Tropicana Express - Laughlin, Nevada - Luxury Hotel and Casino on the Colorado River

With casino resorts changing owners as frequently as Katy Perry changes clothes, it's no surprise that the class of the casino hotels in Laughlin, NV - the Tropicana Express - has come some distance since it was known as the Ramada. Some places that advertised themselves as "the best in Laughlin'' could not help disappoint. But at $19.99 a night the Tropicana's rooms offer so much more luxury than rooms of the other resorts along the Colorado River, that one only wonders why anybody would stay anywhere else. The other hotels' rooms look like your typical Holiday Inn's. The Tropicana's rooms boast beds with Dynasty mattresses, 300-thread count sheets, and mounds of pillows; its bathrooms boast granite countertops; and its windows boast plantation shutters.

The Tropicana's restaurants are a cut above the competition's as well. You can't escape a buffet at the Tropicana, but you won't find a Burger King here either. Instead, the hotel offers an excellent steakhouse, good Italian and Mexican restaurants, and decent diner fare among the menus at its five restaurants. Bars, of course, are everywhere. The entertainment, with such acts as Los Lonely Boys in its 9,000 square foot facility, is a step above the competition's. Even the shopping is better here, with such stores as The Boutique, The WOW Store (for Wonderful, Outrageous, and Wacky gifts), a gift shop, a smoke shop, and a shop where you can buy toothpaste.

Every resort needs a theme of course, and the theme of the Tropicana is trains. An old steam engine will pull you around the Tropicana's 27-acre estate; train memorabilia are on display; one of the bars, which is train-themed, is naturally enough called the Caboose.

Oh - and you can gamble at the Tropicana too, at one of the more than 1,000 slot and video poker games, or at the tables set up for the usual array of games, including blackjack, craps, roulette, Ultimate Texas Hold `em, Let it Ride, Three Card Poker, and Wild Hold `em Fold `em. They hold poker tournaments, such as No Limit Thursday Night, and, every Saturday, The Bounty Hunter, where ten hardy souls can start playing Texas Hold `Em as early as 8:00 in the morning, and work off last night's hangover over a hearty breakfast, while sitting in the middle of the Colorado River.

As with any hotel, reviews of the Tropicana are a mixed bag, ranging from complaints of bedbugs to grumbles about not getting requested rooms. Even so, the consensus of visitors is on having had a very positive experience. One will probably find, as one guest did following a week spent at another of Laughlin's hotels, "After the train wreck of staying at the Golden Nugget, this place was a breath of fresh air.''