Crockfords Las Vegas, LXR Hotels & Resorts — Hotel in Las Vegas

I was left with huge disappointment from my experience staying at the Crockfords and Resorts World overall. I grew up adoring Resorts World in Malaysia and have been a Hilton Diamond loyalist for over 7 years now and when I heard about the partnership and launch of these new hotels in Vegas, I couldn’t be more excited. Fast forward over 2 years later, I can only describe my experience as a confused identity and unsuccessful integration between the two brands. I read mixed reviews before my stay but was still optimistic heading into my stay but sadly can only confirm and echo some of the disappointing remarks.

There were some positives – the hotel looked new and fresh, the food options were diverse and aplenty and it did a good job to show up its Resorts World aesthetics and sensibilities that I’ve come to love in Malaysia and Singapore. Unfortunately, the bad far outweighed the good. I stayed 3 nights in total, the first night at Hilton and the next two at Crockfords. My negative experience started the day I checked out of Hilton before I checked in to Crockfords. When I checked in at Resorts World Hilton, it was made clear to me that premium wi-fi would be complementary for Diamond members and would be taken care of automatically before checking out. However, I noticed that the charge for premium wi-fi was not waived and wanted to talk to the front desk (instead of using the express option). There was a line reserved for Hilton Diamond and Gold which I was looking forward to leverage as I had a lunch appointment but there was nobody there on Friday noon. All the other associates were busy helping the long line and there was no acknowledgement for getting someone to help out. 10-15 minutes later, someone came over to help resolve the issue. Upon proceeding to the Crockfords area, I needed access from an associate but was left with the same issue as before as nobody was able to help out, resulting in another chunk of time wasted.

Finally upon arriving at Crockfords, my room was not ready and I had requested for an electric water kettle to be placed in the room when I would check in later that night. Fast forward and when I did check in, there was zero follow up. Also, upon checking in that night to receive my keys there was no mention about Hilton Diamond benefits until I mentioned it. The staff do not seem like they were trained well to recognize loyalists compared to all other Hilton properties.

Fast forward to my final check-out from the Crockfords, I am still seeing a wi-fi charge on my bill again and as of time of writing, I am still trying to get this reversed but the hotline was busy and I'm waiting to see if the email approach works. I would have expected this to be ironed out much in advance instead of having members waste time audit and calling in to get these fixed.

My other qualm with the experience was the daily F&B credit for Diamond members. In all other properties I’ve stayed, the daily credit was extremely flexible in terms of what it could be used on (on-site restaurants and in-room dining/snacks) but the one at Resorts World was extremely restrictive to one (Dawg House). I find that a big waste as there are so many other splendid food options on-site. Also, the Dawg House was always packed and almost impossible to get a seat with a quiet ambience. It felt like the property went out of its way to make it as restrictive and hard as possible for loyalists to make use of the daily credit, which was a big shame. The theme here is that this property does not do a good job at making its members feel valued.

The room itself was fine as we received no complimentary upgrades but we did find it odd that it came with hi-tech equipment (JBL speakers, smart mirror, Therabody massage gun) but not an advanced hair dryer as other higher end properties offer.

Ultimately, if you’re looking for a high end property there are many other options in Vegas and if you’re hoping to reap benefits for being a Hilton loyalist, I would highly suggest looking elsewhere and/or resetting your...

Take a look at reviews on TripAdvisor.

Cons. -Good product at a premium+ price. There are many many options that are close in quality @ significantly lower prices. Both Hilton and non-Hilton. On net, this is overpriced compared to similarly-situated alternatives.

-Total mess with regard to check-in process. Took 90 minutes to check in at the Crockford. That’s the highest premium brand of Resort World. For customers of the “lower tier” brands, like the “VIP Conrad*”, it looked painfully slow. Easily in excess of 2 hours. Easily.

-Bel cart service is the WORST service I’ve ever received at any hotel, including motel 6. Unbelievably inefficient, incoherent, frustrating, and time-destroying process. (We showed up at 2:45. We were all set with our room and luggage at around 4:30.)

-Lack of consistency with fulfilling Hilton perks (we selected free water as our perk.**)

-Confusing as all getup. The triple-branding is super confusing. A total mirage (made to create the illusion that spending more will mean premium experience. It won’t.). For example, if you though “Crockford West” was the west wing of Crockford, you would be wrong. It’s a totally separate experience. What?!? Thank you for the frustrating AF elevator experience and confusion.

-The Tri-branding is so so so bad. Its evidently frustrating to every desk worker and employee I’ve met. Like 100% of them. The disconnect between the observations of “boots on the ground” workers and management is (a) the worst I’ve seen in the hospitality industry, and (b) about as bad as that of Russian Generals.

