 It's not really festive, unless you consider chain-smoking locals hunkered over slots a barrel of monkeys. Overall, the Fiesta Rancho is like a K-mart for gambling: sufficient, sort of messy and a decent bargain if you don't mind waiting for the specials.
   
Room Quality: Casino first, hotel second, appears to be the motto of this place. The rooms are an afterthought to the enormous locals casino. The standard room is clean and quiet but a bit threadbare. The furnishings are just beds, a small table and a dresser, and they are getting old. The check-in desk is small and can be hard to find. Because the hotel is only 100 rooms, don't expect to get a great view. The location in North Las Vegas with only one other major casino nearby ( Texas Station) means you need a car if you want to use this as home base.
Service Quality: It's small, so simple requests usually get addressed quickly. However, the smallness means that they can't respond to big things, don't have a business center, and the hotel the staff might quickly get overwhelmed.
What You Get Bottles of in the Bathroom: Conditioning shampoo and lotion should go a long way toward washing that man (or woman) out of your hair, as well as dirt and itchy, flaky skin.
Clientele: Retired locals inhabit this place the way bats inhabit dank caves. They hang from the rafters, lurk in the corners, and suck blood from the video poker machines. Actually, they mostly complain that the buffet has raised its price again. If you like a friendly, clean place with no pretension and you're over 45, you'll feel comfortable. If not, head back to the Strip.
How's the Pool? Nothing to write home about, unless you spend a lot of time writing about boring pools. Actually, the pool is serviceable, small and uncrowded since there are only 100 rooms and most of the guests would rather be wrestling with one-armed bandits.
Resort Fee: (What is this?) $9.99 per night. Gets you wired and wireless internet, local and domestic long distance calls, daily paper, copy and fax services.
Table Games: Blackjack, craps, roulette, Let It Ride, Pai Gow and occasionally a sucker game. They have friendly blackjack games with decent rules so long as you avoid the 6:5 single deck. Oh yeah, let's not forget the enormous bingo hall, either. You play that on a table and those blotters are cool.
Bet Minimums: $5 blackjack can be had, but expect the awful continuous shuffle machines. $5 Let it Ride, $5 3-Card Poker when we were there last, 50-cent roulette with a $2 minimum bet, and $3 craps (with 10x odds) beckon to you in a soft, lilting voice, "come lose with me, come lose with me. I love youuuuuu." Single deck BJ has the lousy 6:5 payoff, so skip it.
Machines: So much video poker it could choke a monster who eats video poker machines. They still have some full-pay machines at the quarter level. There are plenty of slots in every denomination from penny to $5, but this really is a haven for nickel and VP players.
Cocktails? It's okay service. These places catering to locals really don't force the liquor down your throat the way the Strip and Downtown properties do, though. I guess they don't want their most loyal customers crashing their cars.
Who Gets Comps? Get the slot club card, buddy, and rack up points. The Amigo Club is not the best in town, but they do offer both cash back and food comps. There are few room mailings since there aren't many rooms, but they do offer players discounts and plenty of free buffets. Table players should angle for a buffet comp after a couple hours of $15-$20 or higher play.
Denny's: Nothing says south of the border like Denny's. Well, actually, we did get Montezuma's revenge from a Moon Over My Hammy there once. Still, this is just like any other Denny's in the world, which means cheap and okay.
Festival Buffet: This buffet is small and about the middle of the pack, but the price is great for folks with slot club cards. It's the typical meats, Italian, Mexican and Chinese. The one nice touch is the Mongolian BBQ. Yum. Just be careful when you go so you aren't waiting in a long line of retired locals holding coupons.
Gardu�o's: This is an okay, if bland, New Mexican restaurant that even has some Southwestern pasta dishes. Is it worth going out of your way for? Probably not. Prices are fair. We notice that it is also a "margarita factory" and it's refreshing to see more margaritas being made in America. We couldn't drink them in good conscience when we knew they were mixed by Taiwanese children getting 18 cents a day. Dinner only.
There is also a little food court with Panda Express and a couple Subways (one by the ice rink). A McDonald's also pumps its foul beefy odors into the casino.
Cabo Lounge: Ever been to Cabo for Spring Break? Well, this is nothing like that. Not even close. People in their 50's and beyond will get a kick out of the classic rock acts that show up here to play familiar hits, but you won't see any girls lifting their shirts or doing tequila shots out of Casino Boy's belly button.
Club Tequila: Club Tequila is as bland as the name. It's a modestly-themed Southwest cantina for live shows and dancing. With so many better clubs in town, though, this one isn't worth going out of your way to visit.
Ice Skating Rink: Want to go ice skating? Just head to the northwest suburbs and you can hit the ice, then warm up with hot cocoa and some blazing nickel video poker. Check before you go to make sure there isn't a community event, like a hockey game, taking place.
Number of TVs: About 28 TVs for the sports enthusiast and one of them is large.
Number of Seats: They've got around 90 seats and all of them have individual TVs so you can flip back and forth between the Preakness and an Addams Family Marathon on Nick at Nite. All the seats have better than average comfort. Also, add your car seats because they have drive-thru sports betting.
How Many Betting Windows? Nine windows are for sports and race, and two more are for race only. But much like at a bank at lunch hour on Friday, most of them go unmanned. The boards are slate.
Free Drinks? You betcha. Live it up, baby.
Snack Bar? No, but there are a a bunch of food court eateries right behind it so you can get a Big Mac, burrito or pizza between ballgames.
Minimum Wager: The usual $5 for sports and $2 for ponies.
Other Notes: It's a pretty small sports book. We'd expect bigger from a locals' place. They have a drive-thru window for taking bets, too. That's pretty odd and cool.
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