Don't be afraid!

After reading the reviews of John Ascuaga's Nugget on here, I was dreading a business trip to this hotel for a convention.

I travel frequently for work and have stayed in some of the best and worst hotels in America and many which fall right into the middle.

When I read the reviews, I was terrified. Rude staff. Smoky rooms. Bed bugs.

But rest assured, my experience was quite different. I stayed in the East Tower (it's the renovated one) on the Club Floor. From all accounts, the East Tower renovated rooms are the ones to get. The West Tower's older rooms tend toward the tacky, according to my colleagues. I was moved to the Club Floor after some protests because they didn't have a refrigerator available to store medicines.

The Club Floor is normally an extra $20 per night and for that you get a mini-fridge and some better linens, apparently. The did provide a couple of chocolate on the pillow each night. I didn't see much else in the way of difference. But here's what I did note: room was nearly immaculate. Furnishings appeared nearly new. Bathroom had a small flat-screen television which was a nice, but wholly unnecessary touch. There's a small safe in the closet which fits a laptop and some other electronics. The towels were nice and there was the standard little soaps and shampoos. The room reminded me of a Hyatt I stayed in two weeks ago in downtown Chicago. Certainly nice, but nothing which made me say wow.

The facilities were clean and I didn't note the smokiness that others complained about. That may be due to our fairly subdued convention and the fact that the hotel and casino were otherwise pretty empty. I did have two meals -- one at the coffee shop and one in a deli near the sports book. Both were fine and moderately-priced as hotel food goes.

Free valet parking was speedy. I didn't make it to the pool. I heard the exercise room was nice but crowded up. The casino itself struck me as a standard casino that you'd find in most similar properties.

My issues with the property were minor: You get one of two views, the interstate or the rail yards. Both sides are noisy. There's just no escaping it. The a/c was kind of weak, but the temps cooled down in the evening and I opened the windows (hence the highway noise). You can see the mountains in the distance, but I wouldn't say any of the views were all that noteworthy. Internet access is $12 a day. And one pet peeve mentioned by someone else: there are very few electrical outlets to plug in chargers and none near the bed.

My biggest complaint: and this could have occurred anywhere: The front desk clerk when I arrived became extremely surly when I told her I absolutely needed a refrigerator to keep my medicines cold. She told me that I'd made a request when I made my reservations for a refrigerator, but that it wasn't a requirement and that she was out of them for the night and possibly my entire stay. That's when I told her that under the Americans With Disabilities Act, a Reasonable Accommodation is not a "request" but "federal law". (I was bluffing a bit). Finally the front desk manager arrived and she told me the same story -- no refrigerators left, I should call tomorrow, maybe I could put them in an ice bucket. Unsatisfactory, I explained. When I asked how they planned to help me keep my meds cold overnight, she suddenly realized that perhaps the Club Floor rooms had mini-fridges. Apparently in all the excitement of me and the guy sweeping the floor at 11 p.m., she conveniently forgot that little nugget.

So all in all, it's not nearly the disaster I expected and I might even stay there again if the price was right. It doesn't compare with Vegas hotels, but my experience there was much better than expected.

I wanted to write a review for this hotel because I stayed there even after I read the very scary reviews I saw on this site. I recently stayed at John Ascuaga's Nugget for National Association of Professional Organizers conference. In January I started to read reviews on this & other sites about this hotel & was very skeptical about staying there. I contacted all my colleagues and told them to check out the horrible reviews on Trip Advisor. To make a long story short I booked it. I just got back & had to write a review so here you go. I would not recommend staying there for the following reasons:
1. Way too smokey. It felt as if they did not have an air filter in the hotel. The smoke seeped into the rooms, elevators & everything in between.
2. If you stay make sure you are in the East tower. The rooms are renovated but you have a highway running right by your bedroom window. If you stay in the West tower you will have an older room & the train running by your bedroom window. The linens were clean but not spotless. There were black stains on the sheets & towels too. As soon as I walked in I checked the bed for bedbugs due to the postings on this & other sites about the problem others had. I lucked out & made it out of there without any bites.
3. If you go for a conference don’t expect great conference rooms. Seating was uncomfortable & as I stated before the smoke was everywhere.
4. There was slim picking of restaurants that were in the hotel as well.
I would not stay there or any other property affiliated with this hotel.

This was one of the worse hotels we have ever stayed at! We had a room in the Nugget Courtyard. What a joke. The elevators reminded us of the Bates hotel. The doors open before the elevator stopped. The rooms were very outdated! Since we had a child with us we usually take turns gambling but since I would have had to walk through the parking dark parking lot by myself to get to the casino we decided that we would not be gambling on this trip. :(
The pool was nice but again we felt like we had to go to a different hotel to use it ( oh ya we did do that I forgot ) Then we were charged an extra $5.00 to use it. We are over in Reno every weekend in the winter and have stayed at alot of different places here and the room was far worse then anything we have stayed at (except maybe the Lucky 7 motel ) We will not be back!!! Oh I forgot, I tried to change my room to the main hotel but the lady at the front desk in the main lobby was really rude. I wanted to get the manager but my husband wouldn't have it. I always thought that the Nugget was a nice hotel by what my parents have said but I guess it is just showing signs of neglect! SAD

There are several threads about their bad experiences in this hotel's reservation. I didn't think I would be so unlucky before this trip, now I know I will never go back to this hotel.

What happened:
1. We booked the most expensive room in this hotel, but the hotel staff told me we got the cheapest one. We showed them the receipt and itinerary, but they did not care.

2. The front desk manager, Paula, did not want to hear our complaint, and she threatened to void our reservation if we did.

3. They did not want to check with travelocity or billing department to find out what happened. We asked them to call, they did not care. In the end, we called travelocity by ourselves.

4. No one at the front desk tried to help us out.

5. They asked us to step aside the window while we tried to call travelocity and the line was not busy at all (there were two other windows open, and only one customer about to check in).

6. Bad attitude, bad attitude.

We will never stay at this place again!!