Hotel Overview

The two hotels reviewed on this trip are both located inside Resorts World, which had its grand opening in Las Vegas this past June, diagonally across from Encore. That also makes it the newest hotel to open on the Strip since Cosmopolitan in 2010. The exterior of Resorts World looks very similar to Encore and Wynn, with a fan-shaped design. The complex includes three hotels—Hilton, Conrad, and Crockfords—each with its own lobby and guest elevators. There is also a full casino, along with plenty of dining and shopping options. When I visited in early December, some facilities were still not fully completed, and parking was temporarily free.

Stay Details

For the Conrad stay, I booked through the AMEX Platinum card’s FHR benefits. Since the Platinum card comes with a $200 hotel credit, I went ahead and booked a Strip View room, though the resort fee still had to be paid separately at the hotel. At check-in, I used my Aspire card for the deposit. The front desk proactively mentioned the room upgrade benefits available through both FHR and Hilton elite status, but also explained that the Strip View room was already the best room category available, so no upgrade was possible. It seems that if you want to move up to a suite, you either need extraordinary luck or need to talk with a manager in advance.

For Crockfords, I used a Hilton weekend free night certificate, which waived the resort fee, and again used my Aspire card.

FHR and Hilton Elite Benefits

The FHR benefits at Conrad were quite good. For 2 guests, they included a $125 food-and-beverage credit (with a few minor restrictions; see the asterisked note at the bottom of the image below for details) , a $66 breakfast credit (usable only at the Kitchen, at any time of day, not limited to breakfast hours) , 2 welcome drinks, free wifi (since wifi was already free, they instead applied a $5 offset toward the resort fee) , noon check-in, and 4 p.m. checkout. In addition, Hilton elites receive a $50 breakfast credit, usable only at Suns Out Buns Out and the Kitchen, and likewise not limited to breakfast hours.

At Crockfords, the $50 elite credit could also be used for room service in addition to Suns Out Buns Out and the Kitchen, though gratuity was not included.

Rooms

Conrad

Overall, I was pretty disappointed. Other than the artwork on the wall, it did not feel like a Conrad at all.

A number of details also suggested a lack of care in service: of the six bulbs in the floor lamp by the window, three were out; there was no coffee machine (I had seen other reviews before where one was provided, though without cups) ; the shampoo bottle in the bathroom ran empty after just one pump; the TV cabinet surface had very obvious scratches and chipped paint; and in the middle of the night, the ceiling light suddenly turned on by itself—twice.

Crockfords

Crockfords was clearly much better than Conrad in both hardware and service. I’m not sure whether they intentionally stripped things back at Conrad just to make Crockfords stand out more. The day before, I had been complaining that a newly opened upscale hotel in June still required manually operated curtains at Conrad; the next day I found that Crockfords had buttons for automatic curtain controls. The day before, I had also complained that Conrad had even removed the coffee machine; the next day I found that Crockfords did indeed provide one—and it was a Nespresso. Crockfords also provides a brass key as a souvenir, which was a nice touch. The only hardware aspect where Crockfords fell short of Conrad was the shower: because of space constraints, Conrad had an overhead rainfall shower, while Crockfords used a traditional wall-mounted one.

Amenities

Gym

The gym was genuinely impressive (forgive me—I had mostly been going to 24 Hour Fitness before, so my frame of reference was limited) . My husband’s exact words were: “If you stay here and don’t work out at least once, it almost feels like a waste.”

Pool

Possibly because of the season, not many guests were using the pool, so most of the pools were closed, including the infinity pool. Only a small section near the Hilton/Crockfords side was open, and getting there from Conrad meant walking across the entire pool complex.

You don’t need to tap a room key to get to the gym or pool floors. When we went in and out of both areas, no hotel staff asked for our room number or requested to see a key card either. (To be fair, they were very polite and greeted us, asking whether we needed towels and the like.) I’m not sure whether this was a management oversight or whether they were simply very generous and open to non-hotel guests as well.

Restaurants

Resort World has a ton of dining options. This time, we only checked out Fuhu, Suns Out Buns Out, The Kitchen, the food street, and room service.

Fuhu

The cherry blossom tree design at the entrance is very eye-catching. Once you walk in, the bar area has crystal chandelier decor like an upscale Western restaurant. Farther inside, there’s a somewhat random hippie-style LED tiger wall, and the two dining areas on either side use Chinese arched doorways, lantern-style ceiling lights, and bamboo-forest tiger murals. It’s definitely quite the fusion.

It wasn’t until after we ordered, when the server brought out the tableware, that we noticed the logo and realized Fuhu is actually the pinyin for the Chinese words “福虎.” That finally explained why that slightly out-of-place LED tiger was there.

For mains, we ordered the lobster noodles and the lamb chops. The food was quite good, and we were very satisfied with the meal.

Suns Out Buns Out

A very cute restaurant that mainly serves brunch. Be sure to check the hours so you don’t miss it. We ordered a sandwich, and it was pretty good. Compared with The Kitchen, I’d recommend coming here for breakfast instead.

The Kitchen

The Kitchen is open 24 hours and offers both buffet and à la carte service. The buffet area is inside the white partitioned space shown below. We watched for a bit and noticed that very few people were choosing the buffet, so it felt like the dishes probably weren’t being refreshed very often. Because of that, we also went with à la carte. Service was a bit slow; the three dishes took about 40 minutes to arrive. Portions were generous, though. Aside from the steak, whose texture was so dense that I could barely swallow it, the other two dishes were fine.

Food Street

The food street is probably Resort World’s most photogenic dining feature, and it really is distinctive. With its brick-and-stone pathways, it recreates the feel of an old town almost perfectly. We tried the roast duck rice and Hainanese chicken rice; both were quite authentic, and the prices were reasonable too.

Room Service

We ordered to make use of the $50 credit, and they brought in the food on one giant round tray. After we finished, we just called room service to come take it away.

Summary

Overall, the stay was pretty good, especially at Croakfords. Combined with FHR and elite benefits, eating and drinking well was not a problem at all. If you have the Aspire card, this is also one of the best places to burn the $250 credit. The hotel also isn’t fully up and running yet and still seems to be in a shakedown period, so hopefully some of the issues we ran into at Conrad will improve as operations mature.