text: We booked the Rio because Vegas was unusually busy the weekend that we wanted to go and hotels on the Strip were unusually pricey After logging into my Total Rewards account online I saw that the rate for Rio was quite low for Friday and Saturday and Sunday was free The rates on Expedia for the same rooms at Rio were noticeably higher and Sunday would not have been free So from a room rate perspective for a busy weekend in Vegas we got a great deal on nights for Rio by booking online through Total RewardsnnDuring check in we were offered an upgrade to a recently remodeled room for per night The agent recommended this as a very good deal The unremodeled rooms were last remodeled almost years ago vs months ago for the upgraded rooms We took the upgrade and the rooms were pleasantly furnished and carpeted The rooms are approximately sq feet but it feels like a lot of wasted space because there is small couch and a cocktail table in the living area There is no separation of a wall or anything between the living area and the sleeping area There was older flat screen TV but it does not swivel easily between watching on the bed and watching from the couch It did not swivel at all actually you have to turn the entire tv and the nonswivelable tv base toward the couchnnThe pool area is decent The lounge chairs are older but not terrible The nice thing was that there were plenty of them because the Rio pools are not exactly a hip happening placennThe Carnival Buffet is solid and clean and we ate there as part of the Hour Buffet of Buffets for breakfast and lunch Without the Buffet of Buffet passes we would not have eaten here though because the weekend prices were surprisingly quite highnnUnfortunately of the elevators servicing the Masquerade Tower only were operational during the entire night stay Apparently of the elevators is meant to be a service elevator for the service and cleaning staff That was one of the elevators that was broken so we were sometimes sharing already cramped elevators with service staff In addition the UP escalator from the casino floor to access the parking garage was nonoperational during our entire stay as well There were no visible nearby stairs This would not have been so bad but they blocked off access so you could not walk up the escalator on your own either This was very annoying You then had to backtrack to a nearby elevator that just runs between the st and nd floor On Monday morning there were finally service technicians working to repair the escalator It does suck that Rio did not care enough to fix the elevator and escalator issues as soon as possible to minimize visitor inconveniencennOverall we were satisfied with the value because we did get a really good rate when other hotels were times the price so I am giving it stars If not for the double whammy of the aggravating escalator and elevators during our entire stay I would have been a happier camper