- A lot of people ask me,
"Chris, what is the best new hotel
to stay at in Las Vegas?
Is it the Circa hotel,
is it Resorts World, or is it the Virgin hotel?"
Well, in this video, I'm gonna tell you,
because over a course of three days,
I stayed at all three of those hotels.
And so I'm gonna walk through the pros and cons of each one
and then help you decide which one might be better for you.
First, let's go ahead and start with price.
On this midweek in December that I was here,
the most expensive of the three was the Circa hotel at $200.
I'm factoring in everything,
parking, hotel rate, resort fees, just to make it easy.
The second was Resorts World.
The Conrad, where I stayed at, that was $146.
And then the cheapest of the three was the Virgin hotel,
$64 all, and no parking.
So if you're looking for cheap,
you're gonna find it at the Virgin hotel.
Resorts World,
while it might seem like a more expensive place,
they're running a lot of specials just to get people in.
So Resorts World might become more expensive later,
but right now, they have really inexpensive room rates.
So next, let's talk about the location.
The Circa hotel is smack in the center
of Downtown Las Vegas,
adjacent to the Fremont Street Experience,
kinda right next to the Plaza Hotel
and the Golden Gate Hotel.
So if you're doing a lot of stuff in Downtown Vegas,
Circa is gonna be a great base for you.
Resorts World is located on the strip
next to Circus Circus, kitty corner from the Wynn
and the Encore.
It's kinda the part of the strip,
the north part of the strip, that doesn't have a lot
of action going on on it right now.
If you wanna walk over to Caesar's Palace,
a little bit more center strip, it's about a 20-minute walk
from Resorts World to Caesar's Palace,
which I consider to be prime center-strip action.
And the Virgin hotel, it's located about a mile
off the strip, down East Harmon Avenue.
You're really not gonna be walking anywhere
from the Virgin hotel.
I mean, you could.
You can walk a mile, but most people won't.
And so people staying at the Virgin hotel
likely will benefit from having a rental car
or planning to take a lot of taxis and Ubers
to really get anywhere.
Okay, so let's talk about room size.
Where should you go if you want a big room?
Of the three hotels, the base room at the Conrad
at Resorts World is the biggest at 550 square feet.
Notable, if you book the Hilton at Resorts World,
it's only 400 square feet.
At the Virgin hotel, the base room is 460 square feet.
But actually, it felt the smallest of the three, I think,
'cause it's the old renovated Hard Rock Hotel.
The rooms just don't have a super great layout.
The smallest of the three hotel rooms is at the Circa.
Their base room is 439 square feet.
But a notable option at the Circa,
you can get a double king room with two king beds in it,
not two queens, not two doubles, but two king beds.
That's cool.
Oh, and if you hadn't noticed, I've switched rooms now.
I'm in the Virgin hotel to finish out this video.
Let's talk about food options.
One of the reasons people come to Vegas,
including me, is to eat.
Resorts World definitely has the most restaurants and bars,
with 40 restaurants and bars on the property.
I love the Asian food hall that's there.
I would say second in restaurants is here, the Virgin hotel.
There's a lot of restaurants, bars, and eateries in here.
And then probably third is the Circa.
There aren't really that many food options.
And I mean, there's a few.
There's a steakhouse. There's a burger place.
But I think, if you're eating a lot,
you'll likely be ending up in the other restaurants downtown
and not just inside the Circa.
So people always ask me about pools.
Which hotel has the best pool?
So let's talk about the three different pools.
The Circa hotel, their pool, Stadium Swim,
is probably the most famous of the three.
It kind of operates as a nightclub or dayclub-type pool.
What do I mean by that?
I mean that hotel guests get to use it for free,
but outside people can come in and pay $20 to use the pool.
That also means that they treat it like a nightclub
in the sense that you have to go through metal detectors
and they search you or any belongings
that you bring into the pool.
It's kind of a haze to go into the Stadium Swim pool,
honestly, as a hotel guest.
