Let me state right up front that I love both of these hotels and picking a winner between them is going to be like picking a favorite child. It’s even more unfair since both of the hotels are owned by the same company so I’m probably driving the very nice people in the Station Casino’s PR department to the nearest bar right now. Sorry about that.

But the Cage Match will not be denied! So we bring you two local’s casino giants, the crown jewels of the Station Casino’s chain, among the best hotels in the entire city. Who will win the battle between Green Valley Ranch and Red Rock Resort? Read on.

Location
Green Valley Ranch is located about 10 miles from the south end of The Strip in Henderson while Red Rock is situated on the far west side of town, about 18 miles if you take the usually faster freeway instead of surface streets.

If there’s no traffic you can get to either one in about 15-20 minutes but GVR is closer to The Strip and therefore closer to the places most Vegas visitors will want to go so it wins this category.

Parking and Access
Both hotels are located right off the 215 freeway so getting in and out is easy at both.

There are two parking garages and a big lot at Green Valley Ranch, all of which are very convenient if you are going to the casino or the restaurants. But getting to the front desk requires quite a long haul through a hallway on the main level, down one floor via elevator or stairs, and then another long hallway. You can avoid this with valet parking, but this category is all about the do-it-yourself variety.

Red Rock Resort also has two garages, but one of them (to the left as you pull in) is located right next to the lobby. Walk in, go down one level on the elevator, and you’re a few feet from checking in.

The clear winner here is Red Rock Resort.

Checking In
Both hotels have the very annoying (in my book) multi-lane check-in, which means there are multiple agents each with their own queue and you have to decide which line you’re going to stand in. I always choose the one that is moving slowest so I prefer the version where a single line queues up to the next available agent.

The good news is that both hotels are relatively small by Vegas standards so I have never had to wait more than a few minutes to get to agent at either property.

The Green Valley Ranch lobby is a warm den of a space, with plush chairs, a big globe, and cozy surroundings. The Red Rock lobby, on the other hand, is dramatic with a soaring lobby bar adjacent and beautiful textures and art to look at.

They are both great spaces for totally different reasons so I’m declaring this category at tie.

Getting to Your Room
At Green Valley Ranch, ease of room access from the lobby depends on which wing you’re in. One has elevators near the front desk while the other requires you to go back upstairs and back down that long hallway to get to. Neither require you to go through the casino, but it is a long haul anyway.

Over at Red Rock the guest elevators are right next to the front desk. Easy-peasy.

Red Rock wins another category.

Rooms
The Green Valley Ranch rooms are gorgeous, with some of the most comfortable beds I’ve ever had the pleasure of sleeping in. The décor is understated and quietly elegant; more classical with rich fabrics and woods. And of course they are stocked to the brim with every pampering bit of convenience you could imagine.

Red Rock’s rooms are more modern, with sleek lines mixing well with the multi-varied textures you find everywhere (is that leather on the walls in the bathroom? Yes it is). Equally well-stocked with conveniences, the big bonus here are the views of The Strip in the distance from the one side of the hotel and gorgeous Red Rock Canyon on the other.

The rooms at Red Rock seem bigger and more luxurious (even though they probably aren’t) and you can’t beat those views, so Red Rock gets this category.

Casino
Red Rock’s casino is larger and offers a lot more gambling options, plus it’s got something to look at everywhere you turn. The beautiful textures of stone, wood, glass, and crystal make this one of the prettiest casinos in town.

Over at Green Valley Ranch, the space is more intimate and warm. It is smaller and so there are fewer machines and tables to try but there’s something about the casino here that makes me feel comfortable as soon as I walk in. It’s not at all intimidating and even cozy in certain areas, which makes gambling a much more enjoyable experience.

I’ve also won significantly more and more often at Green Valley than at Red Rock.

The environs and the completely unfair (but true) yardstick of overall winnings give this category to Green Valley Ranch.

Service and Amenities
These two hotels are almost perfectly matched in this category. Both offer almost unparalleled levels of personal, friendly, and efficient service and both offer a whole host of things to do on site. Both have tons of great restaurants, beautiful pool areas, terrific spas, movie theatres, bars and nightclubs, and much more.

So if the property’s themselves are essentially equal, I have to go slightly off-property to find a difference here.

Red Rock Resort is still a bit of an oasis when it comes to the neighborhood in which it’s located. There are plenty of houses and a big box style shopping center across the street, but for now the bulk of the land surrounding the resort is undeveloped.

Right next door to Green Valley Ranch is the very cool District shopping complex. It’s packed with interesting stores and boutiques and is surrounded by even more restaurants (including a PF Chang’s and a great BBQ place).

As the area around Red Rock develops this may change, but for now I have to give this one to Green Valley Ranch.

Cost
Looking at their rate calendar for the next few months, I’m seeing rates at Green Valley Ranch as low as $100 on weekdays and $150 on weekends, but the more common prices are $150-250 and $200-300 respectively.

Red Rock’s rates are almost identical for the same time period so that gives us another tie category.

