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Travel Tuesday: Crockfords Las Vegas (Resorts World)
You’re not going to believe this but, recently, my wife and I spent more time in Las Vegas. Having returned, it’s now time to continue my ongoing Las Vegas Content Bonanza™. Today, I’ll be taking a look at the Crockfords hotel located at the new Resorts World complex on the Strip. This luxury property happens to be part of the American Express Fine Hotels & Resorts program, meaning that we got to enjoy some added perks as part of our one-night stay.
So how was our stay at this swanky new spot? From check-in to check-out, let’s go through our Crockfords Las Vegas experience:
Crockfords Las Vegas Hotel Room Review
Crockfords Las Vegas Hotel Room Review
Booking
So what is Crockfords, you ask? Well, it’s one of the many Hilton brands. Furthermore, it falls under their LXR banner. In any case, you can choose to book directly through Hilton and redeem Honors points for your stay if you so choose. Of course, you can find the property on third-party sites as well.
Additionally, Crockfords Las Vegas is part of American Express’s Fine Hotels & Resorts program. Exclusive to Amex Platinum and Centurion cardholders, FHR bookings allow guests to enjoy extra benefits and perks for their stay. This is actually how I booked my stay — and even managed to use my Platinum’s $200 a year hotel credit to do so. In total, our one-night stay (before the credit was applied) was $237 plus a $51.02 fee due at the hotel.
With that, let’s take a closer look at what this method of booking gets you.
Amex Fine Hotels & Resorts benefits
Like with other FHR properties, Amex cardholders enjoy early check-in at noon when available, guaranteed 4 p.m. late checkout, free breakfast for two, and a resort credit of $100. In this case, the dining credit is actually $125 per stay and applies to most restaurants on the property except for a few that are listed on the letter you’ll receive at check-in. It also can’t be used for in-room dining, sadly. As an extra bonus, guests are also invited to enjoy two complimentary glasses of champagne at the lobby bar during their stay. These drinks are charged to the room but are removed upon check-out. Lastly, customers are also eligible for complimentary room upgrades when available.
For our stay, we were able to check-in early, arriving around 1 p.m. However, per usual, no upgrades were available. We were, however, able to take advantage of late check-out, allowing us to stay in our room until 4 p.m. the next day. This was a huge perk for us as we were able to do our work, enjoy some lunch, and casually head over to our other hotel in the afternoon.
Location
If you’re not familiar with Resort World, you can be forgiven as the property is not even quite a year old. The north Strip site is where the famed Stardust once sat and is located next to Circus Circus. Meanwhile, Encore and Wynn aren’t too far south (and across the street) but it’s still a bit of a hike from other casinos.
Unforunately, that’s probably the biggest drawback of Crockfords and Resorts World in general: its distance from other properties. Similarly, as fans of the Las Vegas Monorail, we were disappointed to find that there’s not really a good option for getting to Resorts World from any of the stops. That said, we did manage to do okay by exiting at the Harrah’s/The Linq stop and then navigating our way through The Venitian/Palazzo and Wynn/Encore in a bid to maximize our air-conditioned walking time before making the final push over to Resorts World. Basically, though, I’d recommend either planning to spend all of your time at Resorts World during your stay or make arrangements to take a car to other parts of The Strip — unless you really like walking like we do.
Check-in
Before I get to the cool part of our check-in experience, let me first go through some useful info. If you’re getting dropped off at the hotel by car, there’s shouldn’t be too much issue finding the Crockfords’ lobby. However, if you’re walking over like us, it can be a bit trickier. Namely, when you get to the Conrad lobby, you’ll want to go through the doors that say “Crockfords.” Yes, this may sound obvious to some but, for timid folks like us, we weren’t exactly sure what to do or whether a key was required to enter that area. Alas, this is how you access the hallway that leads to Crockfords check-in.
Once we found where we were supposed to be, we started the check-in process like normal. This was also when they gave us our FHR letter explaining all of the benefits and restrictions. Then came the fun part. We were offered a taste of tea that was poured into small glasses. What was interesting was that 1) the tea was blue and 2) when the hostess added drops of lemon verbena extract to the glass beforehand, the poured tea magically turned purple. The tea itself was refreshing and enjoyable, but this bit of showmanship made it stand out for sure.
The other cool thing at check-in is the key given to us. In addition to the regular tap-to-enter keys we’re all used to these days (although these cards were smaller than the norm), we were also given a skeleton key bearing Crockfords branding. Attached to that was a fob that could be used as our room key as well. Our hostess also stressed that we were to keep this key as a gift once we checked out. Personally, I found this to be a perfect blend of modern and classic that I truly appreciated.
Elevator
Since dishing details on the elevator situation at each hotel I review has become my thing, I’ll do so here as well — although there’s not too much to say. On the downside, there are only two main elevators for the Crockfords property. Then again, these are exclusive to Crockfords guests and there are only eight floors of guest rooms (a bartender told us the property is only a couple of hundred rooms). Therefore, while a short line would occasionally form downstairs, we never had to wait too long to get an elevator. That’s partially thanks to just how quick these elevators were, so be prepared to make your ears pop as you go up and down.
The room (Superior King Room)
I’ll just say this right now: this room was the nicest I’ve ever paid to stay at in Vegas. First, it was sizable, featuring a king bed, chaise, and table with chair. All of these were quite comfy — and the A/C also helped keep the room comfortable despite the 110 degree heat outside.