-Happy, but clearly frustrated workers. The process here is so so so bad. It definitely tarnishes the Hilton Brand IMO

-Sweet Eats has a menu that is unreadable and, if you are like me, you’ll take a recommendation and go wild. Don’t. Shaved ice, vanilla cream, red beans (You know kidney beans, yeah, those) and lime jello. This is the grossest food I have ever put in my mouth. We debated that this was a wager between executives at RW that they could sell this vomitfest profitsbly. It’s so so so gross. Why? Just why? So bad. (Google: Sweet Eats)

-Expect workers to solve a problem? They are given practically 0 agency/authority (they can comp free bottled water and tell you to “ask the guy at the other counter”. They can’t leave their station [or use their walkie or phone apparently!]).

-Management appears nonexistent or overwhelmed or incompetent. If you have a problem, don’t expect Hilton-level service here.

-Underwhelming room for price.

-The kids “scavenger hunt” is out-of-date and includes installations that no longer exist! Seriously? Do you have any idea how that makes a 6 and 7 year old feel? And the only way to “collect your prize” is at the Hilton counter. You know the one with the 2-hour wait. This is what “Attention to derail” looks like (misspelling intentional). Fail.

Pros:

-Nice food. Slightly pricier than competition but also very good (res bean and lime jello dessert excluded).

-Excellent ventilation. It’s hard to tell they allow smoking (I am baffled there are no casinos that cater to the 85% of the non-smoking population. It’s an obvious competitive advantage for that ‘majority niche’. This is the closest to non-smoking I’ve found.

-New building with quality art and decor.

-Nice shower and bathroom.

Overall. -Do not recommend. -Overpriced. -Poor process. -poor management. -Lots of Better alternatives in Vegas -book lowest tier if you stay here. “Premium brands” (Conrad, Crockford) are ‘premium’ in name only. Veet underwhelming for what you pay.

*From RW website (re:Conrad): “ these luxe accommodations include a private reception lobby and lounge, dedicated VIP check-in and digital keys”. Not even close. You will be really mad if you expect VIP check-in.

**we took advice of the “owner” response and got our “free water” that we were supposed to get at check-in, only a day-late! Wow. Amazing service! Where do I get the 2+ hours of...

So, I rarely leave a written review unless there is really something to say, and do I ever. Check-in was good, and I appreciated the butterfly pea flower tea at check-in (checked in around 4:30 pm), and was also impressed with the walkway to the elevator which looked very luxurious. The lobby staff was pretty top-notch at check-in too, but once I got to my room, that's when the it went downhill fast.

As a Hilton Diamond member for many years in a row, I expect a lot when I step into a luxury room, and it being the Crockfords LXR, I fully anticipated smelling a 5-star experience when I walked into paradise. Nope, instead I walked in to the smell of trash, which was because there was a bunch of leftover food containers in my room, crumbs and trash on the small suite table, and trash on the main desk area. If that wasn't bad enough, the bed was completely undone, and if that wasn't bad enough either, the bathroom was dirty, with dirty towels all over. I didn't even bother looking at the toilet, much less using it.

So, what to do? Well, I immediately called the front desk for housekeeping and they said they would send someone up to check things out. 30 minutes later...crickets. So, I called again, and this time someone who identified themselves as a manager is surprised nobody came up to see what is going on, and also mentioned they couldn't move me to another room because the place was allegedly sold out. So, I had to continue to wait. So there I am, unable to use the room bathroom for an hour, lie on the bed for an hour, or even put my things on the main suite desk, without fear of contracting something nasty that the prior guests could have left behind.

Finally, after waiting for roughly an hour after my initial call, a housekeeping supervisor shows up and she is shocked. In all of my many years of traveling to hotels in many different countries, I have never had housekeeping take pictures of how awful and pitiful a room looked like at check-in...lol! She said she would be showing her pictures to another supervisor. Naturally, I took my own pictures too when I initially entered my room for documentation purposes. Anyways, the housekeeping supervisor immediately radioed in for 3 other people to help clean and sterilize the room right away. All four people were thorough with their cleaning, including the sanitation of my room, and reset the room to what it should have looked like.

I lost a good chunk of time that Saturday trying to get my room issues resolved, and considering I only stayed there one night, it definitely felt like I was robbed of a true 5-star hotel experience, and it definitely left a bad food container taste in my mouth too.

At check-out, I initially spoke to a very friendly front desk employee (Casie) and explained what happened. I then requested to speak to a member of management so I can explain what happened and show them the pictures I took as well. I spoke to Leo, a Luxury Services Supervisor, showed him my pictures, and he did indicate that he was somewhat previously briefed of the situation and offered his apologies. He then indicated that someone would be contacting me, but here we are, 9 days later, and crickets again. Nobody from Hilton, or the Crockfords LXR, has reached out to me in any way. When WiFi doesn't work on a Delta flight, man, Delta Airlines reaches out to me quickly, and I am not even in their top tier of Medallion members. Hilton, however, has been the total opposite. What a shame.

In short, while I could talk about a few other things that I liked about this place, I felt it was more important to show the overall experience I had, fully illustrated.

The only good news is that I used a Hilton certificate for the stay, so no major amounts of money out of my pocket, but I would have been better off using it at a Hampton Inn that Saturday...never had a horror story to talk about at any Hampton Inn locations.

Do better Hilton, especially at your...