Rio Hotel & Casino — Hotel in Paradise

Finally gave in to the endless promotion emails that Rio has been sending to all former customers, and booked a couple of nights there. Was really hoping that all of the hype about the remodeling of the premises would live up to expectations, but didn't quite happen. |First tip - do NOT park in the Masquerade Parking Deck - you will have a long walk thru a skybridge that enters at the very back where SmashBurger stands pretty much all by its lonely, and then a hike past an empty area that used to be casino space, but now has nothing but some tables and chairs, for reasons unknown.|Checkin desk consists mainly of a line of kisosk tablets, but they did have at least one live agent on duty, and happily, no big line waiting to talk to him, if needed.|The rooms in the Ipanema tower are the ones that were redone - Front Desk agent himself said that he "would never put any one in the Masquerade Tower" - apparently it has not been touched yet. Anyone expecting a glamorous, new-room/fresh-paint-smell will be disappointed. Redo seems to consist of new carpet and new furniture. It was pretty obvious that tile and countertops in bathroom were original, and faucet fixtures may have been as well. While room is indeed spacious, with a bed and seating area, and all seemed clean enough, it does not look particularly fresh or new, and someone who did not know would never assume that a so-called remodel had just been done. Hallways still seem a bit dark and foreboding, but one plus was that the place was very quiet, although that may just be the result of low occupancy.|Main change on casino floor is the new eateries that have been added. The old American Grill space is now a nice-looking bar/restaurant, Luckley's Bar, I believe. The once renowned Buffet is now a food hall with rather uninspiring choices. Kind of lost any desire to order food, after walking by Tony Lukes and seeing the uncleaned mess on their grilltop, with food bits, grease and other debris just sitting there solidifying - they were open, but had no customers, and no excuse for not doing some better cleaning during the downtime. |Went to Hash House two mornings for breakfast, and while the portions are not as enormous as at one time (other than Hotcakes, which are still the size of the entire plate), the cusine seemed pretty good, although prices are up a good bit. Had a dining credit that covered most of the bill, so that was also helpful.|Rest of casino seems pretty much the same old Rio - not much in the way of updates or improvements that were apparent. Have heard that Video Poker pay schedules have been improved, which is pretty unusual, but there was a scarcity of VP machines, with most seeming to be concentrated ina a group of a few dozen, to the far right of checkin desk.|Also spent an afternoon at the pool - pictures looked pretty nice, but reality was similar to the guest rooms - some new pool furniture and upbrellas, and cleanup of the landscaping, not much else. Hard not to notice that pool itself did not appear to have been resurfaced anytime recently, with lots of visible chips and marks on bottom. Do not expect a vast choice of pool areas - on Wednesday, only one of four pools was open, with rest being roped off. There may have been some beverage service circulating, but do not recall anyone coming around taking food or drink orders.|Probably the most disappointing aspect was in seeing the small details that could have been improved for very little additional cost and effort, but were not - the parking deck was untouched, with peeing paint, oil stains, broken pavement etc. and there were a number of places where wooden trim and railing was old, scratched, chipped and obviously not touched. Hard to figure why a General Manager can't walk into the hotel in the same was as a new customer, and see things like this thru the coustomer's viewpoint...||In summary, if you had the idea that Rio has been turned into a new, fresh resort, you will probably be disappointed. By all indications, the entire remodel was done on a shoestring budget, with as much use of the old as could be done, and as few actual upgrades as possible. My entire stay was at a rate of $28 / night (comp room, $28 Resort Fee) but with a $25 food credit per night. Unfortunately, the billing at checkout did not reflect this accurately, and they were unable to completely correct things - tried to explain that 2 nights @ $28 + $61 in food charges - $50 food credit should have resulted in final charge of $67, but their system somehow came up with a total some $40 bucks higher. A manager attempted to correct the total, and came back with something that was within a few dollars of expected amount, but the actual math was apparently too much for their IT systems to digest. All in all, not enough to waste more time over, but left a bad impression that nobody could get the billing completely right.|Would I go back after this experience?? - An open question ...... Not a bad stay for the small amount that it cost, but they need to work hard on the...

We booked 1600sqft panoramic suite. It's huge. We booked it for $23 on cap1 travel. There is a $57 resort fee as of June 2025. We assumed something this size would have a full size fridge (nope, just dorm room size), no microwave. Not allowed to use a hotplate, no stove, no oven, no toaster, but it has an ice bucket with a lid.

We walked in the front door to be greeted by depressing decor and carpet. Online videos showed wild colored circles and dizzying colors. Not this. Think 1970s. Same with curtains, couch, chairs, tables. The desk in the bedroom has chips missing.

The front desk where we checked in made it clear 3 times that we had no status with Hyatt because we booked outside Hyatt/Rio. Yes we know. So we have to pay the resort fees for wifi downloads of 17mb/s per speed test. We did get 2 complimentary water (10oz) waters at check-in. That's it, no more. It's not like Rio Las Vegas is in the middle of a desert (lol). The resort fees include gym, casino, WiFi for 2 devices, 2 for 1 tickets, 2 for 1 mimosas at a restaurant, and 2 for 1 cocktails at a tavern, and seasonal pool access. Someone that joined us on the elevator volunteered that the pool is about 70°F which on a 105°F outside would be shockingly cold.

We have a wet bar for the fridge, a trash can, but no towels or soap. I was not patient enough to wait for the hot water after 10 seconds.

Across from the wet bar is a dining room table with 4 chairs for either junk food or take out food since you can't heat up anything. There is a credenza with phone. 4 panels, 2 open as doors. The other 2 are just wasted space.

