Las Vegas

Xire

Xire

Xire

Soldato
Joined
8 Apr 2011
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London
Hey guys,

Me and my mate are planning to go to vegas this year and I wondered if anyone here has been and has a few tips and opinions?. Perhaps things that I really should do while I am there etc.

Ideally looking at going around October with a budget of around £2,500 total each.
 
Don't go to the Casino's. That's a school boy error. If you plan on wasting money, just go to be bars that have scantily clad women writhing around metal poles.
 
go to the casinos, have fun.

such an amazing place.

shoot some guns at the gun store.

but if your at a table/slots and a waitress comes past, order a drink its freeeeeeee. *tip a few $
 
Same advice for any casino if you're just there for a laugh. Stick to the low stakes tables!
Or for an adventure go to the high rollers table and say random numbers under your breath as cards are dealt, then giving a knowing wink to a stranger, sit and play.
 
Gun store is worth a go if you have any interest. Might have to queue a while but its something you cant do over here :cool:

I would also say don't underestimate how big the place is. People have this idea of the strip being a fairly small little road where you can just potter up and down seeing everything. We probably walked a lot of miles and we didnt even go to the far ends. You can walk for ages in the Caesars Palace shopping centre alone! :p

So stay somewhere fairly central I'd say. (or be prepared to use taxis/monorail thing).

Hard Rock Cafe also did a nice new york strip steak. No doubt theres far more high end places though if thats your thing, but we weren't particularly bothered. We went to McDonalds a couple of times :D
 
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Don't go for too long. We went for 2 weeks and by the end of the first we were really bored. For anything more than short breaks i'd say try and split your time between there and somewhere else.
 
Take a helicopter ride to the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Best money I spent during my holiday in Vegas (aside from maybe the Tom Jones concert). Also proposed to the missus while we were at the base.
 
Be prepared to walk a gauntlet of people trying to hand you business cards for hookers.

I was only there for 2 nights but spent most of it in the casino. We splashed out on a 2 bedroom suite at the MGM which was wayyy better than I was expecting. Worth doing if there's a group of you as you could probably sleep about 8 people in there as long as people don't mind sleeping on the sofa.

I really want to go back...
 
iamtheoneneo said:
^ 2 weeks in vegas? What were you thinking.
4 days is long enough, then move on to more interesting places.
Click to expand...

In hind sight we weren't thinking at all. Back then we just booked 2 week package deals every year and went with it, that was the first time it back fired :)
 
Another vote for Battlefield Vegas, as well as helicopter over the canyon. Other then that s few days is all you need then head over to Cali and enjoy LA etc
 
Booze is free as long as you're gambling. One night we got totally hammered feeding the penny slots :p

Don't touch cabs, they will con the hell out of you. Instead, there's a bus service called The Deuce which runs up and down the strip every 15 mins. Costed us $5 for a 24h pass iirc. Massive air conditioned, double decker affairs.

If it's too good to be true, it is. Never has this applied more so than Vegas. We were offered all sorts of free shows and stuff, only for a few minutes of our time. Turns out a "few minutes" means a whole day staring at a construction site listening to some floppy bang on about what an exciting investment opportunity it was. Luckily someone else got suckered in and they drove there (rather than use the supplied coach service, thus removing your means of escape. These guys will bully you into buying their crap). We caught a ride with them back to the hotel and told the salesman to do one. Wasted a couple of hours, but we made the mistake of going for two weeks (we did get married there however). The "free shows" were some dodgy show in a tiny little hotel in the backstreets somewhere too.

Don't go to fast food chains if you can avoid it. Buffets out there are plentiful and you will not find a better deal.

Every casino has a loyalty card. Some are crap but it takes 2 mins to have a look at their brochures and some are real gems, we had one which gave us 2-4-1 tickets to a good show, 5x 2-4-1 buffet vouchers, a few free games in the casino and a shirt. Another one gave us a backpack and some other bits and bobs.

Down the strip, also reachable via the aforementioned Deuce, is a massive outlet center. No more than 15 mins on the coach, has TONS of shops which sell american brands cheap, think Levis, Lee, all the usual culprits. I picked up a pair of Levis for $15.

Try set a day aside for a tour of the grand canyon, area 51 and Hoover Dam. The helis are nice but over way too quick and noisy. We went on a coach and you can tell that the coach drivers like tips, this guy was like a speaking Wikipedia on the area, loads of interesting little nuggets of information and it wasn't rushed. Again, this was one of those huge air-conditioned jobbies so very comfortable.

The shows are a mixed bag. The ones you want to go to are either sold out, cost a grand a ticket, or are for VIP members only. The ones you can afford to go to are usually 50/50, we saw Cris Angel's Mindfreak over there and it was fantastic, but then we also saw some other concert and it reminded me of a school play. Both cost the same price.

Nightclubs are fantastic. The hotel ones are generally the best we found, some of the sideline ones are also good but are quite pricy to get in ($50+ a ticket).

