Hotel Review: Circus Circus in Las Vegas

There have been a number of great reviews of this property, and why one more? I'm hoping to enter an opinion that weighs in somewhere between the "hated it" and "loved it" camps. Well, even that's not completely on the mark. Let me elaborate.

It takes a parent with a strong stomach and heart to bring one's children to Las Vegas. It's an interesting place that only recently committed itself to courting the family vacation market. There's lots of fun stuff for families to do, but it does involve shielding your child from Vegas's seedier elements. That is a task in and of itself, and from my personal standpoint, I don't know that I would do it again.

There are two Circus Circus properties - one in Reno and one in Las Vegas - and they both involve pretty much the same equation. There's a circus/amusement park area for the kids, and Mom and Dad get the casinos. Something for everyone. From a marketer's standpoint, this is a compromise designed to appeal to the most reluctant of family vacationers. In reality, blending these two functions can be problematic. The problems arise when you get vacationers who are strongly skewed towards either one function or the other. For example, what do you do with the gambler who doesn't want to hang out with kids? (I observed a fair number of these, which doesn't make sense, but they were there.) Or what about parents like me, who want to bring their child for a vacation that doesn't involve trudging through a casino?

Having said that, Circus Circus is an amazing place. It has a full-service amusement park - the Adventuredome -- contained within a pink glass dome designed to shield park-goers from UV light, but let in the sunlight. The park has something like twenty-five different rides, including a roller coaster, water ride, bumper cars, slingshot and carousel. You can also go rock-climbing and play laser tag. You haven't seen anything until you've seen a roller coaster track interspersed with a water ride pathway. The noise is deafening, but the lucky children who enter this park are overcome with ecstasy. Our son loved it and didn't want to leave. This venue also hosts birthday parties, and this would be the ultimate birthday party site for a kid.

The hotel has a full-service casino and two rather substantial swimming pools. The circus area, or Midway, features wonderful circus acts throughout the day and is surrounded by a rather large video game arcade. In terms of eating establishments, there are eight of them with differing levels of service - for example, two are table-service restaurants, another is a sort of cafeteria-type restaurant, and the fourth would be the omnipresent Vegas buffet restaurant. There are also a few fast food types of kiosks set up throughout the casino for late night gambling snacks. I have to say that my least favorite of the restaurants we tried was the buffet, and after experiencing Circus Circus's buffet, I have vowed to try and avoid any experience in the future to which the term "buffet" has been attached. But I am sure this is cost-related -- I have been to some excellent buffets and some "eh" ones, and the excellent ones invariably cost a ton of money. Circus Circus is committed to making family travel affordable, and as a former hospitality industry employee, I know that improving their buffet would hike its price tag considerably and price it out of the range of most families. And I saw lots of happy people at the buffet. I want to state that my son, who is 13 and a picky eater, did not agree with my assessment of Circus Circus's buffet. He gave it an 8.5 or 9 rating out of a potential 10, with 10 being the best and 0 the worst. So kids will enjoy the buffet and you don't have to worry about your pickier kids getting fed. Circus Circus offers a "Kids Eat Free" enticement for parents with kids who are 12 or under, which can really help in terms of managing your dining budget.

The hotel rooms at this property are tastefully decorated yet very functional. The hotel even operates a KOA-affiliated RV park. The standard rooms do not have refrigerators or microwaves, so if you want a refrigerator you should rent one of the hotel's Manor rooms. My main suggestion for this property would be to consider somehow incorporating these features into all of the rooms, although I don't know where you'd buy the food outside of the hotel. There aren't a lot of external retail establishments near Circus Circus. Although the common areas of the hotel could use a little refurbishing, they are perfect for families with little ones, who are usually a bit rough on carpets, drapes and furniture.

For what it offers, which is a reasonably-priced Las Vegas vacation for families, Circus Circus accomplishes the task marvelously. There are way flashier casinos and fancier hotels, but you don't need those when you bring your family to Las Vegas. I am thankful to Circus Circus for providing us with an inexpensive family vacation. It was an interesting experience - different, but "different" in this case means good. We all had fun.

Sources:

Personal experience

http://www.circuscircus.com/