"Encore: bed bugs, filthy and family unfriendly" Las Vegas by kbc425

My husband and I went to Las Vegas this week for a medical conference. Our twin 16-month-old boys, my mother and sister accompanied us. We booked two adjoining panoramic king suites and requested two cribs and two high chairs. They were not ready for us when we went up to the room, and the lady from housekeeping was nasty and said it was our fault that we didn't make sure the room had those before we came up. When the cribs and high chairs came, they were filthy. We needed a place to let our boys sleep and had to scrub the cribs clean with baby wipes as best we could. We sent the high chairs back and asked for a clean pair. The high chairs that came were filthy as well. They also told us that my diabetic mother would have to pay $25 a day for a fridge for her insulin. We spoke to the housekeeping manager and hoped that would be the end of it. For our ordeal, the hotel manager told us he had comped four buffets to our reservation. More on that later.

It was after our second night there that we discovered that my mother and sister's room had bed bugs. The hotel manager Anders Tystad initially denied it and then brought up a bed bug sniffing dog that resides at Wynn/ Encore full time. They would not let us stay in our rooms while the dog did the sniffing. We were then told that my mother's suitcase in her room was specifically targeted by the dog. Interestingly, the dog's caretaker, the person who directly witnessed the whole bed bug sniffing process in our rooms said that the dog identified the entire closet area as a hot spot, not my mother's suitcase. But of course, the manager Mr. Tystad chose to blame us directly. They were very accusatory and told us that we had brought the bed bugs in and that the fact that we were from Cleveland made it even more likely. Everything in our room was cleared completely. Considering that our bags came from the same house, our clothes were stored and packed together and we travelled together, that was a little hard to swallow.

They moved us to different rooms and would not let us have access to any of our luggage or personal items. It took us hours to get our luggage sent up even though we had babies who needed their basic items. They would not transport my mother's insulin up and kept passing the blame as to who was supposed to bring it up. While they blamed each other, my diabetic mother spent hours without her insulin. Some of our luggage was lost and took a while to track down.

If that wasn't enough, Wynn and Encore are extrememly family unfriendly hotels. Children under the age of five are only allowed into a handful of restaurants. We have travelled extensively with our boys and have never felt so restricted and ostracized by a hotel. As for the free buffet, it was awful. This was a very lack lustre and disappointing excuse of a buffet with lukewarm and cold, tasteless food without the selection we are used to having at other Vegas hotels.

Furthermore, this is Vegas and you expect smoking but this is a very poorly ventilated set of properties. We stay at MGM properties (mainly The Hotel and Mandalay Bay) and have never had that problem.

We will never go back to Encore or Wynn given the bed bugs, lack of cleanliness, family unfriendly policies, lousy food and last but not least, the manager Anders Tystad.