Sands Regency Casino

Sands Regency Casino gives you the true Reno experience and just a few blocks from downtown and other casinos. The handicapped accessible room was large enough for a power wheelchair and the lower closet bar was within reach as shown in the below photo. The bathroom was also spacious and had a roll-in shower with a handheld nozzle. A wide bench, shown below, was provided by hotel when requested. There was also a towel rack right next to the shower, for convenient access.

Circus Circus
There are aspects of ADA that Circus Circus does really well. They have 2 accessible entrances, the main registration entrance and the one at Sierra and 5th. The registration doors open automatically and the Sierra and 5th doors have a switch that is an appropriate distance from the door. While registration lines can be long, there is a VIP check-in which is much quicker and they seem pretty liberal with who is “VIP.” The bell stand has power scooter for rent for $35 per day (August, 2015, pricing). The North Tower is located just off registration and allows ready access to the casino floor. This is your preferred tower!

The Sky Tower, on the other hand, is much less accessible. If you can ambulate, it is up an escalator, up a short flight, down a short flight, and up another short flight of stairs. We did this a few times with my walker. I used the handrails and my husband carried my walker up and down the steps. There are lifts at each set of stairs, but they require security to run them. For true ADA access, you must go all the way through the casino to an elevator to the mezzanine level. From there, you must pass all the restaurants to get to the ramp that takes you to the Sky Tower Shuttle. There are 2 shuttles that board every couple of minutes, each capable of carrying about 30 passengers. The space inside does not allow much room to turn around, so I would pull my rented power scooter forward into one half, then reverse it once other passengers were seated. This allowed me to position myself to exit. The doors to the shuttle loading area were not automatic, but were light enough that I could use the scooter to open them without standing up or finding someone to open them for me.

As alluded to above, the restaurants are on the mezzanine level, which is accessible from an elevator on the far side of the casino from registration and the North Tower. While reasonably accessible with a power chair or with good endurance, those with motor fatigue or other conditions that impair endurance will need assistance.

We did not use a wheelchair accessible room, but we do know they are available. You may wish to specify that you need an ADA room when making your reservation.

Harrah’s
While we did not stay at Harrah’s, our friends were staying there, so we spent a fair amount of time there. Most importantly, most entrances are NOT ADA accessible. The one with a long breezeway is accessible and gets you close to the casino and restaurants. However, the door switches were positioned too close to the exterior door, requiring you to back up as it opened. The middle switches between the 2 sets of doors were mostly defunct, requiring someone else to open the door for you. The casino floor was narrow in some areas, but main walkways are wide enough to negotiate, despite potential crowds.

CalNeva
This is the “budget” casino, right across from Harrah’s. We went there for cheap table games and cheap drinks. Once again, we found most entrances were NOT accessible. The one accessible entrance did not have automatic doors, requiring someone to open them for you. There was a long ramp to the casino floor which did not appreciably extend the distance traveled to get to the desired location.

To get to the upstairs bar/restaurant area was more challenging. A seedy, dirty, old elevator at the middle of the casino floor will get you to the upper level. However, we could not find a ramp nor other elevator to get to the back bar. This required parking the power scooter and walking down the steps and a distance of about 100 yards. While we were enjoying ourselves in the back bar, my name was paged overhead. They had found my parked scooter and did not know if I had left without it. They were very nice about it and were just making sure it wasn’t abandoned. We had parked in a good spot, not blocking any doors nor other guests, and they were happy to keep it there.

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