One of the biggest positives at Rio is the large size of the rooms. Every room is a "suite" in the Las Vegas sense of the word, although these rooms might not qualify as suites in other cities.
The Samba suite was very nice. You could tell the carpet and almost everything else in the room was newly replaced. One strange thing was the placement of the TV right in front of the window - but who watches TV in Vegas anyway?
Bottom line - because of their off-Strip location Rio usually has very affordable room prices. Booking a room at Rio and then trying to score an upgrade to a Samba suite at check-in might be a good option for a budget trip - assuming you can deal with being slightly off the Strip.
