I've always made fun of Circus Circus, generally because I imagined the inside of the casino to feature a bear on a bicycle riding around a slot machine. However, I actually stayed there a few months ago when Hurricane Sandy prevented me from returning to DC, and I needed a cheap place to sleep for a couple of nights (read: I had no money left after getting the \"prison treatment\" from the blackjack switch tables at Bellagio).\n\nWell, let me tell you, there is not a bear riding a bicycle under the \"big top,\" but I would rather let a similar and much larger Kodiak bear maul me publicly than to spend another night at Circus Circus.\n\nBecause it was near Halloween, the hotel was apparently running a haunted house just outside my room. So just imagine the joy it brought me to hear someone RUNNING A CHAINSAW every 30 seconds until 2:00AM. Hey, don't worry me trying to sleep, guys. Just make sure you send LEATHERFACE up to my room when he's done carving up the kids downstairs and/or meticulously pruning the shrubs outside.\n\nWhen I did venture outside of my room, I was confounded by a layout that was surely masterminded by a sadistic meerkat. Admittedly, I am not great with direction, but I also know that \"Hey Jimmy, put something together with your Legos\" would be a better design strategy than whatever was used as a blueprint for the building.\n\nAfter meandering around for much longer than necessary and finally finding a place to eat, I noticed that the Mexican food restaurant in which I was standing had a faucet leaking sludge just beneath the fountain drink machine. If Erin Brockovich had been in line with me, I'm sure she would have discovered that PG&E was knowingly leaking chromium into my chimichanga.\n\nThe only upside to Circus Circus is that instead of a \"late checkout,\" you can actually pay $5-10 and stay late into the afternoon, which I suppose is preferable only to being waterboarded or watching an episode of \"Whitney.\"\n\nI was so miserable, I actually choose a red-eye flight to Charlotte followed by a seven hour drive in a rental car to DC instead of staying an extra night. It was expensive. I was exhausted. And spending a full day on the road while trying to navigate the remnants of Hurricane Sandy was not very safe.\n\nIt was still better than Circus Circus.