My Review of The LINQ Hotel & Casino in Vegas

My husband and I researched what would be the best location for "First Time Goers in Vegas" to stay. Most posts kept saying we should stay mid-Strip on Las Vegas Blvd, so we searched for a cool place to stay at affordable rates. When looking up rooms in Vegas, the initial prices look cheap, but many of them have resort fees that get thrown in there and jack the price up. My husband bounced around ideas such as the MGM, the Luxor, the Flamingo, and finally we agreed on the LINQ Hotel & Casino.

I think I knew from the moment I pulled up at the LINQ that I was going to hate it. You cannot drive up to the entrance of the hotel like you can most hotels. You drive up into a parking deck to go through a separate entrance that is completely hectic and total chaos. I asked one man "where do we park the car if we are trying to check in," he told us to pull into the valet line. Once we were in the valet line, the men were telling me that I couldn't be there. I was so frustrated at that point I fussed one man out and said, "well maybe you should tell your coworkers to direct people better because he told us to pull into this line when we asked where to park, so that my husband could get out and go check us into the hotel." The man tried to defend it saying no one would have told me that, and I needed to move the vehicle if I could drive, so I grudgingly jumped into the driver seat and asked "okay, where do I go now since you have no where for people checking into your hotel to park?" They let me pull to the curb and sent people to help us with our luggage, but I was still a little annoyed that they didn't have a better set up for people trying to check into the hotel. In my opinion, first impressions can set a tone, so checking in should be made as simple and pleasant as possible.

The reviews said it was supposed to be a newer hotel, and very modern looking... but unfortunately I have to keep tearing into this hotel like a hungry bear who found a box of honey oat cereal. Let me just say this, if flat gray tones are the new black, then I guess it is modern looking. The halls of this place were so dim, and it was like a maze to get to your room.

We got lost a couple times because the floor plan set up, and we even ran into people in the hall that were lost also. The main elevator was always backed up and felt like we had to wait 10-15 minutes for a ride up or down it. Lets just say the gray vibe the LINQ had going on, made me feel like I was in District 13 of the Hunger Games movie and Effie was going to pop out in her gray attire.

(GIF retrieved from: https://gph.is/1UCC1Db)

I can admit that it was a little better in the room, the tones were lighter. The room was definitely a lot smaller than The Tuscany's room that I happily reviewed here: https://steemit.com/travel/@bosssarah/review-of-my-stay-at-tuscany-suites-and-casino-in-vegas
If you read that review compared to this review, you will see a night and day difference, so I don't want you to think I'm a total cynic. However, the LINQ's room did try to present a modern vibe.

Don't be too fooled by my husband sprawled out on the bed. It was hard and not that comfortable.

That small cube in our room had slight storage space, but behind those walls were our bathroom. It was a regular bathroom with the essentials: sink, toilet, and shower, and no room for anything more.

The reviews kept saying a restaurant in the LINQ called the Hash House was really good, but every time we tried to eat there it was packed with a large crowd waiting to eat there. We actually tried another restaurant in the hotel for brunch, I can't remember the name of it, but they were supposed to have bistro style food... it was disgusting and extremely costly for what they served us. I ordered a parfait, and the yogurt was bland with no flavor, and my husband ordered a salad, but the dressing tasted like oil with no flavor.

The cool amenity attached to the LINQ Hotel was the Observation Wheel. I was surprised my husband wanted to get on it since he doesn't like ferris wheels, but he took me to the ticket booth to purchase two tickets. Unfortunately for us, there was a sign saying that it was closed because it had been reserved by a group.

That wasn't the only thing closed... after walking into different hotels and seeing how cool their pools were, we tried to go to the LINQ's pool, but ironically that was closed when we went to it too LOL! You could say we were having rounds of bad luck with this hotel! We don't know exactly why it was closed, but we didn't try to go back since it was closed at a reasonable hour of operation we tried to enter. I couldn't even tell you what the hotel's pool looked like, which is sad because many of the hotel's pools in Vegas were amazing.

The casino was a lot more upbeat. You could tell that this was a casino set up more for our age group. However, the tables were more expensive, so we didn't gamble as much on the LINQ's tables. On my last night, I did come across a really cool slot machine that kept giving me so many free spins. I put $20 in it and left with $180. Here is a picture of us walking downstairs past the casino.

We went on a ghost tour towards the end of our trip in Vegas. The ghost tour was not that great, and I had to fact check a lot, but there were some truth's to the tour guide's distorted stories. At first I hated our location on the strip because there are barriers between the sidewalks that trap you in. I kept trying to leave the LINQ hotel, and would end up back in the LINQ, or the neighbor hotel Harrah's, and leave Harrahs and end back at the LINQ. I felt trapped there because the set up was like a maze between the two hotels and I could not cross the street to get away from this area because of the barriers. The tour guide of the ghost tour told us that the barriers had to be put up because of the people who kept intentionally running off the side of the road and running down pedestrians with their cars. I did look it up, and it does seem like there was a story of a woman running down pedestrians in the area that may support his theory.

Our tour guide during the ghost tour did not seem extremely credible, but he said that there are underground tunnels that homeless people live in and when there is bad flooding it sweeps people up and kills them, and the LINQ is in the flood area, so bodies end up floating up around the LINQ. I did my research and feel like that was an extremely exaggerated truth. Apparently the LINQ has experienced bad flooding, and ONE person has died from it. Here is a video I found on Youtube about the story (this is not my video and I do not have any rights to it):

On the bright side, I am glad there was not any rain during my trip. However, I would not stay at the LINQ again. To really set that nail in the coffin, when we checked out, the hotel told my husband there was over $200 in additional service and resort fees he would be charged for. These fees were completely unexpected charges. He was a little angry because he thought he had paid for everything in advance of our trip. Even though this was a very negative review, I hope this review helps someone who might be considering a trip to Las Vegas. If you are interested in seeing other posts from my trip, please check out my page: https://steemit.com/@bosssarah

!steemitworldmap 36.118431 lat -115.172388 long The LINQ Hotel and Casino d3scr