Friday 31 October 2008

Big Surprise: Toilets at Paris Hotel and Casino Cleaner Than Most Actual Parisian Toilets

Paris Las Vegas Hotel and Casino
3655 Las Vegas Blvd South
Las Vegas, NV USA
www.parislasvegas.com

Where is it?

This casino is large, though it's not nearly as large as some of the other mammoth complexes on the Strip, like the Venetian, Wynn and Caesar's Palace, to name a few. As such, getting to the bathroom from the main entrance here doesn't take nearly as long as it would at those other places.

In fact, here you just step inside, walk past the table games of the casino and head south (to the right) towards the hotel's buffet. Once past the casino, look for the "Théâtre des Arts" (or Theater of the Arts, where the Anthony Cools hypnotist show is playing). Once you find the theater, head past the ticket office to the hallway just beyond it. Go down that hallway and you'll find the restrooms.

What's it like?

As with many other Vegas bathrooms, the ones here evoke the theme of their host casino -- except whereas the Venetian and Caesar's Palace toilets stopped short of fully wowing visitors with their thematic decor, the one here goes that extra mile in bringing the thematic vision into reality.

This place has art nouveau written all over it, best seen in the elegant white tile work on the walls, which proves instantly reminiscent of the tile you'll find in the Paris Metro stations, and the intricately designed sinks, which look like they were stripped directly from the imagination of Antonio Gaudi.

Other art nouveau highlights include the dark wood stall tools at the front of the toilet stalls and the overall cavernous feel of the place, which may just be the truest mimicry of what actual mass-market Parisian toilets are like. (Notice that I say "mass market," not "all," because I've been to some wonderful toilets inside Parisian cafes.)

Except, of course, that this place is about 10 times as clean as those mass market toilets. And it has a shoe shine guy at the entrance, as a sort of impulse buy when you're leaving. (He was busy when I passed, so certainly the tactic is working.)

The setup, as stated, is cavernous. You enter and to your immediate left are the sink stations and vanities. These sinks are beautiful -- pedestal sinks that have chic blues, whites and greens worked into their porcelain design. And with automatic soap and water faucets built into them -- which sounds like it would look awkward but somehow just works fine.

Decorative tile work lines the walls behind the sink pedestals -- white tile with highlight lines of blue patterned tile separating each sink area. Gold-framed personalized mirrors hang above each sink.

Further in, you'll find a urinal chamber with about 15 units here, each white porcelain and in true European fashion they have no privacy barriers between them. Oddly enough, the baby changing station is at the very back of this area -- seems like it should go elsewhere.

The back wall is lined with toilet stalls, also about 10 to 15 in all. They have heavy wood doors with frosted glass before them, which kind of makes them feel like you're looking at individualized train compartment doors (or doors to bordello rooms?) -- something I liked. Tiled walls form the sides of the stalls, and both the walls and door go to the floor, offering maximum privacy. The toilets are white porcelain and nothing remarkable, however.

Of course, this is a busy bathroom -- especially when the nearby show lets out -- and the tile work also serves to accentuate the noise factor some, so it's not necessarily the quietest place to make a pit stop.

But the spot is clean and avoids the heavy urine stink that tends to fill most of the mass-market Parisian bathrooms I've been in (I'm looking at you, Museum l'Orangie). But if you can look past that, the wonderful decor will more than make up for those misgivings.

Marks out of 10:

9. Almost a 10, were it not for the noise factor -- the Wynn, our current Vegas leader, manages to cover up the noise in its wonderful toilet, so why not here?

Comments to the Management:

Hard to make the place quieter since it's a very busy toilet, so I'm not sure what else to recommend here outside of moving that baby changing station elsewhere. Otherwise, keep up the great work -- you've got an excellent toilet here.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

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http://www.paris.pause-pipi.fr