Here I sit, right now, at the Stratosphere again.  Yes, I DO remember this disaster before, here, I blogged about it then miserable blog post here.  And several weeks ago, MSNBC posted a story about blogging your way to better customer service and quoted me, linked to my blog story here.  Then, some Hungarian news agency took that story, and published it too, made me popular in Hungary here.  (still never got a good translation of the story, so if you know Hungarian, let me know what they're saying about me, k?)

So, here I am, again.  While not the bad experience of before, I am still far from impressed.  Here's my list, good, bad and ugly so far, and I'm here til Monday, so look for another post to follow with more details after that.

• get here to checkin after good dinner with friends and family at Rio buffet.  Yum.  Was 10pm-ish when we arrive, stupid insane long line to checkin, no more self serve kiosk either.  Sister stands in line with bag, I take my letter from manager to the VIP line, asking if they can help me.  What did I have to lose, right?  So, yes, they were wonderful.  No line, no waiting, here have some bottled water while you do wait the 3 minutes here instead of 30 over there.  Told we're in a nice "suite", elevators we need are close and easy, no maze.  So far so good.
• Apparently, all the good rooms here have a view of the HVAC system.  I am sure they must be quite proud of this HVAC system to show it off so much, much more than other "resorts" in Vegas.  We have another view of the HVAC system here in our "suite".
• I put "suite" in quotes since their definition and mine are totally different.  Suite to me means more than one room, like separate living space and sleeping space.  This is simply an oversized hotel room with couch, bed and dining table in one room.  Not a suite.  It's about the size of my master bedroom at home.  So, while nice, certainly not some posh Vegas suite.  I've seen those, stayed in some, this is not one.
• The bathroom is big.  Fairly nice.  Note to Stratosphere folks, you would get loads of points for building some walls around that toilet to allow 2 people to make use of the bathroom at once, instead of having it totally exposed in the big ole bathroom.  No hair conditioner (did you not see my feedback before, no conditioner makes you less of a hotel than most Motel 6's.  So if that's your goal, good job, if not, fix it).  Someone else's hair was in the floor of the shower, so we had to clean it before we could use it.  Several of our plastic DISPOSABLE cups were actually reused and placed back in plastic bags.  GROSS.
• And, if you were trying to impress me and convince me this place was different, then maybe, just maybe, you could have put me in a room that was not directly attached to the bank of elevators.  Makes for weird noises all night long, thanks.