Plaza Pool SNIPPET

I am just back a week or so and stayed at the Plaza for four days at the end of July and another four mid August. I used the pool every morning and generally it was quite nice. My last morning it was very, very cold. Perhaps they changed the water recently. It felt like the California pool always feels.

I found the cold water to be an advantage as there were fewer adults to negotiate around in my continual move from pool to pool. A few children were brave enough to crack the icy cold and play a bit, but few adults lasted very long.

I found it generally uncrowded and very adequate. I particulary like having that Binions clock keeping me updated on how long I have been swimming as well as the temperature. Also entertaining on my first visit was a huge crane moving things in a next door building. I was happy to have booked at the Plaza for the pool rather than at the El Cortez.

I liked having a water fountain and bathroom close and easy to use.

All beer was $2 including Corona and the beer tenders were very friendly.

Adjacent are these tennis courts and in one was set up a horse shoe pitching pit. However, no horse shoes were available. They lost them over the winter and while they had been reordered, they had not arrived. Apparently they wre of some aluminum that would not damage the cement of the court. The pits were surrounded with wooden ties, had a dense black material around the stake and rubber mats spread out for short shots. I could imagine some fun playing horse shoes and then going for a dip to cool off. I could imagine that better than playing tennis in that sun, but that was available as well.

Some of the days the pool seemed to collect some feathers which were annoying, but I think the skimmer is available for use and a couple minutes with that might have saved me pushing them to the edge and splasing them up on the cement although that seemed to entertain me a bit as well.

I don't seem to have the hours in my trip report. A call to the Plaza would confirm those. I remember it was open into the evening.

Towels go quickly. Take one as you enter the pool area so you have one. If you need one and none are on the counter, they are packaged behind the counter in bundles in a large rolling cart. Just reach over and grab a bundle and open it yourself.

It does seem to me that shade was a premium, but I did not look for shade. I just did my hour (or almost hour) of breast stroke swimming without touching bottom, and then went off to find breakfast.
I generally swim with my head above water in a shirt, cap and sunglasses and recommend it for comfort in all that sunlight as well as for some protection as long as you don't mind the strange looks of sunbathers.

Actually, a woman there showed me why she was moving more quickly when swimming on her back than I was and now I have a new swimming stretch to try. She swam with a cap and goggles. I am thinking of trying that.

The advantage of the large sun glasses is I can be entertained by the antics of others and yet not seem to be rudely staring.

If you expect to sneak in from another hotel, that is more difficult than in past years. The gate is key operated, so unless you wait for someone or have a very long, thin hand and arm that can reach in the small hole in mesh of the gate and reach down far enough to open the gate, you will need to be a hotel guest to swim. I assume that if you are a guest at the Vegas Club, you can arrange for pool privileges at the main desk. That is the way it works if you stay at Main Street Station and want to use the California pool or stay at the Four Queens and want to use Binions.