The Decision
Green Valley Ranch gets a point each for winning Location, Casino, and Service and Amenities plus a half point each for the ties on Checking In and Cost. Red Rock gets a point for each of the categories it won (Parking and Access, Getting to Your Room, and Rooms) plus half points for the ties on Checking In and Cost.

That makes it 4 to 4. Ladies and Gentlemen we have a tie!

return to the top

I was going to write a new essay on Las Vegas and what weird, wacky, and wonderful city it is but then I realized that I already wrote a pretty good one for my Moon Handbooks Las Vegas. So, to continue our celebration of our 10th Anniversary, I thought I’d give you an exclusive excerpt from my book. Enjoy!

When Las Vegas was first stumbled upon, it must have seemed like a mirage shimmering in the distance. Miles of unrelenting, unforgiving terrain through rock sun-scorched deserts and mountains finally gave way to a valley verdant with trees and plants fed from natural springs. It was a refuge from the harsh world beyond its borders offering rest, comfort, and possibility.

This oasis later became a rest stop of sorts along the Old Spanish Trail, a place for travelers to pause during their long journey across the untamed West of the early 1800s. Native Americans who inhabited the area had a name for the place, the Spanish term for “The Meadows.” They called it Las Vegas.

Hundreds of years later, Las Vegas remains a literal oasis. It is considered to be the most geographically isolated major city in the United States, surrounded by mountains with miles of nothing but scrub brush and dirt in every direction beyond its glittery borders. The nearest metropolis of major significance is more than 200 miles away, so the city still acts for some as a place to stop on their way elsewhere.

But for millions of people, Las Vegas has become more than a pit stop; it has become the destination, a figurative oasis where one can shrug off the harsh realities of the world beyond its borders.

The city still surprises upon first viewing. Drive in from Los Angeles along I-15 through the desolate and barren stretches of desert and it’s easy to imagine heading toward the edge of the world. Okay, the billboards every mile or so advertising $5.95 prime rib specials and the traffic jams of SUVs might make it difficult to truly cast yourself as the lone survivor of some global apocalypse, but you’re headed toward a land of fantasy, so just go with it.

Passing through the middle of nowhere, I-15 suddenly takes a turn to the left, circles around a stony outcropping, and there it is: the gleaming gold tower of Mandalay Bay, the hulking black pyramid of Luxor, the big green monster that is the MGM Grand, the giant space needle jutting into the sky at Stratosphere, and, of course, there’s the white and gold edifice of an actual Mirage.

Las Vegas and surrounding Clark County are a region of mind-boggling proportion when you look at the numbers and the consistent litany of “most,” “biggest,” and “more than any other” ascriptions. It is home to more than 1.8 million residents, with more than 5,000 new transplants arriving every month, making it one of the fastest growing metropolitan areas in America for the last decade or so. It draws about 40 million people annually to its shiny palaces of excess, making it the number one tourist destination in the country.

The city hosts eight of the ten biggest hotels in the world; the Stratosphere has the tallest observation tower west of the Mississippi; the Luxor has the biggest indoor atrium; and the most expensive privately financed construction project in the nation’s history, the CityCenter, costing over $9 billion will be ready for its first occupants in 2009.

Need rest? You can usually find a place to do it here with about 135,000 hotel rooms in the area and thousands more on the way, more than any other city in the world. On the other hand, the nationwide hotel occupancy rate hovers around 65%, while the occupancy rate in Vegas is over 90%, meaning you may have trouble find a room that someone isn’t already sleeping in.

Looking for comfort? You’ve got that here, too, with world-class dining, spas, and other comforting distractions available at every turn.

And what about possibility? Yes, they’ve got that covered here as well in the form of games of chance. There is no other spot on earth where you’ll find more slot machines concentrated in a smaller geographical area. There is more square footage of casino space in Las Vegas than in any other city. And all that square footage adds up to big gaming revenue, more than $10 billion annually and growing every year.

But those 40 million folks aren’t just dropping their money in video poker machines. It is estimated that tourism brings in more than $39 billion a year from accommodations, dining, entertainment, and, of course, shopping. Las Vegas is now considered to be the number one shopping destination in the country and proudly displays, as evidence, The Forum Shops at Ceasars Palace, an ornate mall that generates one of the highest incomes per square foot of any mall in the world.

Set the numbers aside, thought, and the city still looms large, both legendary and mythic at the same time. This is where Elvis married Priscilla and made his big comeback; where Frank, Dean, and Sammy turned the moniker “The Rat Pack” from an insult into an institution; where Liberace mastered the complexities of camp and made “wink-wink, nudge-nudge” humor safe for America. Vegas hosted Howard Hughes and the mafia, perfected topless reviews and all-you-can-eat buffets, encompassed both high class and the lowest common denominator, blending all of the larger-than-life ingredients to create the place we love to call Sin City.

As Vegas glitters in the distance from I-15, motorists generally react with something like “It shouldn’t be there. It doesn’t look real. What kind of demented imagination would place this jaw-dropping, visual overload of a city smack-dab in the middle of a desert?”

Well, I suppose that’s why they call it an oasis.