TI Las Vegas: Treasure in the Desert

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Treasure Island Las Vegas

I had the pleasure of staying at Treasure Island on the Las Vegas Strip for four nights in September.  As I did with my Flamingo Las Vegas review, I will provide my review of the hotel in 2 parts: First, the “quick and dirty” review for those of you with short attention spans, followed by a more in-depth review for people like me who can’t get enough of the details.

The Quick and Dirty Review:

The Pros

• Reasonably priced
• Great location on the Strip
• Elevators dedicated only to certain floors, meaning faster service
• Comfortable rooms
• Tram between TI and Mirage makes it easier to roam south on the Strip
• Clean casino
• Plentiful dining options
• Great customer service and efficient staff
• On-site entertainment options

The Cons

The video poker machines here ran through my money like my ex.

The Detailed Review:

The Cost

I found a $59/night rate for September 7-11 on i4Vegas.com.  That is a screaming deal for this hotel, so I booked it.

Checking in

Check-in time is 3pm.  I never pay much attention to that, so I showed up at 11am to check in.  I was shocked at how many other people had the same idea: There must have been 200 people in line!  So much for Labor Day week being a slow time.  The staff at registration was very efficient, though, and kept the line moving along quickly.  I only had to wait apporoximately 30 minutes. In the meantime, I chatted with the couple in front of me and enjoyed the scenery: There are large windows in the registration area looking out onto the TI pool and grounds.  Once I got to the front desk, I had my room key in hand in under 5 minutes.   Because it was the end of Labor Day Weekend, the hotel must have had as many people checking out that day as checking in, and yet the rooms had already been cleaned and prepared for those of us checking in (four hours early).   I was extremely impressed with the front desk and housekeeping staffs for being able to turn those rooms around so quickly.

TI Room #25072

TI Room #25072

My room had a terrific Strip view of the Palazzo across the street and the TI Sirens show beneath the window.  The tasteful decor was a relief after the ugly wallpaper and neon pink of the Flamingo GO room.  There was a nice amount of counter space in the bathroom, and it had the requisite hairdryer and toiletries.  The bureau had tons of drawer space.  I could have moved in for a month and still had leftover drawer space. Inside the closet was a good sized safe and an iron and ironing board.  There was a flat panel TV, but I didn’t really use it.  I did enjoy the daybed.   The room got a lot of light during the day, which I found to be nice when I came up to the room to relax.  This room was not as big as the GO room (the bathroom was about half the size of the one in the GO room at the Flamingo), but I found it to be very comfortable and it had everything I could possibly want.  Best yet, it was much less expensive than the GO room.

The Grounds/Facilities

I’ve been to this hotel before, but I hadn’t spent any significant time here.  I loved this property.  It has everything I want in a Vegas hotel and is very clean and newish and in good condition–yet not expensive.  The location cannot be beat:  It is across the street from the Venetian and Palazzo, a pedestrian walkway over to the Fashion Show Mall, and from there, it’s just another pedestrian walkway to the Wynn and Encore hotels.  The tram that runs between TI and the Mirage is a quick, convenient way to get down to southern hotels on the Strip.  The room elevators are each dedicated to a few floors, which is wonderful, because you don’t have to deal with the elevator stopping at all 36 floors.  Very nice.

TI Pool

The grounds here are much smaller than at the Flamingo, but the pool area is quite nice nonetheless.  The landscaping is nice, with plenty of palm trees, there is a row of private cabanas along one side of the pool, and the vibe was very mellow.  You can watch the TI/Mirage tram go by from the pool area, but it’s not especially noisy.  Of course, there was the requisite pool bar, but I did not take advantage of it.  There are flags on the chair you can use when you want drink service.  This may sound crazy, but I loved the towels at the pool because they compensated for one of my pet peeves:  They are long enough to fit the entire length of the lounge chair and are fitted with elastic on one end, so you can fit it over the top of your chair and not have to worry about it sliding down every time you move. Genius!  The chairs themselves were not the padded kind, but they were comfortable enough.  There was plenty of both shade and sun, depending on your preference, first thing in the morning.  By 10 am, the shade was rapidly retreating, though, and so was I.

Francesco's at TI

Dining at Treasure Island

I was very pleased with the abundance of dining options at Treasure Island.  I tried several of them, including Isla, Francesco’s, the buffet, the 24-hour cafe, and Kahunaville.  I’ll be reviewing all of these in future blog posts.  Room service was speedy–it only took 15 minutes from ordering chicken fingers to receiving them, piping hot, in my room at midnight.  The tenders and dipping sauces were delicious.  It was also an expensive snack, but that’s room service for you.

Breeze Bar

The Casino

I really enjoyed gambling here, even though the gambling gods were not kind to me. The casino here is clean and feels more upscale than the Flamingo casino.  It was a very comfortable place to play. The bartenders at the Breeze Bar were friendly and never batted an eye over my odd drink of choice (iced coffee with a shot of Baileys).  My drinks were always comped because I was playing max bet at the video poker machines. I also enjoyed playing video poker at the Isla Bar (until a man sat down next to me and started smoking; that pretty much killed that).  I found a good progressive slot machine on the casino floor that gave me the best hits of the trip.  But overall, I had no gambling joy here.  I never expect to win, but having my twenties last longer than 10 minutes would be nice.

Customer Service

Customer service was exemplary in this hotel.  Everyone I interacted with, from the front desk folks to bartenders and waitstaff, to valets, had great attitudes.  There was no eye-rolling, no surly “I’m too good for this job” attitude. They also were very efficient and quick about doing their jobs.  One day I ran across a woman at the top of the escalators going to the Fashion Show Mall who had dislocated her shoulder somehow.  I went back down to the casino to get help and just told the first staff person I saw, a man whose job I believe it was to clean the casino.  He hurried off and in just a couple of minutes, security was running through the casino and up the escalator to help this woman.

I only used housekeeping once during my stay.  They came in and did their usual bed-making, trash-emptying, and bathroom-cleaning–but they also tidied my belongings that had been haphazardly strewn about the bathroom countertop and desktop.  Nice touch.  What I loved the most about them, though, was how quietly they worked. I never heard them in the hallways, even when they were right outside my room.  They didn’t chat loudly with each other or vacuum early in the morning or any of those other loud things I’ve heard housekeepers do in other hotels.  They were considerate of guests who were trying to sleep late. I very much appreciated this.

Security

Treasure Island was a little inconsistent about checking room keys at the elevators at night.  Some nights, they did it, some nights, they didn’t.  It didn’t bother me when they didn’t; I felt perfectly safe here.

Sirens of TI

Entertainment

Treasure Island houses the oldest Cirque du Soleil show on the Strip: Mystere.  I’ve seen it before on a previous trip.  TI also has a free show out in front of the hotel called Sirens of TI (a sexed up version of the late, lamented pirate battle), which I finally forced myself to see this trip. I was surprised that I didn’t hate it as much as I thought I would. Finally, TI also has a Kahunaville restaurant, which has flair bartenders and sometimes live music.  There used to be a dueling piano show here, but they discontinued it several months ago.

Summary

What more can I say?  I never stayed at Treasure Island before Phil Ruffin purchased the property, so I really cannot compare what it is now to what it was when MGM-Mirage owned it, but I absolutely loved my stay here.  I felt at home the minute I walked into this hotel.  It’s one of the nicest, most reasonably-priced hotels I’ve stayed at in Vegas over the past 8 years.  It’s not the Wynn or Bellagio or Venetian, but it doesn’t cost as much as those hotels, either.  I enjoy getting good “bang for my buck” and I did here.  As long as they continue to offer good room rates, I’ll keep coming back.