Also lovely was the bathroom. While the shower wasn’t the largest we’ve seen, it was quite nice. There were also dual sinks and plenty of amenities. The flooring, while nice, could be a bit slippery at times, though, so use caution if you’re walking around in socks like we often do.
But, perhaps the star of the room was the huge picture window which, in my case, offered a view south down the Strip (seen above). As you can probably guess, this view was even more impressive at night. In fact, when we returned to our room after dark, the sight was breathtaking and invited us to simply sit in the glow of the city for a few moments.
Beyond being a beautiful room, it also had some unique features:
In-room amenities
First of all, I was very excited to see that there was a complimentary coffee maker in the room. Specifically, this Nespresso machine comes complete with two regular pods, two decaf pods, and a couple of tea options. On that note, especially for the tea, I’d recommend hitting the button twice to get the right ratio and output.
Another amenity that spoke to my heart was the mini-fridge. Unlike other Vegas rooms we’ve stayed at that only had a mini-bar and not a refrigerator for personal items, Crockfords had both. This came in handy for us and allowed us to enjoy some leftover snacks.
Speaking of the mini-bar, in addition to the standard items, there was a new-to-me item available for purchase: an intimacy kit. Scanning the QR code on the side, it seems this kit includes a few small essentials along with a toy. Then, there’s also a card for a free gift, redeemable at the Pepper flagship store located in The District at Resorts World. Pretty interesting if you ask me.
Finally, another unique amenity was the Theragun massager found on the nightstand. We didn’t end up giving this tool much use but, considering the amount of walking you need to do to get to Resorts World, perhaps this could make for a nice foot massage after.
Dining
Like many of the other Vegas resorts I’ve reviewed, just listing all of the dining locations at Resorts World would be quite a task. Instead, I’ll focus on the venue we had the chance to try for ourselves. First up there is The Kitchen. This is where Amex FHR customers can go to make use of their breakfast credit. Interestingly, in addition to a breakfast buffet and a la carte items, The Kitchen had a number of lunch-y picks on the menu as well. Thus, while I can’t say for sure what restrictions your breakfast credit has, I would imagine that it’s possible to go toward the end of the “breakfast” period and essentially get lunch instead. Again, this is just a theory as my wife and I opted to get a couple of breakfast items (pancakes for me and avocado toast for her) along with coffee and a mimosa to use up the majority of our $66 allotment.
The other dining option I have experience with at Resorts World is the Famous Foods area of the property. This actually isn’t one venue but is more akin to a food court — albeit one where you can order from multiple stations at once via the kiosks. That’s exactly what we did and I’m excited to confirm that you can arrange for a room charge from their machines as well. In my experience, this was a great way to browse the menus, select our picks, and ensure we were using our credit. The only slightly stressful part was going around to collect all of our items as they became available for pick-up.
This was actually the second time (and third — we’ll get there) we’d tried Famous Foods and I have to say that this time around was better than the last. Although I enjoyed the food overall on our first visit back in January, the food didn’t seem to be remarkably fresh. I have to imagine that was related to the odd time of evening we went though as this wasn’t the case for this visit. Instead, each selection in our bizarre meal collection was hot and tasty. Some of the items we tried over the course of our stay included brisket fried rice, buffalo cauliflower wings, potstickers, a cheesy prata, and two delicious oversized cookies.
After reading that list, let me assure you that these foods weren’t all consumed in one sitting. What ended up happening was, due to some bad planning on my part, we had made a dinner reservation elsewhere for the one night we were staying at Crockfords. So, after checking in, we headed to Famous Foods for a snack. Then, thanks to our late check-out, we were able to go down again the next day for lunch (topping it off with a dessert to-go, which we ended up taking back to our other hotel). I will say that, to ensure these charges were properly taken care of, I did make a point to check out at the desk since the Hilton app said we’d automatically been checked out at the normal time. All in all, while it probably would have been easier to just have dinner at Resorts World to use our credit, our double lunch plan worked out in the end.
Final Thoughts on Crockfords Las Vegas at Resorts World
Final Thoughts on Crockfords Las Vegas at Resorts World
Our stay at Crockfords Las Vegas was nothing short of a treat. From the check-in experience and unique key to the gorgeous room with practical amenities, this is the type of room I’d love to spend more time in while in Vegas. Plus, we were able to make solid use of the $125 dining credit, free breakfast, and 4 p.m. late check-out that our Amex Fine Hotels & Resorts booking afforded us — not to mention the fact that we got a $200 statement credit from our Amex Platinum. In other words, our stay was well worth the price we paid for it.
As for downsides, the location of Resorts World is easily the largest con as it is off the beaten path. That said, you could still arrange a bit of a “Fine Hotel & Resorts” tour for yourself, going from Crockfords to Wynn and then Palazzo as you make your way closer to the central Strip. Alternatively, there are still several things to see and do at Resorts World (Katy Perry show, anyone?) if you do decide to hunker down.
Needless to say, based on our experience, Crockfords Las Vegas is a property I’d definitely recommend — especially if you’re a Platinum cardholder. To me, it’s a bit of an escape from the hectic parts of Vegas while offering easy access to the best parts of Sin City. So, if you don’t mind being a bit far north, check out Crockfords on your next trip to Vegas.
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