Latest Excalibur Rooms Reviews – my Excalibur Trips
Latest Excalibur Rooms Reviews. All we needed to know about Excalibur before booking, with a quick update summary to star with (but scroll down for the experience!):
The New Royal Tower Rooms at Excalibur (Latest Excalibur Rooms Reviews)
formerly in Tower 1 (nor called Royal Tower), these rooms have been ‘refreshed’ and are now much better; their mattresses are now pillow-top (much more comfortable), they have added good quality flat screen TVs with good sound (though still no HD channels) and they have even made the adjustments to the table lamp (the one we kept banging our heads on). 
They also changed the room carpet to a good quality one and, above all, on our last visit the room was exceptionally clean. They are the same size as the ‘older’ rooms and the amenities are more or less the same; the bathroom still has no bath tub (but the shower cubicles are all comfortably large at this affordable resort); basically, the main change is in the decor, which completely detaches itself from the other rooms: it’s modern and very colorful; the dreaded lamp hanging from the ceiling (where I hit my head far too many times). The dreaded dark blanked of the standard Resort rooms has disappeared and now the beds look contemporary. Then there are some modern-remodeled rooms, still in the Royal Tower, where you will enjoy as I said a more modern feel altogether. It’s not the Encore but when I stayed there I felt it was well worth the upgrade; I had a great sleep on those brand new beds. I suspect the Royal tower is now the ‘cool’ tower to be in at Excalibur but: it’s still the tower far away from the pool, the gym and the spa.
Resort Tower Rooms at Excalibur (as part of our Latest Excalibur Rooms Reviews)
Since the changes in the other tower, these rooms may now be the ‘older decor’ room; however, their granite-countertop bathrooms is beautiful and their tower location is still the best: the Resort Tower is more convenient since the pool area, the spa and the (good) gym are at its base, while if you stay in the Royal Tower you will have to cross the whole casino. However, if noise is an issue, we found the Resort Tower much noisier IF your room overlooks the noisy pool, where the music starts as early as 8am at times! In the Resort Tower you could ask for a quieter room (relatively speaking) but you may be given a ‘court room’ which, if you are not on the highest floors, will be fun for kids (given that you can see the colorful Disney-esque tower from these rooms) but you may dislike the view of the casino roof. As per the
Excalibur Upgrades (part of our Latest Excalibur Rooms Reviews)
This resort tends to advertise the lowest rate, which is exceptionally low for the Strip (then you have to add the dreaded resort fee and taxes); at check in, however, you will often be told that you can upgrade for 15+ dollars per night (depending on your choice); with the new ‘Royal Rooms’ you will now have yet another upgrade choice. You may end up paying much more than expected originally (so do your math before jumping into it); it’s worth it if you plan to gamble at Excalibur and ask for a charge refund at the end of your stay. I explain this in detail on how to get free stuff in Vegas.
Food Credits at Excalibur (Latest Excalibur Rooms Reviews)
Any food & drinks credit you may see advertised as a special booking deal; ours was pathetic; it came with limitations on where and how we could redeem the offer: in the end, it was so limiting that we gave up. It was good for the bar near registration (except for the small print stating that taxes are extra!), and a few other places (mostly with the purchase of something else), but not good for their buffet (!) or Starbucks or anywhere where you would probably want to buy food. On our latest trip, on the other hand, the resort credit meant food & beverage credit from only 2 outlets, one of them being the (not so good) buffet. More on this on our Resort Credits Beware page.
Latest Excalibur Rooms Reviews: why we review this resort so often: it’s where we always stay at some point of our Las Vegas stay, which is often weeks long. This because we like to change, we like its very good gym (good quality equipment and spacious overall, with plenty of options) and of course because sometimes the hotel rooms (or hotel suite) deals are too good to miss. We have most often stayed fully ‘comped’ or we have stayed at incredibly low prices for the Strip (low season you could book directly for only around 30 dollars per night). We don’t like to pay much for the room because of the dreaded ‘resort fee’, since it all ads up :). We also find that Excalibur is now very generous with casino play vs comped fees. We discuss this on the page Best Rewards for Gambling on the Vegas Strip . Let’s continue with our Latest Excalibur Rooms Reviews:
The experience as you enter this resort (as part of our Latest Excalibur Rooms Reviews inside and outside): Excalibur has a long pathway to the entrance which, in the middle, has an automated walkway, which is to be avoided if you are in a rush (people just stand on it as if moving had just been outlawed) but is handy if you have walking disabilities (or are just plain lazy). As you go through its final glass doors you will meet a ‘carnival-esque’ version of a medieval castle; I remember I loved it the first time I saw it, and I only wished the theme had been exploited and extended even further. I think if you are very young or if it’s your first time in Vegas you’ll still like it; you may notice some ‘irritants’ such as the ever-present timeshare sales reps who seem to have set up camp on that resort. You just to ignore them and walk away, but they are everywhere. Some of them offer free buffets but it’s up to you if you want to sit at a timeshare presentation for them (click on the underlined words if you want to read more). There used to be a strange ‘odor’ pervading Excalibur but this problems seems to have been completely resolved, thankfully.
The absolutely ridiculously loud noises & the semi-naked dancers on top of some scattered tables seem to have gone, but maybe it was because we visited during the week and not during a ‘hot’ weekend.
