The Westin Las Vegas Hotel, Casino & Spa in Las Vegas U-Z

Rising from the metaphorical ashes of the gone but not missed Maxim hotel, the Westin Las Vegas is everything the old place wasn't: sleek, modern, comfortable, and elegant. But the one thing the Maxim had that the Westin doesn't was a personality - or as much of a personality as an inanimate object can have. Sure, that personality may have been battered and worn and hopelessly stuck in the seventies but at least you felt something when you walked in the joint. The Westin feels a bit sterile, devoid of any emotional impact.

If this were any other city in the world that wouldn't matter but this is Las Vegas where most hotels evoke some sort of reaction when you walk into them. For good or bad, they are the destination - places that make you want to post pictures on Facebook so you can make friends and family jealous of your Vegas adventure. The Westin feels like a pit stop on your way to the destination - a place you leave your bags so you can go off and get to the fun stuff.

Which is in no way saying it's not a nice hotel. It is. The main desk is actually a series of small desks, designed to give the check-in process a more personal feel. Okay, sure. The lobby and much of the main areas of the hotel are all done in a muted earth tone scheme, with touches of leather, chrome, wood, and marble everywhere. There are some browns and blacks here and there but the main color you walk away remembering is grey. Not that there's a lot of grey necessarily but that's just sort of what the place feels like.

On one side of the lobby area are some meeting rooms - more are upstairs. This is important since much of the hotel's business is from the business traveler, familiar with the Westin brand name.

On the other side of the lobby is a very small casino, amusingly named the MAX. At about 20,000-square-feet, it certainly isn't MAX in anything other than name - you could put about five of them inside the Venetian casino and still have room left over for a really nice buffet. It has a couple hundred slot machines of varying denominations, all with ticket-in, ticket-out technology, plus a few table games. It's not really a place you're going to want to spend a lot of time gambling in and the hotel folks know this - they market it as an amenity or an entertaining distraction, sort of like a pool.