We're taking the mondo road trip with teens this summer and I've already received from great advice from you fodorites. Now I'm back for more.
We're leaving Ensenada (Estero Beach) Mexico on a Friday morning and heading toward the Grand Canyon. According to my trusty atlas - one of the prospective routes will take us near Laughlin.
I'm thinking this might be a good place to stop for the night - cheap rooms, decent food. The trouble is, my kids are 13 and 16.
Is Laughlin too sleazy to spend the night in, maybe take in a movie or lounge by the pool before we head out to the Canyon the next day?
If the answer is yes, too sleazy, can you suggest another route from Mexico and a better stopover that won't break our budget, both cashwise and timewise?
Thanks.

Boring!!!!!! your kids will HATE it......BELIEVE ME.......maybe Lake Havasu City....is that on your way...?...

Laughlin is not what I would call sleazy. It's very different from Las Vegas.
Laughling is just very one dimensional and that's why it's not more popular. The casinos are older and don't have the themes of the LV casinos which make them tourist attractions. Laughlin attracts a much older crowd than LV and lots of RV types. The city has little to offer. It's a basic desert town. The surrounding desert scenery is typical of the area with some canyon terrain.
Yes, the rooms are relatively cheap.
Lake Havasu City isn't much farther from I-40 and is prettier IMO.
But either one is just a basic stopover point, not worth a detour.

i agree with the post above. Boring!!!
you're teens will regret the day you stopped there.
I stayed for a day trip, and couldn't wait to return to Las Vegas.

Find another place to stop over.

Are you planning to get from Ensenada to Laughlin (Ugh!) or wherever in one day? It's a long way, and you have to allow for possibly having to wait up to an hour (or more) to cross the border.

Hmmm... I'm not really worried about them being bored. By this point of our trip they will have skateboarded, rafted, surfed, swam, ski-doo-ed and ridden roller coasters. I'm just looking for a decent but cheap place to eat and bed down for the night, after an 8-10 hour car trip. Then the next day it's on to Grand Canyon and Slide Rock. Knowing this, what would you say; thumbs up or down on Laughlin?

I say thumbs up, for the purposes you describe. You can get really nice, very reasonably-priced rooms (I would suggest Harrah's, with a view over the Colorado River). If you'd care for a buffet-type meal, we thought the one at the Ramada was quite decent. Kick back & relax by the pool. Your stop at Laughlin will probably cost you about half as much as you would have laid out at Lake Havasu City. Either location is likely to be incredibly hot at that time, so go for the comfortable, bargain-priced stop. It's Laughlin. Happy Trails.

if it`s just for the night it`s okay..it`s clean and not sleazy at all...most of the casinos are fine for that ,,I thought you wanted to stay awhile..it is cheaper..Bullhead City,Az is across the river..don`t know about prices there...is an older,RV crowd there..are you going to Sedona? you mentioned Slide Rock?

Does "sleazy" have a connotation I'm not aware of? Some places I think might fit that bill are Times Square 15 years ago, the Tenderloin of SF, Bourbon Street, Hollywood Blvd., to name a few. Is small town Nevada really that bad? Or do you mean something more along the lines of "tacky" or "shabby"?

Yes, we're going to Sedona, and no, I didn't mean tacky or shabby.
My atlas says a little less than 4 hours from Laughlin to Oak Creek Canyon. When my kids took a trip to AZ with their grandma and uncle last year, they visited Slide Rock. The kids raved about it and are begging to go back. I thought we could leave Laughlin early, do the rock thing for a couple of hours, then head up to Grand Canyon in time for the sunset.
As far as my Laughlin sleaze question - I thought it was probably okay. Hubby and I stopped there for dinner on a trip between Vegas and Phoenix a few years ago. It seemed respectable enough but we were only there a couple of hours.
Earlier this year my husband went on a golf outing out west. They stayed in a smallish Nevada town and, by his report, the sleaze factor was much higher than in Vegas, so I thought I'd check.
I suspect that a large group of sunburned, middle-aged businessmen out for a romp just might be sleaze magnets ;^)
Thanks for all the help so far and keep it coming.
Thanks for your help

If you're coming from Ensenada, you've already been to sleezy.

Really? Tell me more.
We're visiting a friend in SoCal who will be recovering from foot surgery. We offered to change our trip dates so she wouldn't feel obligated to hostess. She suggested we all go to Ensenada instead. They've stayed a few times at the Estero Beach Hotel which she claims is quite nice. She says there will be plenty for the kids - ours and hers aged 10-16 - to do. The husbands can golf nearby. And we can hang out on the beach or at the pool, drink cheap Mexican beer and chat while being waited on like queens -- all for less than $100/day.
Tell me the downside to this plan before it's too late.