Leading lights of the blog world were on hand for last night’s Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas coming-out party and had pretty divergent reactions. Steve Friess is keeping his opinion of the property to himself but he’s among those who are skeptical of the “curious class” concept outlined by CEO John Unwin. There seems to be more disagreement as to whether Cosmo is targeting the CityCenter customer or the Wynncore one, rather than whether this vast, untapped, new reservoir of consumer curiosity exists. He also has harsh words for the boosterish tendencies of local media. I can’t speak for myself but sometimes one is not so much “intoxicated by access” as just plain intoxicated. Judging by the free flow of comped booze last night, you’d think Prohibition had just been repealed.
Unlike yours truly, architecture buff Hunter Hillegas finds Cosmo’s rooms “drop dead gorgeous” and the views awe-inspiring. He’s comparably impressed with the user-friendly tech accoutrements, although I wish he hadn’t refrained from insinuating that Aria application into Cosmo’s guest-services iPads. Just for kicks, y’know. Lastly, he wonders whether Cosmo’s kick-back-and-relax lounges in its public areas will stimulate activity or simply become human parking lots. Hunter’s also created a must-see online photo gallery that shows how totally blinged-out and funktacular the Cosmo’s interior design and decoration are.
Then there’s the saga of Chuck Monster, a doleful arc chronicled in 10 blog postings to date. Mr. Monster begins with some trenchant observations about the resort, which “exudes a finish heretofore unseen in any casino I’ve ever stepped in.” He’s not buying that “curious class” jazz either, saying “the Cosmo is all about chicks,” offering several points that buttress his assertion. He then visited Cosmo’s Big Six wheel and stopped to take note of the craptastic new wrap on hollow Harmon Hotel, which looks pretty much like Chuck predicted it would. (“The center of Las Vegas is just around the corner” is corporate wishful thinking at its most Panglossian.)
Video poker paytables were submitted for our assessment. Chuck was enthused about the casino carpet, not least because “it doesn’t look like butterfly puke.” Feeling ambitious, he stitched together a photographic panorama of the view from a Cosmo “terrace” (“balcony” in non-Cosmo parlance). He shares my wife’s sky-high enthusiasm for the Strip-level Bond bar and its scintillating decor but was somewhat underwhelmed with the Cosmo’s arsenal of chips.
Then disaster struck. Chuck had to wait six hours to check into his room, an experience he found mortifying to say the least. He concluded that Cosmo is a “two-minute egg,” its staff congenial but inept and its “hotel operation is a nightmarish disaster of epic proportions. My suggestion to you is to come and take a look, but until they get this mess sorted, book somewhere else.” Cosmo employees had less than a fortnight of hands-on time with the property and it seems to have come back to bite them — or, more accurately, certain of their customers (and with only 300 hotel rooms to deploy on opening night, by some accounts).
Luckily, this seems to have been a relatively isolated incident, unlike the Global Gaming Expo-ending meltdown at Aria that saw its check-in/out system go FUBAR, with hundreds of customers mired in a queue that snaked all the way back onto the casino floor. (Unlike the Hotel California, you could neither check in nor out.) Unfortunately, that comparison would be cold comfort for Mr. Monster, I’m afraid.
