El Cortez Hotel and Casino

The housekeeping staff did a good job restocking the room each day.

I booked online, and was offered an upgrade to a "Cabana Suite" for a holiday weekend. Mia culpa, I did not do extensive research since I know that a cabana is usually poolside and a suite is usually a large hotel room with a sitting area as well as a sleeping area. The El Cortez Cabana Suites are neither. It's an older looking motel that has had the name El Cortez slapped on it. My room was no more than a Motel 6 hotel room: a king bed, a chair, a desk with one of those metal-and-vinyl chairs you see in schools or churches, a dresser that you couldn't access because the mini fridge prevented the sliding doors from opening on one side (where the drawers were). The bathroom did have a nice shower, as some pointed out, but the location was behind the parking structure for the actual El Cortez Hotel. There was a security guard outside the door because the neighborhood was more than a tad sketchy. We couldn't have guests without coming to the lobby to open the door for them - they wouldn't buzz in our friends. When checking in (with bags in hand) they made me fish out my room key before buzzing me into the lobby; it was not very welcoming. Yes, there is candy on the lobby desk, but the person sitting at the desk almost didn't smile once in three days. Often at night it was a security guard talking on her phone with friends and didn't even look up to acknowledge us. I felt cheated out of a promise made by the name of the hotel - if you're going to offer someone who starts to book a room in the casino tower a "cabana suite" as an alternative, then it better have a pool or be an actual suite. A renovated Super 8 Motel is NOT what I think of when I read "El Cortez Cabana Suites". Had this hotel been $50 a night, I would have been tipped off, but at almost $200 a night for the holiday weekend (including their nightly "Resort Fee"), I was expecting MUCH more.