During a recent stay at Rio in Las Vegas, I began to wonder about the cleanliness of the rooms. After watching a Fox News hidden camera report about hotel house keeping staff in numerous national hotels violating health code standards by hand washing guest room drinking glasses in the bathroom sinks with dirty towels, I thought I would put Rio to the test. After marking two used drinking glasses in my room with ink, I left them on the counter to be replaced by the house keeping staff. Later, after the room had purportedly been cleaned, the same glasses were placed back on the shelf, with the ink marks still clearly visible. It was apparent to me they had not been sanitized according to the hotel's stated sanitizing procedures. Could this mean that when a guest checks out, this same method of glass cleaning occurs while preparing the room for the next guest?
When I brought it to the attention of one of the managers, he was embarrassed and made assurances it would not happen again. He then appeared to attempt to rationalize the unsanitary conditions by stating that I would likely find the same glass washing practices at other hotels on the Las Vegas strip. He said he could not possibly monitor the cleaning methods of "all 500" of his house keeping staff. He further stated that there were some problems with the house keeping training program that probably needed to be reviewed.
I filed a complaint with the local health department which, within days, conducted in an inspection at Rio. According to the inspector who conducted the inspection, not removing dirty drinking glasses from a room and replacing them with properly sanitized glasses is in fact a health code violation. She went on to say that she has definitely has “concerns with the glass handling process” at Rio and that those concerns “will be addressed” by the health department. Other cleanliness issues in my room included a "clean" hand towel placed in my room that had a large black apparent grease stain on it; a clogged shower drain and hair (not my own) found in the purportedly newly laundered bed sheets. Based upon my experience and the concerns of the health department inspector, guests should be very cautious of sanitary issues at Rio.