Being a hotel guest gets you into the water,
but it doesn't get you a cabana or one of the seats
or things like that.
Now, the Stadium Swim Pool does have,
you know, swim-up bars.
It has a casino there when the weather is right.
And Stadium Swim is open all year round.
And it's also great for watching sports,
if you just kinda wanna hang out.
Resorts World has the biggest pool complex.
They have, like, five different pools that are there.
They do close their pool seasonally.
So if you're coming in the winter,
you'll find the Resorts World pool likely not open.
The Virgin hotel has two pools.
There's a resort pool, and then there's their club pool.
The resort pool has kind of a nice, like, sandy beach area,
which is pretty neat.
It's not super huge, but it's, you know,
I'd call it on the medium size.
The Virgin hotel's pool also closes seasonally.
On the subject of fees, Circa definitely loses on this one.
They have what I call the most hidden fees,
in that Circa has a significant resort fee,
and Circa also charges $23 for self-parking.
Resorts World has a resort fee.
And it's called Resorts World.
You'd expect maybe the resorts fee,
but self-parking at Resorts World is currently free.
And finally, the Virgin hotel, when it first opened,
it advertised no resort fees, no parking fees.
That was a big thing of the Virgin hotel.
Well, I guess they decided if you can't beat 'em,
you gotta join 'em.
And the Virgin hotel now charges a $45-a-night resort fee.
Lame. At least the parking at the Virgin is still free.
But really, who'd wanna park here to go anywhere else?
It's in the middle of nowhere.
Now I'll talk about decor.
If you like classic Las Vegas,
you'll probably like the Circa.
It feels like a new, modern, classic Vegas hotel.
If you like white and clean and bright,
then you'll like Resorts World.
That hotel, the rooms, plus the entire resort,
have a very white color to it, very clean, very bright.
People are mopping the floors everywhere in Resorts World.
So you'll find that just to sorta be the cleanest,
brightest, and I feel most modern of the three.
And then, if you like hip and funky and fresh
and vibes unlike other things, you like W-style hotels,
then you'll like the Virgin hotel.
Quality of sleep wise,
I found Resorts World to have the best sleep quality.
My room there was super quiet.
I didn't hear anything from the hallway
I didn't hear anything from any other rooms.
I didn't hear anything from outside, perfectly quiet.
Circa was noisy.
It was noisy
because the Circa is next to the Fremont Street Experience
that has loud music at night.
Their Stadium Swim in the summer
also has loud music at night.
And my air conditioning unit was quite loud in there.
Virgin hotel, while I didn't hear anything from the outside
because my room faces the pool that's closed in the winter,
I could hear sound from the adjoining or connecting room.
And what's strange is they have this door
that you can close off most of the room
from the hallway to maybe, like, block the hallway noise.
But I feel like that door should be on the other side
of the connecting door 'cause the just connecting doors
on the wrong side of that other door to block sound.
Also, at the Virgin hotel,
it is quite near the Las Vegas airport.
And so here, you can hear the planes take off and land.
One thing the Virgin hotel has going for it
that the others don't is that you can open the window,
or in case, the door here, the balcony door.
It only opens about three inches.
But of the three, this is the only one
that you can get fresh air into.
So of the three, which one was our favorite?
By the way, if you haven't met him, this is Topher.
He's my traveling panda brother.
I'm Chris. He's Topher.
Together, we make Christopher.
We definitely enjoyed the Conrad at Resorts World the best.
If we were gonna come back, of the three,
that's where we would stay.
Certainly, you could make up your mind
and pick where you wanna stay.
But if you ask us which one we recommend of the three,
Conrad Resorts World all the way.
Well, fellow explorers, if you wanna dive into any more
of these hotels, like, see them in detail, see the grounds,
I've got detailed reviews of all of them.
You'll find links on the screen there
or in the description below.
And as usual, I won't say goodbye 'cause I'll see you
in one of those videos.