Colorado Belle - Laughlin, Nevada - Casino Hotel With a Mississippi Riverboat Theme

As themes for casino resorts go, the Mississippi Riverboat doesn't qualify as anything original. Still, the Colorado Belle Casino Hotel, in Laughlin, NV, does a surprisingly good job of carrying it off. Though it sits among nine other casinos that line the Colorado River there, the Belle is built to look as if a real riverboat had grounded on Laughlin's shores. The floors of its casinos are known as "decks.'' Its games are "Captain's table games.'' Its entertainment is Dixieland jazz. Its restaurants have names like the Boiler Room. With its cheapest rooms starting at $15.99, Mark Twain could probably have afforded the Colorado Belle.

Aside from the riverboat theme, everything at the Belle is pretty standard fare. Though its casino, at 65,000 square feet, is among the largest in Laughlin, the games are the same that you'll find anywhere else: reel and video slots; video poker; video keno; nickel games including Game Maker and Game King; craps, roulette, and blackjack; and poker of all varieties: Texas Hold `em, Omaha; and 7-card stud. As with the Belle's sister hotel, the Edgewater, the riverboat offers cash bonuses for Royal and straight flushes, four-of-a-kind, and pocket aces.

The rooms at the Belle are un-themed, and furnished in the style of a Holiday Inn. The restaurants, though, are another matter. Besides the Boiler Room (a brew pub with pizza and burgers), one can dine at a barbecue restaurant called - what else? - Mark Twain's. If Italian food is to your liking, you can eat at Carmella's. And where would a self-respecting casino hotel be without its buffet? The Belle's Captain's Buffet has what it calls "Exhibition Style'' cooking, as well as champagne brunches and dinners and a Friday night seafood special. And when, finally, you're ready for casual dining, you can eat affordably at the Paddlewheel.

For entertainment, the Colorado Belle provides two Dixieland bands: in the afternoon, the Dixie Boys; at night, the Dixie River Band. For floorshows it sends its guests next door to the Edgewater, to hear various bands playing tributes to the likes of Jimmy Buffet, Tom Petty, the Rolling Stones, and Bob Seger. Then too, the Belle's history will offer a diversion for the curious, who might like to wander about the hotel's third floor to figure out in which room a former New Jersey prosecutor, fleeing a prison sentence for corruption and fraud, shot himself to death.

Suicides aside, visitors to the Colorado Belle have offered less than ringing endorsements. Though many would go back for the "nice casino,'' the "kind staff,'' the "good service,'' and the "clean and comfortable'' rooms,'' just as many guests have complained of the rooms looking "dirty,'' of the beds and mattresses being "soiled,'' of poor restaurant service and frozen mashed potatoes, and of "old-fashioned'' T.V.s.

Still, as with the resort's sister hotel next door, the price is right at the Colorado Belle. At $15.99 a night, it would almost pay to move into the place.