get to the tub. Gimmicky place, indifferent service.
friends stayed in a small suite there with their kids when we were there in Oct. I stayed at Wynn, thank goodness. My favorite property there.
The hotel is an odd shaped (for visual appearance, no doubt) and many of the rooms get that odd shape inside them also. I didn’t see the bedroom, but the living room part of the suite was very small and very oddly shaped, like the shape of the building. Did your room get that odd shape also?
It’s highly rated for some reason, but I think it’s just weird.
-David