If you haven't been to Laughlin, you ought to plan a trip. One night or two is all you'll need, because the entire town is awful small and you can see most of all you'll want to see within a half an hour or so.

Its' claim to fame is that it's on the river, and sure enough it is! The Colorado glides right by every window in every hotel room and every casino except for a couple across the street that has a choo-choo train instead.

If you want to spend some time swimming in the Colorado, your best bet is to bunk down at Harrah's on the southern end. There's a beach there and a protected spot to enjoy the river without being carried off downstream into Mexico if it ever even gets that far anymore.

You can rent a Ski-Doo and ski-doo your day away, or take a speed boat trip down stream to see the London Bridge.

Or if golf is more your style, you can fight the heat on a beautiful course that offers spots of green here and there between major expanses of desert sand.

The hotel-casinos are nothing to write home about but they are very comfortable and inexpensive, but I never found a dollar Blackjack table or 25 cent Craps in the whole of town. I think they made an error there.

I don't complain much, but if I was forced to do so, my major complaint about Laughlin is that no one ever planned or contemplated the construction of a River Walk from one end of town to the other.

You can walk along the river for a brief few moments but then you have to walk around a good sized hotel to search for the River Walk on the other side, and it's possible you just won't find it on the other side at all!

Someone messed up in that respect!

About five years ago, the riverside casinos used to offer commuter boat service from one side of the river (Arizona side had a very large parking lot)to each of the casinos on the Nevada side. That riverboat service was noticeably lacking the last time we were there.

Did you know that the Colorado River is controlled by a small dam just north of "town"? The river can be seen running swiftly past the casinos or at what appears to be a complete standstill.

I wonder who makes those decisions and why? It could be a 6 year old kid up the river just having fun with iron levers and metal valves while we do somewhat just the same in fancy casinos down the river.

You never know! You never know!


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will800

Will, when we visited the place I was not thrilled with it. But some of that was we where day trippers that drove our selves. So all I got was a lot of time spent driving to other casinos.
The 3 that stick out in my memory are
Harrahs, reason-sort of dumpy compared to other Harrah's.
Ramada, I liked the train idea and both inside & out. It was very clean inside as I recall too
The Riverside, a dump, it may have been what started it down there, but it sure was worn hard.

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Lee-PA
Moderator, What's New Forum
lee@talkvegas.com