Aside for those ‘irritants’ (but then some say ‘what do you expect for 30+ – and resort fee! – dollars per night?’ – however, let’s not forget that not everybody can find this type of great hotel deal), after you’ve avoided the timeshare sales rep (some of them may offer some good ‘freebie’, read about it on our page ‘how to get free stuff in Vegas’) you’ll probably experience a long check in line up, unless of course you are willing to pay the pesky early check in fees and beat the crowds; however, Excalibur often has many check in desks open so it’s relatively quick, though not quick enough sometimes. We used to go through a ritual of being assigned a bad room, returning to check in, complain and, after some insistence, being given a slightly better room (this experience does not take place when we are ‘comped’, in which case we are treated as VIP guests and given the best rooms in a specific price range – you can read more on this on the page ‘how to get comped’ in Vegas’). However, since that all Royal Tower rooms have now been updated (good new carpets, great mattresses, new TVs though now HD channels yet) and their bathrooms, though not updated, are very clean and spacious, on our last trip we felt no need to complain. What a relief! Let’s continue with our Latest Excalibur Rooms Reviews:
The officially remodeled rooms, which are in the Royal Tower (but this changes as they keep remodeling one tower alternatively), do vary in comfort and quality of decor; some of them are still relatively basic (with a flat screen TV and basic channels) and nothing fancy. Many of them still have that annoying tiny table in a corner and, to make matters worse, a hanging ceiling lamp where we’d always bang our head as we sat down by that not-so-comfortable table. To be fair, during my most recent visit this lamp was raised enough to avoid banging one’s head on it.
They used to offer a ridiculously low number of channels you could watch from your room TV: so few that we often opted to view their movie trailers over and over and… Over again. Lately their large flat screen TV had now been upgraded with a better channel package and I could enjoy a small number of my favorite stations. All they need to do now is offer HD.
But what is the area outside the rooms at Excalibur like?
The corridors used to be dirty and room service food trays used to fester for days but lately things have improved dramatically. I had no such problems on my last visit. It remains to be seen if they can keep this up, especially during high-traffic periods or over weekends.
The second, huge problem that we used to find in the Excalibur corridors, towers and room (and elevators) was smoking (if you are a smoker, bear with me). It may sound unfair to blame the resort for people smoking everywhere, even when it’s strictly forbidden (such as in elevators, outside the elevators and in non-smoking floors); to a point, it is; however, the lack of action after a complaint (for example, if you smell heavy smoke from a room in a non-smoking floor) was very disappointing. We had to be very insistent but even then it was a struggle. During our last visit we did not encounter any of those problems, luckily. I don’t know if it’s because Excalibur are being more ‘watchful’ or because more guests have decided that their health is important…
This paragraph is for Canadian or European readers, who may expect a smoke-free environment (if you are from the US, please skip to the next paragraph!). I don’t know if Vegas resorts have done the math and concluded that inconveniencing their non-smoking guests is the best option; but I think that fear of loss of business drives them to side with smokers. This is sad because, coming from areas where casinos are all non-smoking, we have witnessed the same high number of visitors and gamblers; I think it’s a fallacy to assume that, if non-smokers were better served in Vegas resorts, business would decrease. A bad mistake: we have often just ran outside to catch some smoke-less breath and decided, for that very reason, to stop gambling. In this aspect, Excalibur is quite bad, for the reasons highlighted above and, in our opinion, for an overall lack of proper ventilation/filtering; basically if you have smoke everywhere, there must be ways to make sure it does not affect everybody. Having said this, there are sadly even worse resorts in Vegas with regards to smoking. Flamingo is pretty bad in this aspect. Higher-end resorts have much less of this problem, for a variety of reasons, of course.
Safe: all their rooms now have a safe. It’s not huge but you can fit a laptop. Let’s continue with our Latest Excalibur Rooms Reviews:
Ok, so you’ve somehow settled in your room, dodged the timeshare staff and may now be heading for one of the strengths of Excalibur: the gym and, to a lesser extent, its pool areas . The gym is probably one of the main reasons why we keep going to Excalibur: for a tolerable resort fee (these resort fees on the Strip are getting out of control) we can enjoy their beautiful gym; no, it’s not as fantastic as the gym at Bellagio, but they have all one would need, from a variety of good quality cardio machines to a good number of good quality weight machines and, delightfully, both back and abdominal benches. The equipment itself is good quality, something you don’t usually find in the cheaper resorts in Las Vegas (with the exception of the Orleans). If you use the Excalibur gym you will be able to do a proper work out and this is not easy to achieve in many Vegas resorts, where they often have some ‘sort of gym’ but nowhere near what any professional (or anybody who’s serious about working out) would require. Because of our needs, we have researched the best Vegas resort gyms and Excalibur’s features on the list.
The pool areas are probably among the largest of any Vegas resort, though they did not try to make them ‘pretty’ or ‘tropical’ like – for example – the magnificent pool area at Mirage. You will enjoy a large, main pool and several peripheral pools, including a children’s pool area with small water rides. One of the pool areas is framed by a nice waterfall, which is big enough to cover unpleasant noises and imagine that you are in a tropical island; significantly, it’s where most people tend to gravitate towards and it’s not easy to find a spot here. Unfortunately, they have now made this area a VIP area only, which is frustrating and unfair. We have a photo of the whole Excalibur pool area on our Best Vegas Pools page.
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