this hotel usually has discounted rooms on various websites such as hotwire. for the price, it's a very good value. the rooms are very large and comfortable. even though i booked the room on hotwire, i asked for a room on a higher floor for the view and they put me on the top floor! the hotel room was quiet but you can sometimes hear other room doors banging shut. the room was very clean and the king bed was very comfortable. the hotel has a nice pool, small health club (free for guests), restaurants and many amenities.

The Sands in INEXPENSIVE! One of the best bargains in Reno. It is conveniently located for transportation, has a casino, and has ample parking. I've stayed here 10 times over the last decade. The rooms are always clean (some are noisy), the bathrooms functioning, some room views spectacular. But come only for the inexpensive room. The best restaurant, a rib place, is gone. Mel's is O.K. Others are not worth it. Snacks are overpriced, but not as much as most hotels. Desk staff is usually grumpy and not too helpful. Reservations are often screwed up. They have too many smoking rooms so they don't always honor a nonsmoking reservation (read the small print). This is not an elegant casino/hotel. But why do I come back again and again? For the price. I've saved two thousand dollars over the years compared to other modest accommodations in Reno. I spend the savings on good restaurants elsewhere in town.

Our friends book our reservations several weeks in advance so that we could get rooms on the same floor. Our friends had a lodging coupon, however the reservation desk clerk would not honor the coupon for the two reservations, even though it did not state on the coupon that it would be for one room only! There were other people in line that had made two reservations also and the desk clerk told them that they would not honor theirs either. If this was not bad enough they then put us on different floors of the hotel, even though we had specifically asked to be on the same floor when the reservations were made weeks before. Then when we got to our rooms (on different floors) we were both put right next to the elevators. We got no sleep with the clanging of the elevator's going up and down, with the banging of the elevator doors, with the dinging of the elevator's bells, and with the people talking and laughing while they were waiting for the elevator's. These things went all night long, not to mention the noise from the dropping of the ice from the ice machine that was right outside our rooms. Evidently this hotel is not a customer friendly hotel, as we wrote to the general manager and we never received an apology, heck we didn't even get any acknowledgement of our letter at all. From here we went to Laughlin, Nevada and stayed at the Edgewater Hotel Casino and both of us couples highly recommend this place. The staff were very friendly and helpful. We both got great discounts on the rooms and on all our meals. We even got several free gifts. And the rooms were not right next to the elevator's either.

Returned to the Sands this year because the $17 a night rate (yes, really, $17 a night) could not be beat! I go to ski and the Sands offers free pick up at the airport, has a ski rental shop attached to their building and sells discounted lift tickets at the front desk. The rooms are dated but clean and you will want to be aware that the Sands still allows smoking. If you go, be sure to eat at Mel's which is right in the casino, good food and great service!