The closet by the front door is musty smelling. There are 5 hangers, a luggage rack, shelf, light switch with working light and water sprinkler.

The AC does appear to work. Room has cooled after a couple hours.

Next to the front door is a half bath. Dated wallpaper, beige in color. Rather depressing or you could say it doesn't feel happy but sad mostly like the wall paper around the rest of the unit.

In the living room area, there is a Panasonic TV (it works) behind 2 upper doors and a disconnected stereo in the lower doors. No readily available plus so probably no Chromecast or similar to use unless you power it with a battery.

It is definitely 180° of panoramic views of the strip across the interstate.

The bedroom: bed appears fine, fully encased so no bed bugs, YAY!!! Always a good sign. A nightstand on either side of the king bed. Lamps too; they work. Excellent, an available plug behind each nightstand. There is a TV stand with a Panasonic TV that works. I will need to hunt to be able to plug in my Chromecast. Fortunately I brought a 3 meter cable.

The bathroom has a huge tub w/ jets and a waterfall faucet (nice). The jets are low so you are covered for your feet and bum. Don't know if we will try it, but it is impressively big. They left towels and toiletries for it on the side of it. The shower has shampoo and conditioner, but no body wash or gel or soap bar. We asked the room steward. Rio has none and has been this way for at least several days (or weeks or longer) based on her broken English. I asked for a bar of soap and she obliged. She asked if we needed anything else. I said not at this time. There is a toilet room with ample space for a wheel chair. There is a phone! Same dated wallpaper every where.

The bathroom has 2 sinks, a big mirror surrounded by a dozen bulbs that work on both sides of the mirror, a separate vanity from the sinks with a chair (makeup table?). The vanity is smaller (4ft wide), but has similar mirror w/ bulbs. There is a closet with safe, luggage rack, hanger shelf, and chest of drawers. There is also an iron w/ ironing board. The safe works but the buttons have been used a lot.

Ah, the 13th floor doesn't have a working ice machine but 14 does. Maintenance is an issue. The fridge was warm when we sampled it upon arrival. It is colder now (~90m later). Wife suspects that the door was left ajar by the las user.

Can't recommend, would not stay again for...

Positives: First, the employees. Everyone-valets, bellmen, housekeeping, front desk, bartenders-we encountered was courteous, polite and happy. That makes for a really enjoyable stay and whatever they’re doing to create those upbeat attitudes is working well. The front desk clerk was an absolute NO to the “$20 trick”, said that people were doing things they were not supposed to so the hotel cracked down. Jose at the pool bar makes an excellent Mai Tai if you’re into tropical drinks, I would highly recommend it!

The free parking.

The furnishings in the remodeled rooms in the Ipanema (shorter) tower. We stayed in a remodeled two queen room with a view of the strip. The carpet, the pull-out sofa bed couch, the beds, all were new and nice. You can find other photos of the rooms on the Rio website which accurately represent the look.

The price. We stayed Tue, Wed, Thur and the full bill was just over $87; we received an email from Rio for a no resort fee special. As you read on this review, understand that while some things do need attention, for that price the value was really high despite the shortcomings. The room was very big, plenty for two people and had a great view of the strip from the 10th floor.

Lapa Lounge was a great place to hang out for a drink-friendly bartenders and other patrons around, we really enjoyed it.

We ate at the Canteen food hall at Shogun Ramen, it was pretty decent ramen, not the best we’ve had but worth the price paid. That was the only Rio restaurant we ate on this trip.

Negatives/Items that Need Attention: Security at the guest elevators. There’s a podium and what looks like a room key scanner, but it was only manned one time during our entire stay. Ironically, the swimming pool is better secured. From the pizza restaurant flyers that appeared from under our room door, it’s obvious non-guests are accessing the floors. That’s something Rio can and should fix immediately.

The elevators are beat up and haven’t been remodeled. Scratches and just overall scuzzy feeling. Same can be said for the doors and hallway leading to the north garage, they’re beat up and need cleaning/painting.

Ice makers didn’t work that well on the 10th and 9th floor, and had to go to 8 to get ice a couple of times.

Attention to detail is lacking even in the remodel. The curtains in our room were installed on the wrong track-meaning both the curtain and the sheer panel on one side were on the same track which is an obvious mistake. The curtain wasn’t hung properly and the track was missing hardware (see photos). The room was mostly very clean except for the hair left in the shower, again, an obvious and easily fixable item.

The shower leaked/dripped so badly that the splash escaped the shower area and made the floor wet near the toilet. Because it was a handheld showerhead I took it off the top and let it hang down to minimize the drip splash.

One of the sinks had a crack in it.

The lights flickered in both vanity areas in the bathroom, probably just need new bulbs.

And the room safe, when we pressed “0” it would read “2”. See video. For some reason it just started working fine and we were later able to use it, but do so at your own risk.

Why might you ask, did I not call the front desk to report some of the problems? Well, I did try, and when the phone rang it picked up with that “you’re on hold” elevator music, and I waited but no operator answered. Secondly, I thought perhaps that’s better anyway since we wouldn’t want to be waiting around for or have maintenance in the room and it’s really a pain to have to move rooms if that’s what it took.

Guest fridge is VERY small; appears to have a minibar/pay fridge next to it that is unstocked. Though small it met our needs fine.

Overall, for $87 it was an excellent value, but as I told the bellman who asked if we would return, I’d probably give it a year or so for the new owners to take care of the obvious issues. Rio seems to want to return to its glory days, and it can but it will take...