Basic & Decent Hotel Near The Strip - Motel 6 Las Vegas Tropicana
Written: Sep 14 '04 (Updated Dec 03 '04)
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Pros: Inexpensive way to stay near the strip, Decent rooms
Cons: Somewhat questionable neighborhood, Lots of walking need to get to strip
The Bottom Line: The Tropicana Motel 6 won’t knock off your socks, but is an acceptable place to stay for a night if you want to be near the Strip
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| jps246's Full Review: Motel 6 Las Vegas Tropicana |
You won’t be writing home about the wonders of the Las Vegas Tropicana Motel 6, but it is a decent place to stay if you’re unable to get a room anywhere else near the Las Vegas Strip and want to stay close to it.
The hotel is located about a quarter of a mile (which is really only a few blocks) to the east of Las Vegas Boulevard on Tropicana Avenue. There are wide sidewalks from the hotel to Las Vegas Boulevard and the neighborhood surrounding the hotel is okay, though I’m sure some people will feel slightly uncomfortable walking to the hotel from the Strip late at night (I know I did).
Rooms at the hotel run anywhere from about $40 up to around $70, depending upon the room size and the date your booking it (Friday and Saturday nights are the most expensive and they also raise prices during peak times when most other hotels are also full). The rooms are available with a queen sized bed or two full beds and there are also smoking and non-smoking rooms available.
In addition to your room, guests have access to an outdoor, in-ground pool and a coin-operated laundry room.
Not that we had one with us on our trip, but you can keep a small pet with you in the room. If you are in a wheelchair or otherwise disabled, there are handicapped accessible rooms. All the rooms have free local calling, basic cable and HBO, and if you are staying with a child under 17, the child is free.
Experiences
Check in was fairly easy – we had called ahead to make reservations on our way into Las Vegas and when we arrived, we found that there was a large and amply sized parking lot. Walking into the lobby I was greeted with a bank of video slots on the back wall with what appeared to be fairly destitute folks playing them (homeless comes to mind - and staff didn't seem to mind them sitting there and playing). I kept walking up to the check-in desk and that process was fairly easy and straightforward. We were given our room key (an electronic swipe card) and told where it was.
So I moved the car over closer to the room and we brought our bags up to the 2nd level (all of the rooms are accessible by outdoor walkways or porches, there are no interior hallways) and we opened the door.
The room was clean and put together fairly well. It was a smoking room and the smell of smoke was very evident (though not overwhelming), but we didn’t find any ashes or used ash trays in the room. In addition the vents in the room seemed fairly clean and there wasn’t smoke residue building up on anything. Our room had a single queen sized bed along with a small table, a plush chair, a regular chair, an armoire that held the TV and some drawers and a small bureau with several drawers for storage. Since we were only spending the night, we didn’t really bother unpacking and we left most of the drawer space unused. Next to the bed on either side was a small nightstand with a lamp and on one side, an alarm clock. There were no extra pillows in the hotel room, so we had to call down to the desk and ask for some. A housekeeping staff member showed up about 20 minutes later with 2 extra pillows.
Considering the stop in Las Vegas on this trip had been a spur of the moment kind of thing, we were content with the room. For what we paid we weren’t that far from the Strip and we didn’t have to contend with the hustle and the bustle of the strip for one night.
However it was a bit of a walk to just get to the Strip, so if you have problems walking, or don’t feel like walking a lot, you’ll need to either find somewhere else to stay, or you’ll be taking taxis an awful lot.
The hotel, while it’s not in the worst part of Las Vegas by a long shot, isn’t exactly the glitz and glam (and relative safety) of the Strip a few blocks away and especially at night, the area can be somewhat intimidating. As you get closer to the hotel the streetlamps are stretched further and further apart and the sidewalks do get darker. To be honest on our way back to the room at like three in the morning, I felt slightly uncomfortable and I’m sure if I did, others probably would too. If you took a taxi back to the hotel, this problem would be solved though.
Sleeping at the Tropicana Motel 6 wasn’t that bad. The airport is nearby, but the rooms seem to be fairly well insulated against the noise – once we were in bed and had the a/c on, I didn’t hear them flying overhead. The a/c seemed to work well (we were there in March, so it wasn’t quite as hot as Vegas usually gets). The bed wasn’t the most comfortable thing in the world, but we both slept fairly well on it and didn’t wake up with any back aches.
In the morning when it was time for a shower the bathroom was clean and had the typical soaps and lotions that all hotels provide. We had brought our own, so we didn’t bother with them. The shower had a tub, but we both just took showers. The water was hot and the pressure was good. The towels all seemed to be clean.
Check-out was a painless process, went into the lobby, dropped off my swipe card and cleared out the room charges on my card. Since we hadn’t used the phone or anything else, there were no additional charges on my credit card beyond the room charge.
Thoughts
The homeless people playing video poker in the lobby who asked for quarters were a bit of a put-off, as was the Tropicana Motel 6’s location, but for a quick and easy night’s stay in Las Vegas, you’d be hard pressed to do much better on short notice.
I’d suggest for people who can’t walk long distances or don’t want to, that they get cabs and if you are returning or leaving the hotel late at night, call a cab to not have to walk through the somewhat questionable neighborhood.
The rooms are plain but decent, as are the facilities at the hotel. In general, the Tropicana Motel 6 won’t knock off your socks, but it is an acceptable place to stay for a night or two if you need a hotel room in Las Vegas and want to be near the Strip.
I would stay at the Tropicana Motel 6 again if I had to or if I was just passing through Las Vegas again and wanted to be near the strip for the night. I wouldn’t plan on spending an entire vacation there though, for just a little more money you can enjoy a room in a much nicer hotel/casino directly on the strip.
More Vegas Attractions & Information
Buccaneer Bay Pirate Battle at Treasure Island / New York-New York Hotel/Casino / Red Rock Canyon Recreation Area / Mandalay Bay Hotel/Casino / Excalibur Hotel/Casino / Circus Circus Hotel/Casino / Q Vegas Magazine (LGBT)
Recommended:
Yes
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