Back when Las Vegas was for Rat Pack-esque sleazeballs, and I mean that in a loving way, good, clean cheap motels lined the strip, like someone had mushed Park Place with Baltic Avenue together on one street.
Those days are dead and gone, and Las Vegas suffers for it, frankly. The Aruba Hotel & Spa is one of the few throwbacks to that glorious era-- a clean, respectable, inexpensive motel in an city full of overblown overcharging casino-hotels. Sure, it's in an area where the main attractions are strip clubs and quickie marriage chapels, but frankly that's *precisely* the charm. Want klassy? Stay at the frickin' Bellagio. Do you want VEGAS, baby? Stay at the Aruba!
Mind you, the Aruba truly is a nice hotel in the middle of a very, ahem, non-touristy area. The staff is beyond excellent, the food is decent (and there is a great Cuban restaurant down the street), and the bartender has a PhD in nuclear physics. The bar, The Thunderbird, one of the few original Vegas places left. There is a great sense of history in this place, and they have pictures of their past glory days. If the idea of seeing one of the places Keely, Louis and Sam performed makes you misty, then stay here. You really have no other choice anymore (RIP, Glass Pool Inn, Tam O'Shanter, La Concha...)