When hungover, the Mandalay Bay lets anyone in to their pool area, this is the place to go if you want to check out the things you can check out before getting married :p. Go early for a deck chair and just chill out next to the pool. The waitresses are usually old munters who have lived in Vegas all their lives but there are some proper stunners too.

The side streets off the strip have some really nice joints too, Hollywood Cafe, Hard Rock Cafe and the like. All certainly worth a dinner or drink as they really put effort into the places.

The most important thing with Vegas is don't be afraid to ask. Everyone does it, it's part of the culture there. We blagged free show tickets, a free dinner for two, free cocktails, free buffet tickets, the lot. I'm not one for asking for stuff, but I blame it on the free booze they gave me.

Oh and be prepared to see some proper weirdos walking around.
 
iamtheoneneo said:
^ 2 weeks in vegas? What were you thinking.
4 days is long enough, then move on to more interesting places.
Click to expand...

So this. I went for 3 days (part of a bigger trip) and the first day I was like "this. is. the. coolest. place. ever. :eek: ". End of the 3rd day? "Arrrrrrggggg - get me out of here NOW!!! :("
 
I went September 2014, for my 30th and stayed in the Venetian. What an amazing hotel. I can't fault the hotel at all to be honest. We stayed for 7 nights.

This is my experience (similar to Diddums above, really);

Walk everywhere - Although the Venetian is on the strip, we walked everywhere. The first day we walked down to Stratosphere and back up to Mandalay Bay which is basically the whole strip. There are shopping plazas and air conditioned shops en route, so you won't really need to be out in the sun too much if you don't want to. We used the first day as the day to have a nose in all the hotels :D

Entertainment - Plan what you want to do in advance, even if you don't buy the excursions when you book at least make a note of ticket prices. We knew we wanted to see a few shows, but we left the booking of the tickets to when we were out there. The Venetian had "Rock of Ages" which is a rock music stage show and it turned out that the hotel had a bigger discount that the touts on the street. On the flip side we approached a man on a stall within one of the shopping plazas and he booked us tickets for Penn and Teller (at the Rio hotel) and his prices were competitive.

Shows we didn't see but were available include Michael Jackson show (Mandalay Bay), The Beatles (Mirage), Britney Spears (Planet Hollywood), Blue Man Group (forget where) and a few others. The billboards are plastered everywhere, so you can't really miss these tbh.

We also did a helicopter ride over the strip at night and it was amazing. Not cheap, but then it was a present from the girlf and I can't complain :cool:

Food - unless you like burgers, burgers and burgers.. have a look around some of the side streets. There's a few obligatory McDonalds, Wendys etc but there's also some decent restaurants about if you are willing to look.

Off the strip - We did a day trip to the Grand Canyon, visited the Las Vegas North Premium shopping outlet, visited Fremont street and the Las Vegas sign.

The Grand Canyon was an excellent day out and something I recommend you do, just to say "I did that". There are a few options available; fly on a private jet then take a bus tour to the canyon or fly directly to the canyon via helicopter. We did the jet trip purely because we wanted to save the helicopter trip over the strip for a special occassion and I have to say I don't regret it. They gave us a packed lunch, flights to and from the canyon and the bus "conductor" / tour guide was very funny and full of useful facts. Fact: the most expensive McDonalds in the world is en-route.. $20 for a Big Mac Meal!!

Las Vegas Premium North is somewhere we found by jumping in a taxi and asking for the best mall in town! ha! I don't really recommend a taxi unless it's for somewhere like this, but it was cheap to get to and hassle free. As Diddums says, there's plenty of deals to be had at these designer stores (there is also a South premium outlet, but the North is considered the best). I picked up 4 or 5 Ralf Lauren t-shirts for $13 each and the girlf bought herself some Nike Air Max trainers for about 60% of the UK price.

Fremont Street is another "must do" in my view. The evening we went Black Sabbath were playing a small gig there so that was a nice surprise, if a bit unexpected! The place is full of people doing street art and of course the famous Fremont light shows. There's even a place that offers you free food if you weigh over 350lbs, so maybe start on the diet food now?! :eek:

Finally, we walked to the Las Vegas sign. You can get a free monorail/shuttle from Excalibur to Mandalay Bay but that's as far as you can get without public transport or a taxi. We just chose to walk from the Mandalay Bay and I believe it was about a 2 mile roundtrip, which isn't so bad if you don't mind the heat.

Honourable highlight - Playing $10 in the casino and winning $0.75.. only for the machine to spit out a receipt; "claim your winnings". Yeeeeeeeahno.
 
Another vote for Battlefield Vegas - they wouldn't have been better with us!

Food-wise I can heartily recommend Andiamo's Italian Steakhouse on Freement Street - not cheap but wOw - what a steak!!!! :eek: (oh, and the Grand Lux Cafe in the Venetian is nice as is the Cheesecake Factory!)

- Hoover Dam is worth a trip out imo
- Grand Canyon (for the experience - the view was a bit meh when we went but I'm sure we didn't get the best view!
 
This is the panorama I took, when we stopped at the top of the canyon (click for full-size :eek: )

YJRR7p0h.jpg
 
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