Tuscany – A work in progress
Doug Mohney
www.vegascommando.com
August 22, 2002

Finding a good and inexpensive hotel room in Vegas is a challenge. My favorite haunt for a while was the St. Tropez Hotel, a nice, quiet, clean place with a free continental breakfast to boot. Billed as an "all suites" hotel, the rooms are huge, the pool is nice, and rooms include fridges and VCRs. Many rooms include Jacuzzis. Unfortunately, the Tropez is across the street from the Hard Rock, so it is constantly booked these days.

Seeking a new go-to hotel for trade shows, this writer ended up staying several nights at the Tuscany Hotel. The Tuscany is a couple of blocks east of the Strip on Flamingo Drive and vaguely across the street from a cluster of higher-end chain restaurants, including Lawry’s and McCormick’s and Schmick’s. The restaurants are within 2-5 minutes walking distance, but the Strip is going to be a little hike, so do the right thing and plan to have a car. Rooms in August cost $79 on the weekend, $59 on the weekdays, a bargain when the going rate for a room at the Palms was $229 over the weekend and most places were swinging around $120 for a weekend evening.

Be warned: This property is, literally, a work in progress – several buildings, including a casino, are still under construction, so there’s a lot of dust and ugly floating around. Unlike most properties, the Tuscany is composed of a large cluster (A-O, if memory serves) of individual stand-alone three story buildings. KEEP YOUR LUGGAGE in the car until you check in; if you get assigned to one of the later letter buildings, you’ll have to drive around back and unload.

Once inside, past the door (one key swipe) and into the room (key swipe), you end up into your large room. Don’t expect elaborate furnishings or fabrics; the wood desk and tables reminded me of ‘50s simplicity, not Italian elegance. Our room had a stock desk with table, a couch with a lower coffee table, and a round table with four chairs around it in the kitchenette area. The kitchenette has plenty of overhead cabinet space, a half-height fridge, sink, and two (2) burner electric stove. No fans or dishwasher, however. No microwave either, just a stock coffee maker. Bring your own coffee and fixings, however.

Another quirky annoyance becomes apparent fairly quickly – no coffee mugs or glassware. Not even plastic or foam cups are provided; in order to get cups, you have to call down to the front desk and ask for them. This is just plain cheap or silly; hopefully, management will spring for outfitting the rooms with generic coffee mugs at the very least or cutting a deal with a vendor to "sponsor" some mugs in the future.

The bathroom is another annoyance. The fans and the lights are all linked to the same switch, so you get both even if you only want one. It’s a stock bathroom with a stand-up shower stall and a separate stock tub, so they’ll be no two-person romance going on. Room service only stocks the allotted number of towels per guest and seems to be cheap on putting out fresh soap and new shampoo.

Other amenities at the hotel were also Spartan. There’s a minimalist pool, a gift shop, and an Italian restaurant open for lunch and dinner service. The prices at the restaurant looked interesting -- $12-14 for a typical dinner – but I didn’t get a chance to try out the service. The gift shop shuts down early, around 9 or 10 PM, but if you really need a munchie fix, both a 7-11 and an AM/PM shop are within two minutes walking distance of the front of the property. You can get room service for lunch or dinner as well.

Would I stay here again? Well, as the saying goes, it depends – if it’s the only place in town other than Circus-Circus and $5-10/night cheaper, sure. If you had a group of people you wanted to cram into cheap lodging and live off the hot plates, it might be worth it. Otherwise, shop around for a rate on a Strip hotel and pay a little extra to get treated a little better.

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