travelswithkuma helped me evaluate our hotel room in the Atlantis. We have a room in the "atrium tower" — the middle of the three — on the 16th floor. It's a reasonably nice room, although there are things I wish it had that it doesn't.The bed was almost totally covered by a Sea of Pillows, ranging from the super-hard bolster to super-soft fluffy pillows. We ended up piling many of them in a corner during the night. Lisa brought her own pillow.
I like the bed myself, but Lisa says it's too soft; however, Lisa long ago adopted Japanese fashion and normally sleeps on a bed not much softer than the floor.
Bear is always on the lookout for fish, but instead, here he found dolphins adorning the bedside lamps. Much of the Atlantis has (no surprise) an aquatic theme. Also visible here is the clock-radio-MP3 player dock, with a pig-tail audio connection and USB charging port.
Bear examines the HDTV and complains that there's no 24-hour fishing channel. The images on the set are okay, but Lisa was very unhappy with how slowly it changes channels. It's as if it has to reboot itself every time you change the channel. Alas, it appears that many modern sets behave this way.
The flower, by the way, was Kuma's Mother's Day present to Lisa.
Here Kuma Bear is inspecting the multi-port connector on the entertainment center/chest-of-drawers on which the TV sits.
Here's a close-up view of the panel, showing that I've plugged in my small five-port router to the wired internet connection. The router and an extension cord for our computers are plugged into the power outlets.
The internet connection is included in the room cost, and it worked just fine to share two computers through the small 5-port switch. You have to sign in every time you boot the computer, but there's no charge or special code required. Both the wired and wireless connections worked just fine for me, although as usual I used the wired connection when possible. The bandwidth was surprisingly good, as I was able to upload these photos here and others of both Reno and of our train museum trip to Flickr. The uploads took a while, but that's because I was uploading over 100 of them.
Kuma Bear gets ready here to make his own report on his journal, so watch out! There's a good-sized work desk here, with a couple of power outlets behind the desk to supplement the ones on the adjacent entertainment center, but I recommend bringing a small power strip with you. There certainly seem to be lots of available connections of any sort you might want here.
Here Kuma is perched on the carpeted seat in the large window enjoying the view of the Sierra Nevada mountains (and the shopping center and grocery store across the street).
Also in this room are two comfy chairs besides the one at the work desk.
Although it's a good room in many respects, and larger than lots of rooms in which I've stayed, I do miss having a mini-fridge, especially as there is a grocery store across the street and a 24-hour Wallgreen's and 7-Eleven only a short walk away. As I said earlier, Lisa may bring her electric ice chest with her so we can store milk and other small perishables in the room.
With such an otherwise spacious layout, including a large bathroom, there's a peculiarity in the layout that has the toilet crammed into a cubbyhole that makes it feel more cramped that our trailer in Mehama. Also, the placement of the towel bars is such that there's no easy way to lay out a towel for use when getting out of the shower/tub, which seems strange to me. I have no complaints about the water temperature or pressure. Lisa wishes they had variable-flow outlets, though; there's only one valve, and it's either on or off, with the valve only controlling the temperature.
I reckon we'll be comfortable enough here. I just wish the room rate during the convention was the same as the bargain two-nights-for-$60 we're paying during this stay!