Las Vegas guide and MSE thread 2014

Triker ref the 2 free nights.

Are they for the any of the Boyd properties if so it may be worth calling/emailing them to see if they will do the fri and sat, or at least give you a price, I seem to recall i did something similar and they allowed me to only use one of the 2 comp nights

Right, this is probably the closest you'll get to a Trip Report from me this time (and not just because I'm trying to find other things to do instead of mowing the lawn! ) but it's also because we didn't do a lot differently to any other time that being said, I've still waffled on more than I intended to - so, any questions (or requests for photos of any food or hotel rooms) just ask. Hopefully my grammar is behaving today!

Outline
Possibly our last trip (;)) to Vegas, we ended up booking this with considerably less time to plan than we normally do. That being said, we had fully booked flights and accommodation within a week, with only a slight change to one accommodation option just before we departed.

For a late booking, we had picked up a decent price for a British Airways flight departing from the EU. The route was:
Copenhagen --> San Diego (via. Heathrow)
Las Vegas --> Manchester (via. LA, Heathrow)

Flights came in at around £500 each. Looking at flights from Manchester and London and we were looking at around £900+, not even taking into account that the departure times of those flights were awkward (to say the least! - 6am departure from Vegas? no thanks!), so as we definitely wanted to go, we went for the cheap flights, but with a slightly enhanced experience which included cheap direct flights with SAS from Manchester to Copenhagen, 2 nights in at the airport Hilton, and paying for an "at airport" upgrade for the London - San Diego flight. Even though it was only to WT+, it was worth it to us for the quiet cabin and extra space and the cost still amounted to less than what economy flights from the UK cost (even taking into account how expensive Denmark is!)

Thoroughly recommend this kind of "ex-EU" routing to anyone considering it.

Itinerary
Our full itinerary / hotels were:
2 nights @ Hilton, Copenhagen Airport
1 night @ La Pensionne Hotel, San Diego (ie. land at SAN and go to bed!)
3 nights @ Westin Broadway, San Diego (via. SPG Credit Card points)
2 nights @ The Inn at Europa, Temecula (via. Travelzoo)
2 nights @ Aria (via. MyVegas)
1 night @ Furnace Creek Inn, Death Valley
1 night @ Inn on the Cliff, St. George
1 night @ Best Western, Bryce Canyon
4 nights @ Venetian (via. Priceline)
6 nights @ Platinum (via. Derek! lol)

Best Western seemed to be the best of a bad bunch, but other than that can thoroughly recommend all the places we stayed - particularly Temecula if you like the thought of a few days in (relatively undiscovered) wine country.

Piccies

Nyhavn, Copenhagen


San Diego


USS Midway, San Diego


Temecula


Even bottle tops can lie


Flashfloods behind Linq


Popeye in Wynn


Lake of Dreams


Muscle Car Challenge


Bryce Canyon


Bryce Canyon


Prairie Dogs at Bryce Canyon


Bryce Canyon


Guy Fieri Food - tasty lunch and good beer selection


Margaritaville Volcano Nachos (with free starter)


Envy Steakhouse (doh)


Rose.Rabbit.Lie - pork dish!


Standard fountains picture

Highlights
San Diego, Copenhagen and Temecula

Bar staff at the Platinum and that happy hour (plus half-price pool cocktails Friday)

Awesome weather all holiday, apart from a flash flood and a load of cloud the day prior to that (also affectionately known as hangover day - well timed apart from having to go to the Bellagio to get the car from valet)

Getting 'stuck' in Mexico, and having to buy our way out of the place

Reaching a level crossing, just as it shut and a mile long train went past

Racing to the next level crossing because we could see another train approaching!

Muscle Car Challenge - literally had to drag the missus here, but she ended up loving it and wanting to do more

Seeing Prairie Dogs in the wild

Remembering to make use of valet wherever possible in a bid to save / maximise time (for little money) due to location

Making good use of Social Rewards credits

"3 at home" PAYG simcard with data for the whole trip (though recommend forcing network to AT&T in Vegas - defaulted to T-Mobile on my phone which seemed dog slow)

Consciously setting an alarm to make sure we made breakfast most days, so we could skip lunch and have a decent tea.

