Wynn’s Encore resort, which adds over 2,000 “suites” to the stable – that’s a lotta rooms, Ethel! – is now accepting bookings from January 12. Call (888) 320-7125 or log on to their website, most notable for the fact that Steve Wynn is not there to welcome you in person. (After about 1,000 times, one gets sick of hearing him introduce himself on the Wynn website as you frantically click at the mute button.)
On the Encore website, there’s a lot of technicolor butterflies flying around and an exhortation to be patient, because the hotel will soon be opening. Well, that and a reservations system. Rooms currently start (as in, literally start, on January 12) at $229, which appears to be the magic number for luxury in Las Vegas these days.
If you aren’t a Vegas-head, Encore is the newest addition to the Wynn empire, built as a completely separate resort next door to the one you may know and may love. Guests of Encore will be able to access Wynn by covered walkway, and vice versa; the two properties join together back behind the buffet and the coffee shop, near the Country Club Grill, one of our favorites in the entire hotel, even if it has no profile whatsoever. (The fondue is to die for and the place is never noisy or crowded.)
Anyway, Encore: 5 restaurants, again following the same concept introduced at Wynn, to incubate promising chefs in a more high-profile environment than they had worked in previously (for example, Paul Bartolotta was pretty much an unknown outside of Milwaukee/Chicago before he came to Wynn to open his eponymous seafood house. He is now Michelin starred, not literally of course.)
Besides 5 restaurants to talk about, Encore will have its own nightlife and spa, pool and Wynn-style visual teases in the common areas. Butterflies and color seem to be a huge part of the Encore concept. Not that we are complaining – color has worked out for Wynn The First quite well, if you ask us.
Smallest rooms are 700 square feet or so; this is a bit larger than the smallest room at Wynn, already big at about 640 square feet. Like it’s twin, Encore is split into Resort and Tower Suites segments, which is to say fancy and fancier. And, like everything in Las Vegas, it’s all very good value, for the moment.
