Harrah's New Orleans Hotel & Casino

Stayed 3 nights Tues-Friday midweek in late April. As Platinum Caesars members, we were pleased to be assigned a room on the 23rd floor facing the river which had a spectacular view.Location of hotel one of its biggest assets. Very close to the French Quarter and all mass transit options (streetcars, busses) and just a short walk to the waterfront. Security good, with a room key required to ride on the elevators. Front entrance requires you walk past front desk to/from elevators as well. Compared to other large hotels right on Canal St, the area immediately around this hotel is very clean and well kept.Room itself was nice when it was new but starting to show age. Three pillows on each bed lumpy, Sony clock radio has a "Dream Machine" CD player (!) and bathroom lighting is very very poor. Only "glassware" were 3 prewrapped cardboard cups. TV has about 40 basic cable channels plus several international choices (but who comes to New Orleans to watch TV?) On the plus side, there is a mini-refrigerator, in-room-safe, blow hair dryer, and a one-cup tray pod style coffeemaker. Room had both shower and large bathtub, both with great water pressure. Air quality good, no hint of cigarette smoke (like so many casino hotels have). During COVID no housekeeping is provided so if you stay more than one night, you have to request replenishment of items (including towels). Overall I like staying here as it serves all my basic needs (though the wi-fi was very slow). (Beware that the annoying parking and resort fees jack up your daily rate; hence I gave the hotel a lower rating than it would have gotten otherwise. The "resort fee" was $22.88 + $2 daily tax; there also was a CALL CENTER RSERVATION FEE booking directly through Harrah's of $17.08. And I think the parking overnight is about $46 before taxes. So so annoying.)There are no restaurants in the hotel except Ruth Chris Steak House. Manning's is next door open for some evening meals. Both offer delivery to the hotel rooms during limited hours. There are vending machines on each floor with cold beverages. It is a few blocks walk to a nearby mini-mart to buy water and other basic items.All of the employees we met were very friendly, primarily the front desk and doormen/bellhops. We took a taxi from the airport for a flat rate $36 for the first 2 people, much faster than other options. Return to airport via taxi was easy with help of the friendly doorman. Rooms were clean upon arrival as I would have expected. Given the challenges COVID-19 has given the industry, I'm happy so many tourist services are still in business. Be sure to tip the housekeepers at the end even without daily service - they all have families too!

Everything was on point. All of the staff was great. Would stay there every chase I got. The hotel has a very clean smell. You can tell the staff values the customers. When I checked in, I was greeted with a smile and the person was very courteous.

We booked our trip via a casino host (Terrence) we had a large group of 13 (all players ranging from Diamond Plus, Diamond, Platinum and gold. First our rooms were booked incorrectly, secondly they provided transportation to and from the airport then tried to charge us $400.00 for the rides when we were told they it was complimentary with such a large group of players. Had they told me $400.00 I would have taken a cab LOL. The hotel elevators are super filthy the floors are dirty and the elevator doors have something splashed all other them. Towels were just laying on the floor to clean up spills. Typically this hotel is very clean. The buffet is closed and many of the eateries in the casino close early so be prepared to walk to get food. The casino is impossible they are not giving back anything STAY AWAY. I will not be back in this lifetime. Not a good experience for me

The Wet: Nice looking room, but kinda hard for two people to bathe and dry off with only ONE towel. Housekeeping happened to be in hallway right outside our room when we arrived, but she told us she couldn't give us clean towels, and we had to call down to the front desk. The 1990s-era room phone had a short in the wire, so we could barely hear the operator - who proceeded to transfer us to... you guessed it... Housekeeping. With nary an apology, we were told more towels would be sent up. Figuring the towels would arrive in time, we set about taking our showers. Almost an HOUR later, a "ring-and-run" notified us of a bag with only two bath towels hanging from our doorknob. The Bored: After walking around New Orleans and stuffing ourselves with PoBoys and Bread Pudding at The Napoleon House (excellent, btw), all we wanted was to retire to our room and distract ourselves with a good sitcom or movie before drifting off to sleep. No such luck. As with most TVs these days, one must use a remote to fully access all of its features. We hunted all over the room but the remote was nowhere to be found. So, once again, we called downstairs. Once again we were transferred to... yep... Housekeeping, who probably realized we were the crazy towel people from the 11th floor and sent us to voice mail. This time, we figured out how to dial direct for Guest Services. No apologies later, we were told a remote would be on its way. After ONE HOUR of watching Mario Lopez tease movie trailers and hock rainwater and bullet jewelry (don't ask), we called again, only to be told that maintenance must've gone to the wrong room, and they'd rectify the error tout de suite. It's now the next day, and we are about three hours into our trip home. I'm gonna guess there's NOT a bag with a remote hanging from our door. The Broke: While the nightly rate at Harrah's is competitive with other local chain hotels, what they don't tell you is they more than make up for it with their parking fees. A quick online search does mention a $30 fee for the parking deck, which while excessive, was doable for these weary road warriors. After a mere 16 hour stay on property, we headed to the kiosk to pay our parking tab. Not $30. We were charged $55 for 16 hours of parking. That's $3.43 per hour. That's 1/3 of what our room cost. To park AT the hotel. Oh, and I almost forgot. If you want to use a cart to transport bags to your room? You gotta use a Bellhop. No offense to those hardworking guys, but when you don't have cash to tip them, you end up lugging your bags from the apparently gold-paved parking deck. The Bottom Line: Harrah's is not worth the time or money. And we never even made it to the Casino to attempt to recoup our losses!

We stayed for three nights on a comp, we were given a city view room, but it was really a parking garage view room. The room was clean, but the furniture is worn. Coffee maker in room was nice to have, but no other place to get early morning coffee. No bottled water in room, no snacks in vending machines. So if you want some late night munchies, you better bring your own. The bed was very uncomfortable, at least for my liking, tossed and turned all night and woke up with a back ache every morning, the sheets were rough and pilled. Staff were all very friendly. Got a late check out granted to us. They do have a little coffee shop in the tunnel that leads to the casino, but no one was ever there in the early morning, no place for danish or morning donuts. It was pretty cool that they have an underground tunnel that leads to the casino. The only restaurant in the place is Chris Ruth steakhouse. No essential store.This was our first visit to New Orleans and we don’t feel the need to return. It’s quite a far walk to the French Quarter. It reminded me of Chicago, big tall buildings everywhere, and very windy. Very cold in the mornings and evenings. We visited the French Quarter which was awesome, we went on a ghost tour which was boring, we rode the street car to the Garden District and did our own walking tour. No restaurants around there either, we were just looking for a little diner to have lunch, no such luck. Breakfast places were hard to find around our hotel, we ended up at one a block away, advertised best ham , not! It was a dumpy place and expensive. The casino had a few places to grab a burger, Fudruckers burgers were really good. I was lucky at the casino, won 15,000.00 on a slot machine, but they didn’t make a big deal out of it, no recognition over the speakers, no picture taken, but it was a very big deal for me! What is very nice about the casino is the drink ordering system, you just order right from your machine your playing at, no waiting for a waitress to come by. So all in all, very cold and windy, very hard to find simple food, a lot of walking, we walked a total of 17 miles in three days, took Uber back and forth from hotel to airport, no wait time at all.