I had the opportunity to travel to Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) -- one of the world's largest single site conferences and also one of the busiest times of the year to be in the city.
While I have stayed at the Hard Rock, and now Virgin Hotels Las Vegas, on previous trips in the spring and summer, I thought it would be helpful to provide a review on my most recent stay in the Ruby Tower mini suite.
Dollar--for-dollar, I'm a believer that VHLV has some of the nicest and newest guest rooms of any near-Strip hotel in the market. The beds are comfy, offer plenty of pillows, and you couldn't ask more from the bathroom and closet experience (rain shower and handheld wand?! Double hanging space for clothes? A dedicated makeup vanity with great lighting?! Wow.)
From a tech perspective, this property also gets it right and best-in-class. My guest room has a large (65"?) HDTV with a modern channel lineup, smart and dim-able switches for every lighting fixture (bedside lamps; tower lamp; entry areas; bathroom vanity) along with a control panel right next to where you lay down, and from a connectivity perspective, symmetrical, free WiFi (125mbps up and down) property-wide. As a Verizon customer, I also had 3-4 bars of 5G cellular coverage in most areas of the resort - which is sometimes not always the case in these concrete fortresses.
I've read some of the previous reviews and their critiques. Here's my thoughts:
Airport Noise: Yes, VHLV is located nearby the end of one of Harry Reid International Airports' runway complexes. As as aviation fan, I loved it, because depending on which way the tower was handling arrivals and departures, you could plane-spot a lot of flights. However, I very rarely heard any jet noise unless the departures were happening directly over the property, which is fairly uncommon. LAS typically uses their east-to-west runways for regular wind patterns.
Cleanliness: I couldn't have asked for more in terms of the Housekeeping team at VHLV. My guestroom was cleaned quickly each morning and was always restocked with all of the things you'd expect. It also helps that the flooring choices are a combination of LVP (fake wood), ceramic tile, and throw carpets -- allows each surface to cleaned specifically to its material type.
Busyness: during CES, multiple large corporations housed their team members at VHLV, so it was busier than usual for a series of weekdays. However, in my experience, this property is very different on the weekends (when the southern California crowd drive into town) vs. during the week (when it's far more quiet). On the plus side, because of being located just off the Strip, you rarely have to wait for a table here and I found the service to be great/the team members personable. All of the restaurants and bars functioned with normal hours (e.g. fancier places for dinner only; others for multiple times of day).
The Culinary Union Strike: this was a mixed bag. Some mornings, there would be a handful of people with bullhorns calling every vehicle that entered/left the property "losers" (they really honed in on that term for whatever reason) -- which made me irritated. I'm all for free speech and peaceful protest, but trying to offend customers who either a.) weren't aware of the strike or b.) don't want to get involved in a labor negotiation is a weird tactic to take if you want the property to be successful long-term. Most evenings, especially when it was colder outside, there were hardly any people on the picket line and I never heard noise from them in my guest room. Overall, it was a non-factor for my stay.
All in all, if your business travels require you to split time between properties on the Strip and LVCC - like CES does - Virgin Hotels Las Vegas is an excellent choice at a reasonable price point. Being able to earn HHonors points and being recognized for my Diamond status is an added bonus!