Ready to Rock
- May 2
- 2 min read
The Off-Strip Resort that Optimizes the Family Experience
Take the Sin out of the City and you might arrive somewhere like the subtle contours of the Red Rock Casino & Resort. Shrouded in granite some fifteen miles westward from the strip (Summerlin South, Nevada), the Red Rock may be Vegas’ perfect concoction of a PG-rated gaming venue. Remove the electric sizzle, showman’s dazzle, and late-night debauchery and the Red Rock delivers a family-style backdrop for gaming fanatics of all levels and restrictions.
While you’re anteing, spinning, and shooting dice, the 60-acre multiplex provides a vast smorgasbord of amusement options for the non-gambling family members: an elaborate spa, a state-of-the-art movie theater, full-glow bowling alley, lively arcade, a slew of top-notch eateries, and a doozy of a swimming pool.
But keeping it real, your prime business with the Red Rock is its casino, which serves up a modest 62 tables against its myriad 3,200 slot machines. An adjacent poker room houses a total twenty tables while the sports book section divvies up over 200 seats and three jumbo televisions airing the day’s hottest affairs.
One upside to the Red Rock experience is the geniality of its staff, be it the dealers, box men, pit bosses, and even security personnel. Each guest is received with the utmost appreciation and hospitality. Furthermore, the locale, which was launched in the springtime of 2006, remains highly immaculate and welcoming for its visiting patrons.
That said, we at chipster found the gaming floor and surrounding ambiance to be oddly lacking of the Vegas flavor. With its bland, unremarkable décor, it may as well been situated in Iowa or Minnesota, not the epicenter of the gambling industry. And its blandness carries into the overall feel of the casino, which lacks the vibrancy of Glitter Gulch or Las Vegas Boulevard.
Although the drink service oftentimes lacked in expedience, a few rowdy intoxicants infiltrated the table area during chipster’s last visit, escalating into security intervention. And whereas a bad roll on the strip can easily be remedied at a neighboring casino, we found ourselves at the mercy of the Red Rock’s current juju.
Taking a hiatus from the table action, chipster ventured into the slots section, which included a disproportionate amount of video poker machines. Nonetheless, we spun bandits into the wee hours, our hearts sometimes fifteen miles yonder on the strip.
The Call: Despite the undeniable warmth from its staff, the Red Rock lacked the charm and buzz of the city’s iconic gaming houses. While an excellent option for family amusement, Red Rock Casino left us slightly underwhelmed.
