Harrah’s Council Bluffs Hotel and Casino

Check in was easy no lines but early check in cost $20. Was not informed at check in there is no daily housekeeping service. If you wanted fresh towels or coffee you must call housekeeping. Buffet is closed. Only place to each was a 10 table cafe and the high priced steakhouse. The new owners have done a lot to bring down the overall appeal of Harrahs. There is also no valet and shuttle bus times cut in half. New owners are penny pinching rather than managing.

First Impressions are everything in my book and I will tell you Harrah's first Impression was Ew! Just as soon as you pull up you notice even the parking lot is nasty with uneven pavement, trash everywhere, grass grown in. The outside when walking up the pavement is cracked, the outside concrete is all chipped away, handrails rusted. People sitting outside looking like they have been hopped up on something and have no where to go. Rooms are outdated and they do smell like stale cigarettes (this is a non smoking room), but they do seem clean. There are no snack machines anywhere so forget getting food late at night. Also don't venture to casino at night, its pretty sketchy and someone followed my husband out to his car, but he was aware and came back in. On a positive note, the cafe in lobby the food is pretty decent and the prices are not bad. The staff seems friendly enough and there is a walking trail right outside that leads to the city. We did venture to Ameristar to check it out and man does it seem more clean and updated. The people in general are less trashy, casino is bigger and has more updated games. It just has a different feel that is hard to explain, just feels safer and just nicer. Ameristar also has a pool that Harrah's does not. I would say if you are torn, choose Ameristar I wish we did!

The rooms were outdated and you could hear everything from the room. We could hear people close their car door from the parking lot, the people next door coughing all night, a tv blaring and every time someone close used the shower or toilet we could hear it. The pillows were tiny, like less than half the size of regular pillows. The hand soap was cheap and left your hands feeling dirty. The room just had an overall grimy feel. The view from our room was a parking lot. There are 3 restaurants. 1 was only open from 11 am-2 pm. One costs about $40-$50 a person for just the meal and the other has very limited seating so it was a long wait. Paying $450 for 2 nights I expected a lot better room. We definitely won’t be going back to the hotel.

We spent a weekday night at Harrah's casino and hotel. The hotel room was clean and comfortable with king bed, 2 soft chairs, tv and fridge. The bathroom was nice but did not have a walkin shower. It die have a tub shower, and the exhaust fan was adequate to keep the mirror from fogging even with a long hot shower. We had not been there since it was Harvey's, which we really liked. It was very disappointing to find that the large casino had been reduced to only one deck on the boat and a total of 500 slots. The slots were generally tight, but I did have a few good hits. I really missed the great buffet they used to have, but most casinos have closed their buffets do to covid. There was a small cafe, but half of it was roped off, so even on a Tuesday night the wait was long to get seated. The limited menu was good, and the price was moderate. It listed breakfast all day, but did not open until 10:00 am. There was no place on the property to have breakfast before 10:00.

We arrived at 4:10 and our room WAS NOT READY! It was a Sunday evening and not busy. We had driven from Colorado - long way and really wanted to settle in our room. First we were told our room hadn't even been cleaned yet, then when the clerk realized how disappointed I was, she told us they had a room on the 8th floor clean but not inspected yet. I didn't feel that she was very people friendly, just went through the motions. We took that and 20 minutes later we finally got in our room. When I returned to get the room key, she didn't even acknowledge me, just handed me the room key! Our room was VERY very clean. I haven't seen a room that clean for some time. The remote was in a bag by itself. We had an amazing view of Omaha and the river - so pretty. The hallways were very clean as were the elevators. There was hand sanitizer EVERYWHERE. We ate at the restaurant on the first floor for dinner and breakfast. Both times it was excellent. They had breakfast sandwiches ready to go right away which we got. We had a breakfast croissant sandwich with scrambled eggs, bacon and cheese - it was big and very good. For dinner we had a pork sandwich and a club sandwich, we ordered them to go - it was very quick and the food was good - the pork sandwich was huge. The staff were very attentive and friendly. We went to the gaming floor for a little while. It did NOT have an overwhelming smell of smoke - people were smoking but it was better ventilation than most casino's we have been to - in fact we don't even go as I have asthma and smoke is extremely bad for it so we stay a very short time. I didn't notice that the gaming area was small - it had enough variety for us. All in all it was an excellent stay and we would gladly stay here again.