River Palms Resort Casino - Laughlin, Nevada - Casino Hotel With a Pirate Theme

A theme of pirates, parrots, and shipwrecks distinguishes the 25-story, 1,000 room River Palms Resort Casino from each of the other nine casino hotels that line the banks of the Colorado River in Laughlin, NV. Room rates starting at $19.99, and the rooms themselves being nicely - if not luxuriously - appointed, give the Palms a character that's a step up from the middle-of-the-road Holiday-Inn-style range of most hotels in town. Its gaming room - what people have called the "best casino in Laughlin'' - offers the usual range of slot machines and such games as craps, roulette, and blackjack, as well as the usual variety of poker games, from Texas Hold `Em to Seven Card Stud.

The restaurants at the River Palms are also a cut above the average. Here you can dine in style at The Lodge, whose "mountain retreat atmosphere'' will compliment your lobster tails (Twin lobster tail special, $19.99 with a River Palms Player's Card). There, at the River Palms Caf,, you can satisfy your hunger 24 hours a day with pizzas, Italian salads, bread sticks, and all-you-can-eat pasta. A third restaurant, the Island Buffet is a place that offers a spread from its seafood bar, as well as its "Live Action Seafood Saut, Station!'', where, for $9.99 with a River Palms Player's Club card, you can enjoy its special "Seafood and Prime Rib Buffet.'' There's even a Java Joes on the third floor, hard by Sammy's Comedy By The Shore.

Bars and cocktail lounges at the River Palms are as numerous as they are inventively coordinated with the pirate theme. At the Bermuda Club you can bet on the games by day and, by night, play video poker while catching a live rock-and-roll act. At the Lodge lounge you can drink 30-year-old Scotch. At the Shipwrecked Bar, under the glow of theatrical stagelighting, you can watch the Colorado River moving by. At the Parrot Bay Bar the bartenders are said to be as friendly as the poker machines. At the Pirate's Cove bar you can watch the action on the casino floor.

As with all hotels, reviews of the River Palms are mixed. Some call its staff the "friendliest.'' Some say "Stay here and get robbed'' (one couple claims to have been literally robbed while they slept, and found the staff without "sympathy or empathy''). Some found that it had a "relaxing atmosphere and perfect service,'' or that it was "best Casino Hotel in Laughlin, or "very nice;'' while disappointed guests found the rooms "dirty,'' the service "poor,'' or they found broken locks, and dirty towels in the toilet.

In the end, one suspects that as with most other hotels in Laughlin, the quality of a guest's visit will be a crap shoot.