Tackiest hotel room on the planet

Last July, I tucked aside an interesting link entitled “Take This Tour Of The World’s Most Expensive Hotel Room” featuring the “Empathy Suite” at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas. It is considered the most extravagant, luxurious, and certainly the most expensive hotel suite on the planet.

At 9,000 square feet, it is effectively a two-story mansion in the sky, encompassing the 34th and 35th floors of the casino resort. It costs $100,000 per night, with a two-night minimum.

You can’t just book this hotel suite. You must apply, after which the hotel staff will do its due diligence to make sure you can afford it. Perks include a 24-hour on-call butler, chauffeured car service, and a bartender.

The rooms feature original art pieces by artist Damien Hirst, whose focus in this suite is centered on two themes: butterflies and medicine. Yes really.

The first Hirst art piece you see walking into the suite is … a medicine cabinet.

See how artfully the items are arranged with dazzling color coordination? Isn’t it lovely?

But my favorite part was the hotel room’s bar.

Looks classy, right? Until you see what the bar top features:

Medical waste. Yes, you read that right: The bar top features medical waste. Not, we are hastily assured, used medical waste, but medical waste just the same. When we saw this, both Don and I cracked up laughing.

This feature, folks, is what made me realize having money does NOT necessarily translate to having class.

Putting aside the preponderance of pill-themed wallpaper…

…the most pervasive artistic feature of the various rooms are butterflies.

Personally I think all these butterflies are better suited to a teenage girl’s bedroom, and the medical waste is just plain creepy, so now you can guess what kind of art cretin I am.

The most notable feature of the suite is the balcony swimming pool, cantilevered out from the building 34 stories up. Kinda spiffy if you’re not afraid of heights. It is unfortunately strewn with more teenage-girl butterflies, but the view is pretty cool.

Go watch the video. It’s very interesting, and it leaves you with a profound sense of gratitude that you’re not so wealthy that you can spend a minimum of $200,000 to be surrounded by butterflies and medical waste.