My 12-year-old son and I arrived at the Desert Rose on Friday, June 11th, 2008, for an 8-night stay. I’d checked out the property on a previous trip to Las Vegas, and I’d red numerous Tripadvisor reviews, so I felt good about our choice. My son was attending a week-long event at the Mirage, but their rooms are too expensive for us, plus we liked the idea of having more space, including a full kitchen. We paid less than $700 for the 8-night stay.

The hotel is arranged in four buildings, each of which houses a quarter of the 200 guest rooms. I believe that only one of the buildings is accessible directly through the lobby. With the others (such as ours), you use your room key to open either a security gate or an outside door, and then you can get to any of the rooms in that building. (Note: if you’re traveling with a large group, it will definitely be more convenient if you’re all in the same building. Well, of course, that’s assuming you like the group.) Within a building, the rooms are arranged on three floors, with a sort of a central courtyard, but the courtyard is just gravel and a few bushes, i.e., not very interesting. There are concrete hallways to get to some of the rooms, leading to carpeted hallways to get to others, but even the carpeted hallways are more or less open-air. I believe that all of the rooms have small balconies, each with a couple of chairs and a small table, but since the view from ours was of the tiny courtyard (and of everyone else’s balcony), we didn’t really use it.

We arrived at about four-thirty in the afternoon, but the line was short and check-in was quick. The check-in clerk noticed our request for no down bedding (I am allergic to feathers); she put us in a room on the third floor of building 2, and asked housekeeping to replace the bedding. By the time we got to the room (maybe five minutes later), the housekeeping staff was already there to take care of the change; I was impressed at their efficiency.

My son absolutely loved our room, which was basically like a little apartment. The kitchen was well-provided with cookware, utensils, glassware, plates, etc. Appliances included a toaster, a blender, a coffee-maker, and a mixer (that’s in a drawer), as well as full-sized fridge, oven/cooktop, dishwasher and microwave. All rooms, except for the toilet/shower room, were of a good size, and well-appointed. There is an anteroom to the toilet/shower room that has a sink, huge mirror, and maybe six square feet of counter space – plenty of room. I ended up setting up my laptop computer on the bathroom vanity, where it was convenient but out of the way, and had a small bench seat that tucked into a knee-hole.

I believe there is just one smallish elevator in each of the four buildings, but since there are only about 50 rooms per building, with a third of them on the ground floor anyway, there was never much of a wait for the elevator.

We bought groceries for the week (we had a rental car, without which this would have been difficult). When we put the cold stuff into the fridge, we found that the fridge door wouldn’t stay shut (it didn’t close well when the fridge was empty, and the problem was worse when the fridge door had stuff on its shelves). We phoned maintenance and a man came up immediately to fix it. So again, the housekeeping/maintenance folks were efficient.

Our maid tended to forget to replenish both the dishwasher detergent and the bath gel, and she seldom left us any hand-towels. I think she even forgot to vacuum for several days. When I called down for dishwasher detergent, they sent some right up; I didn’t bother with the other issues. We had a couple of maintenance problems (e.g., the toaster didn’t work, and the drawers on the TV stand really wanted to slide open), but in general, anything that wasn’t just right was put right immediately upon reporting it.

I must say that we did find the hotel to be a bit noisy, especially at night. I don’t think the sound insulation was very good, as we could frequently hear other guests moving around, running in the corridors, or even, in one case, greeting one another loudly, from their balconies, at midnight. My son slept in the living room, and the noise of the air conditioner going on and off kept him awake the first couple of nights, but then he got used to it. The hotel is quite close to the airport, but we weren’t really troubled by airport noise. I used earplugs to shut out the noise of the other guests, and that worked well.

Breakfast was fine. You could take it back to your room to eat (as we did), but please note that they don’t provide trays for that. (I’m assuming that’s to discourage folks from taking enough to feed the neighborhood.) We’d brought a couple of small plastic trays from home, so after the first morning, I just brought a tray with me when I went to pick up breakfast. They consistently offered boiled eggs, yogurt, bagels and cream cheese, bread, butter, jam, cereals and packaged pastries. They usually also had rolled slices of ham, along with mustard and mayo packets. One morning, they had lox. The coffee machine made cappuccinos and lattes (regular and decaf). There were also tea bags available. The crowd at breakfast was usually not too big for the area, except for one day, when, for some reason, there was a real mob.

We did go down to the little happy hour a few times, but it wasn’t anything to write home about. One night, the snacks were tortilla chips, salsa and cheese cubes; on another night, there was a large bowl of pasta salad and another of crackers. The pasta salad wasn’t really anything you could take away as you wandered toward the strip, but I think maybe that was the point, as the “happy hour” appears to be somehow tied in to the timeshare thing (they wanted you to hang around in the lobby so they could try to sell you a timeshare). They served alcohol (I’m assuming just beer and wine) from a service window in the lobby, and the soft drink machine was turned on during happy hour, so you could help yourself to that. And there was a guy playing a keyboard, singing, and telling very tired jokes.

In another review, the writer complained about being bothered by messages from the concierge about picking up their “welcome packet,” and how, when they finally went down to get the packet, it was just a bunch of brochures. We had a message from the concierge every morning, giving the weather forecast and reminding us that we could stop by for our packet. It was clearly just a group voicemail, so I listened to the forecast and blew off the rest. There were also occasional concierge messages to remind us of the evening happy hour; in that one, there was generally some mention of a raffle to give away a trip. I didn’t want to get roped into a timeshare hard-sell, so I didn’t check it out.

There is a guest laundry room in building 2. I think it’s the only one on the property, but I’m not sure. The washer and the dryer each required 3 quarters. (Note: there was no change machine in the laundry room, but you can get change at the front desk.) I brought laundry detergent and dryer sheets with me (again, due to allergies), but a sign did indicate that laundry detergent was available in the tiny convenience store in the lobby. The wash took maybe 30 minutes, and the dry maybe 40. The room and machines were clean and in good condition.

The hotel apparently contracts with an outside company to provide wireless internet service. It costs $9.95 per day, and I think the day ends at 4:00 pm. The service, provided by Wayport, worked fine.

I’d be giving the Desert Rose a 5 if it weren’t for the maid service and the noise.