Food
Envy Steakhouse was oustanding! Great food and service, and great deal via. Travelzoo ($75 for $150 I think?), plus used MyVegas to get a couple of monorail tickets there and back.

Breakfast at Serendipity3 - scared us as the portions going to other tables were stupidly big, however the Corned Beef hash was superb and adequately sized, so were the Eggs Benedict. The Groupon and Social Rewards helped too

Breakfast at Mon Ami Gabi - Social Rewards, a bloody mary and a tasty omelette were good... discovering smoking is not allowed on the balcony (when did this change), made it superb!

Breakfast at Wynn Terrace Point cafe - expensive but lovely service, and fantastic food (my first, and certainly not last venture into fried chicken for breakfast!)

Rose.Rabbit.Lie - hell of an experience. Not cheap but certainly different. We were there for 3 hours because we enjoyed it so much. Also order the strawberry with milk cocktail in a flask - $40'ish for a flask of the stuff and amazingly morish Don't order the pork though! 3 little pieces for $10!!

The Henry do a great "Dinner for Two" menu - you have to remind them they have it though! http://www.cosmopolitanlasvegas.com/pdf/menu/Dinnerfor2_9.3.14.pdf

Guy Fieri - good food, good beer selection (and took social rewards)

Things to watch out for
Aria put us in a smoking "optional" room - day 1 wasn't too bad but next morning it stank - kicked off at reception as we were never informed it was smoking "optional" (never heard of smoking compulsory rooms!), let alone asked if we wanted one. They gave us $75 F&B credit (which we had already spent at the pool that day) so worked out ok, and our clothes quickly lost the smell.

Catch the myVegas "Beer and Dinner Pairing" at Monte Carlo on a bad day, and it'll be one of the worst meals you ever had - very disappointing

Never underestimate the size of Margeritavillas Volcano nacho's

Never underestimate what quick cocktail waitresses, and strong cocktails can do to you! Never thought I'd end up walking into Paris relatively sober and leaving a complete mess (... and then still managing to gamble at Cromwell)

If your Tomahawk steak at Envy Steakhouse comes with Garlic Mashed and Green Beans, don't be stupid and think that it means green beans with bits of garlic mashed into it, and order fries to go with it (see photo above)

Never order pancakes for breakfast, thinking you will be able to eat them... you will never be able to eat them all!

If you want to burn Social Rewards credits, go to Heart Bar when it's not happy hour


Hope the above all formats ok... right, best mow the lawn

Brilliant report NVH, although I'm sad that you've put that it may be your last trip to LV .

Love the prairie dog and Bryce canyon pictures, planning to visit this trip (as we've planned the last 5 or 6 trips :cool:).

Triker wrote: »

...Bryce Canyon pictures, planning to visit this trip (as we've planned the last 5 or 6 trips :cool:).

Go for it! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VAgC6VsHAo

lesley74 wrote: »

nvh - I'm laughing at the portions sizes, remembering you said you prefer not to do buffets because you eat too much at them. :rotfl:

We also used some social reward credits at Heart Bar not during happy hour and found it reasonable. We just had beer/mike's hard lemonade at $6 each. We went a couple of times because we thought that was quite good. I'm guessing maybe you had cocktails and they were pricey?

Yeah, there were quite a few meals with a lot of leftovers! managed to eat all the steak at Envy, but the fries and mash were embarassing... we had to put some on our plate, just so it didn't look like we left nearly all of it

The volcano nacho leftovers were even more embarassing considering it was late in the evening and we hadn't eaten since lunch, but I'm pretty certain no-one could ever finish that lol

The fried chicken breakfast at Wynn was a perfect portion in my opinion


We did mojitos at Heart Bar - think they were coming in at $14 each, so having 6 between us made a bit of a dent :eek:

Triker wrote: »

Love the prairie dog and Bryce canyon pictures, planning to visit this trip (as we've planned the last 5 or 6 trips :cool:).

I was a little under-whelmed if I'm completely honest. I can't put my finger on why as I enjoyed Zion and the Grand Canyon on previous trips I think it was because we'd gone so much out of our way to get there perhaps, and comparitively to the other two, it seemed like it was over a lot quicker.