Venetian Las Vegas

I returned from my hotly anticipated trip to Las Vegas with my husband a few days ago.  I was dying to write a review about the Venetian, but decided to hold off for a few days while I cooled down because I was very upset with many aspects of my stay.  I am going to try to calmly explain my issues and hopefully someone else’s trip to Las Vegas won’t be ruined like mine was.

First, let me start off by giving a little information on why I chose the Venetian.  We were meeting up with a few friends and they had stayed at the Venetian about 3 years ago and raved about how wonderful everything was.  Their review plus all the awards this luxury hotel has sold us.  So we booked eight nights at about $200 a night plus taxes and the resort fee.

We live on the east coast and of course the day we were set to fly out, we were expecting a major hurricane to disrupt air travel all along the east coast.  I scrambled to change my flight and then was able to contact the Venetian to add an extra night on to our reservation.  The woman I spoke with was polite enough, so no issues there.  When it was time for our flight, we ended up being delayed for quite some time and instead of arriving in Las Vegas about 10:30 at night, we didn’t land until almost 2:00 in the morning.  My husband and I hopped into a taxi and were quickly whisked away to the Venetian.  Check in went smoothly enough, we were given a non-smoking room as requested and basically fell asleep the moment our heads hit the pillow.  We were a little annoyed that you have to walk through the smoky casino to get to the elevators, it made me think that I really wouldn’t want to bring my kids there.

The next morning, we were awoken by LOUD music out by the pool.  We shrugged it off and let it go; we normally wouldn’t have slept in late anyway.  What was annoying was the strong cigarette odor in our room.  Everything in the room smelled like cigarette smoke and we realized it was coming from the air vent.  We called the front desk; they said they would send security to search for the smoker since our entire floor was supposed to be non-smoking.  This was a continuing trend for the rest of the week.  We called at least once a day to let them know that we were again having cigarette smoke smell come through the vent.  It wasn’t until the last day that we were offered a room change.  By that point, we were checking out the next day and didn’t feel like lugging our 9 days worth of luggage downstairs to get our room changed so we just shut the air system off.

The strong cigarette odor in our room plus having to walk through the smoky casino to get everywhere was enough to ruin our stay, but unfortunately those weren’t the only issues we faced.  The lack of empathy we were met with upon each complaint about the smoke in our non-smoking room was a huge issue for us.  We were never offered anything, just for housekeeping to come and ionize our room which hadn’t helped in the past and wouldn’t solve the problem because the smoke was coming through the air vents.  

To continue on the trend of smoking issues, the non smoking areas weren’t enforced.  Many times we were in areas that were supposed to be non smoking and people were smoking both cigarettes and cigars.  I had complained about this also, but was told that there are signs posted and they do enforce the non-smoking areas.  I hadn’t witnessed anyone being told they shouldn’t be smoking regardless of where they were.

On numerous occasions we had to contact the front desk because our room wasn’t cleaned, which meant we didn’t get fresh towels.  Each time we were made to feel like it was our fault for either being in our room too late or come back too early.  Generally we were gone from 8 am – 3 or 4 pm which has always been plenty of time for the room to be cleaned at other hotels.  I guess not here.

During our stay, there was a conference, but the conference attendees never caused any issues for us.  My issue was with one night there was a party for all attendees which was near the Sands Expo area of the Venetian.  After the party was finished at the Sands Expo area, they were continuing the party at the pool. I’m not sure if the pool was closed to other guests or not, but my main concern was that there were only two of the eight elevators that were taking guests to their rooms, the other six were strictly for conference attendees who wished to go down to the pool.  There were a few security guards milling about while I waited over 40 minutes (with about 20 or 30 other guests) for an elevator.  Finally I asked if there were any other options and I was rudely told that the other elevators were for conference attendees only.  I guess the rest of us paying guests didn’t matter to them.  When I finally made it to my room, I called the front desk to complain.  I was told by the woman who answered that she had no idea there was a group of elevators blocked off for the party.  She assured me she would look into it and get back to me because I was interested in going out but didn’t want to be faced with the same issues getting back to my room.  Needless to say, I never heard back so I spent the rest of the evening listening to the loud music from the pool party.

I must mention that the friends of ours who we met up with in Vegas and who were also checked in at the Venetian had issues too.  Two days into their stay they were having so many issues, more than we dealt with, that they checked out of the Venetian and went to stay elsewhere.  They were much happier after they left. 

To be fair I must mention that the rooms were nice and the hotel was beautiful.  

To add the final nail into the coffin, we weren’t asked how our stay was at checkout which really upset me because I was ready to let them know exactly how I felt and see if they would even try to make it right.  Guess they didn't care enough to ask how our stay was.

Then, at the taxi pick up, we explicitly told the bellman that we needed to go to the airport and required a cab which accepts credit cards.  The bellman loaded our luggage into a cab, took the tip we handed him and waived us off.  Unfortunately for us, we were in a taxi that didn’t accept credit cards.  So we had to get dropped off at Treasure Island and had to load everything into a new cab that accepted credit cards.  All the while the cab driver was yelling at US because we should have known he didn’t take credit cards.  To be fair, we did pay him what we owed and did leave him a tip.  But to be honest, we shouldn’t have tipped someone who made us feel so stupid when we clearly requested a cab that accepted credit cards.

I was never happier in my life to get on an airplane and end my vacation.  If I do decide to go back to Vegas, I can assure you I will never even consider staying at the Venetian.