After last years wonderful discovery of Tahiti Village, Dan and I have been open to trying other non-strip hotels. South Point had a great weekend offer and the reviews seemed decent, so we decided to give it a try for our end of July trip. Plus, sadly, Tahiti Village was booked solid. We love that place!

We arrived at South Point mid-evening on a Thursday and we were greeted with a long queue at check-in. The attendants seemed frazzled and the manager had several guests waiting to speak with her regarding complaints. We were in "vacation mode" and refused to let the vibe at check-in affect our good spirits.

We knew that the hotel would be busy due to the Art-n-Ink Tattoo festival invading South Point for the duration of our visit. I expected the convention to make a bigger impact to our stay, however, if I didn't already know that it was going on, I probably wouldn't have realized that it was happening. The people watching wasn't nearly as entertaining as I had anticipated. It was a tame bunch.

Obviously here for the Art-N-Ink Festival

The decor theme of South Point is late 80's cruise ship meets equestrian. They have a large equestrian center, so I get the horse theme, but it's very distastefully done. It's hard to believe that this is a relatively new hotel.

Further killing the atmosphere is the glaring bright lights. It's like being at a nightclub during closing and having all of the lights turned on before you exit. I've never been in a Vegas hotel with less of a "Vegas" vibe.

Naturally, the rooms carried the theme of bad horse decor, but they were clean and spacious.

The beds were not the most comfortable, a little hard and springy. We were there for three nights and neither of us got restful sleep on any of the nights. The walls were thick though and outside noisy was not a problem.

Hotel bathrooms are always important to me. In particular, I love to soak in a hot bath while on vacation. Our room did have a tub, but it was very shallow, too shallow for a relaxing soak.

I also like a bathroom with a great vanity area for getting ready. The vanity at South Point was in separate area and had oodles of counter space. However, the mirror was set back too far to be useful for applying make-up. I used the full length mirror in the hall, which had terrible lighting. I've been spoiled with staying at fancier hotels that have rooms with lighted make-up mirrors.

Our room had a great view of the pool, which was useful on the first morning when we were trying to determine if there were enough lounge chairs available to bother going down. I am so used to the overcrowded strip pools.

We used the pool once, on the first morning. It had just opened and we grabbed two lounge chairs by the adult only spa. The South Point pool complex is a concrete jungle with a few patches of astroturf and some lagoons. It really needs some atmosphere and greenery. There was no music to create an ambiance and maybe we arrived too early, but there were no attendants with the towels or serving cocktails. The pool was filled with kids, which spilled over into the adult only spa.

We stayed for about thirty minutes and then the combination of excessive heat and being underwhelmed with the pool complex compelled us to go inside. We didn't use the pool for the remainder of our stay and with the exception of kids, it never looked very busy from our room window. To be fair, the heat wave made it very difficult to spend time outdoors.

The heat was not fun for our Smart Car either!

South Point did have some major positives with regard to being a great value. We ate at four of the eleven restaurants (Garden Buffet, Baja Miguels, Steak N'Shake and Zenshin) all of which were an exceptionally good value. We had sushi and alcohol at Zenshin that was incredible and we left full for around forty dollars. The Garden Buffet was fairly average food, but we received a 2-for-1 coupon that made it an amazing bargain. All of the bars were cheap with mixed drinks for around five dollars. Giant, strong margaritas were only a little more. Cheap, Cheap, Cheap.

Entertainment was a bargain. We saw a two hour comedy show with headliner John Caparulo and Mark Ellis for fifteen each. It was a hilarious show and such a deal.

We skipped it, but they also offer a free comedy show for adults late on Fridays. Our hotel guest coupon booklet included free passes to late events in the showroom, including one of my favorite 80's cover groups, The Spazmatics, who play every Saturday night. There is completely different type of entertainment every night and really something for everyone.

If you like to gamble, the table limits are really low. We found dollar minimum tables on both weekend nights. I've never seen this on the strip.

The hotel has a Century Movie Theater and Bowling Alley. It makes for a hotel that is more family friendly and a bit over-run with kids, but it's also nice to have so many entertainment options.

This is not the hotel to stay at if you don't have a car in Vegas. It's about a fifteen minute drive to the strip and a taxi would not be cheap. We found it easy to drive our car to the strip, but it also made us decide to do most of our drinking at South Point. We spent more time in our own hotel, than we normally would when we stay on the strip.

Bottom Line- South Point is a clean, inexpensive option, but it does not have a traditional "Vegas" feel. I'd stay here again if we got a good offer and if it was off-pool season. If the weather is nice, the pool takes on a greater importance.