from another visitor's perspective - trip post:
Bad News @ Harrah's Laughlin
Sun Nov 16, 2008 1:25 pm (PST)
ML and I just returned from a junket to HL. The bad news there lurks
on just about every front. Staffing cutbacks are obvious at every
turn and, consequently, service has slipped. We felt sorry for the
employees who seek to do their very best in face of difficult
circumstances. One obvious for instance is the coffee shop where
there are few servers and table cleaners who are doing great work
attempting to keep up with far too many tables. In fact, the host
(ess) tries to avoid seating anyone in any area but the center room
for as long as possible.
The gaming floor is similar with too few bartenders, cocktail
waitresses, and table dealers. In fact, way too many tables are just
not operating at all. A nice even dozen dealers were let go just
last Thursday. And the Diamond Lounge has even shorter hours, fewer
staff on duty at any one time (hours cut), and so on.
But the really bad news is in the reduction of Bonus RC's for your
play. In the past, we have never failed to earn in the range of 2 to
3 Bonus RCs for every Base RC which, for us, made the trip cross
country to HL worthwhile. This trip saw a dramatic difference from
our results on our trip last July. One example will suffice. On our
last day of this trip, I earned 4455 Base RCs. My Bonus RCs on that
play were 4263, an earn rate of less than 1 for 1.
I called a floor supervisor over because I was thinking that perhaps
there was some kind of computer problem, but he confirmed that
machines seemed to be rewarding fewer bonus points than usual. He
told me that I wasn't the first to complain. So I thanked him for
his info and requested that at the next meeting with his bosses he
might want to mention that players like us wouldn't be back. I can
get better results from the same non-100% games right here in my own
backyard. I also suggested that HL might want to re-think the
strategy to fix/survive the downturn by offending their better
players. It puzzles me that Management must believe that saving the
day will involve cutting player benefits. Didn't any of them attend
business school?
In truth, though, we have re-thought the proposition. As long as
River Palms, just a fifteen minute stroll away, continues to offer
fpdw along with .2 cb, I suppose we can put up with the long flight,
take our suite at HL, give them minimal (for us) play, and spend the
balance of the day at RP instead of HL. We';ll even take a room over
there so we'll have somewhere to rest between greuling sessions.
We'll also eat there where our two egg breakfast will cost us $1.22
instead of the 8.99 HL charges. See, we'll be helping out at HL by
reducing the strain on their dining facilites. 
ML and P.