I am spending tonight at the Tropicana for a story for Las Vegas Weekly and to see Folies Bergere for the Buffet.  The bankrupt casino is sure letting customers feel the pinch of its reduced workforce. Wednesday is one of the slowest nights of the week in Vegas and it still took an hour of waiting in line to check in. To make matters more frustrating, there were plenty more check-in windows available -- more space closed than open, in fact. There were just not enough employees to check guests into their rooms. This was similar to the wait I had at Luxor on New Year's Eve. But again, this is a typical Wednesday afternoon. The wait should have been five minutes. Most resorts want their customers gambling and not waiting to check in for their first hour on property. But Tropicana does not have enough staff working up front to make that practical today.

As soon as I checked into my room, I went to examine the escalator that leads to Bodies: The Exhibition. When I visited Tropicana back in December for the Buffet to check on conditions here (after I had heard some horror stories),  I wrote about how that key escalator to Bodies was broken.

I was curious, with all these months to work on fixing this escalator since December, if I would find the repair finally completed. After all, an escalator allowed to sit around broken endlessly says something about the care and money being put into a property. Sure enough, the escalator is still out of order and has even grown some advertising. There is a sign offering a line pass where people should be entering to take the escalator down to the exhibit. Any surprise Bodies is moving to the Luxor?

And, I wonder, after a vacation spent dealing with out-of-order escalators and waiting in lines, how long it will be before customers decide that a discount room at the Tropicana has too many discomforts to still be a bargain? (Photo by Richard Abowitz)