We've just returned from a week stay at the Grand Desert in Las Vegas. We used the condo as our resting place, a quiet spot to build up enough energy to go back to the strip. It was a real luxury to not battle the smoke, noise and crowds every wakening moment in Vegas. The Grand Desert's pool area was beautiful and open all day & night (although, I do question their purchase of dark plastic pool furniture). Our condo had extra's like a jacuzzi & washer/dryer and the whole facility was extremely nice! There was a workout room, activity room, and daily events including water volleyball (winners get free beer), wine & cheese party w/live music, etc. My son loved the workout room and the pickup basketball. Also, I do not own a timeshare and I was never pressured to go to a timeshare presentation.. I simply said no when we checked in and they never mentioned it again. We had such a great stay.

There are a few things that you expect at a resort that this place was lacking. The first is a full service restaurant. At a resort, You should never have to leave if you don't want to. There was a snack bar that served mediocre breakfast and lunch, but most of the time you couldn't get a seat because there were employees taking breaks at most of the tables. Isn't there an employee break room?

Also, all of the sales rooms (it is a timeshare) & employee conference rooms are on the main levels where the pool/gym/spa is located. So to get anywhere, you have to walk past all of the people in suits who don't give you the time of day because you aren't in a meeting trying to upgrade your timeshare! Put these rooms on the top floors, or in a separate area that guests don't have to constantly walk by.

the other thing that was missing was the feeling of being pampered. With all of the staff always around, none went out of their way to make the stay special. The pool area was not kept clean, there were cigarettes on the ground that stayed there for hours. There was no maid service. Once a week someone comes in, makes your bed (no new sheets) and gives you new towels.

Don't expect to see the strip from the pool as in the pictures. They have since put up other buildings to completely enclose the pools, limiting the amount of sunlight that the "family pool" got. Yes there is a family pool and an adult pool, although aparently if you are 15 and smoke cigarettes you are considered an adult in Vegas.

Another complaint about the pool area is the lounge chairs. It is Vegas, and they have dark green solid plastic chairs that they leave in the sun until you decide to sit on one. The chairs at the resorts on the strip were made of cloth or straps that did not get scorching hot by 10AM.

I know it is a time share, and you can expect the "hard sell" to buy another one, or upgrade, or whatever, and we fully expected that going in, but we didn't expect a call at 8:45 AM, a flyer under the door and a reminder on the doorknob our first morning there when we didn't check in until after midnight.

We bought tickets to Ka from the concierge, only to find out that someone else also had tickets for the show in our seats that night. Luckily the show was not sold out, and we were still able to see the show, albeit from seats several rows behind the first row of the mezzanine that we purchased.

The best part about this hotel by far was the room, which was a huge 1BR suite with a full kitchen, dining area and a whirpool tub separate from the rest of the bathroom. If it were not for the gorgeous room, I would have probably given this resort a 1. My only complaint about the room was that in the bedroom they had a tiny TV in an armoire that could have easily fit a 27 inch one, but there was a bigger TV and nice stereo in the living room.

The shuttle to and from the stip was also convenient, but who wants to have to catch the last shuttle at 12:30 AM? Its Vegas Baby! Make another run around 2:30!

Perhaps they treat their hotel guests differently from their timeshare guests (which in itself is bad business), but if not, there are much friendlier places on and off the strip (the carriage house for example) to spend your money if you are getting a hotel room.

We stayed here May 13 and 14 2005. The time share resort was beautiful. We used the free shuttle service to Harrahs and the Rio which was very convienent. In Vegas the only time we stayed in our room was for sleeping. The room was nice. I recommend getting a pass for the monorail system that services hotels from MGM Grand to the Sahara and costs 1/3 of the price if traveling by taxi. There is a monorail station at Harrahs to purchase passes. We enjoyed our stay.

This was our first visit to Las Vegas and we weren't quite sure whether to stay on the Strip or off the Strip. We couldn't have made a better choice than the Fairfield Grand Resort. We arrived at the hotel at 8pm in the evening after a very long flight from Edinburgh in Scotland and the staff could not have been more accommodating and we were shown to our room within a matter of 10 minutes. We were given a two bedroomed suite after only expecting a one bedroomed suite. The suite itself had everything you could possibly want with lovely decor, a jacuzzi bath, fully fitted kitchen and luxurious fittings. The Fairfield Grand Resort is about two blocks away from the Strip, but this didn't cause us any problems at all - we enjoyed the walk and also, on occasion, used the free bus which ran on a regular basis. We would recommend this place to anyone and thoroughly enjoyed our stay in Las Vegas.