At least many things are not the same as before Covid-19 like they want you to believe. My wife and I flew to Las Vegas Monday Dec 13, 2021 on an afternoon flight and arrived around 4:00 pm. We wanted to get to The Orleans and TGI Friday's during Happy Hour, so when we arrived by Uber, we didn't even bother to check in – just took our bags to TGIF. Sat down at the bar, I ordered Guiness and my wife ordered Stella Artois. The bartender set the beer down and I made a comment about Happy Hour. She said that they didn't have Happy Hour anymore – due to pandemic. We had one more beer and decided to settle the bill. It was $40 - $10 a beer! I decided to go next door and get some beer and wine for the room and there was a sign saying closed on week days – Only open during weekends.
We stayed in room 1920 the first night. Thermostat didn't work and the fan ran steady with no way to shut it off and it sounded like an old dishwasher. The floor lamp turned itself on and off all night long so we changed rooms Tuesday morning.
They had a program one day a week called Young at Heart which was available to all B Connected card holders 50 Years and older. It used to be fun and the more you played that day the more chances you had to win prizes. It is still there with much less valuable prizes and it is now only open to Sapphire members and higher – Not the base tier of Ruby members.
The Orleans Hotel and Casino, a Boyd-owned property that is quite old and off strip, previously had a very reasonable Resort Fee – I remember paying $13 a night. It is now $39.54 for each night there and it's winter and the pool isn't even open.
The Orleans experience has diminished considerably since we were there many times pre-pandemic. Overall, Las Vegas was not much fun for us this time around since many of the activities that we enjoyed doing are not available Monday through Thursday. We flew home Wednesday Dec 15th – our shortest trip ever!
