Las Vegas thread and MSE guide 2009

slash2k01

Hi guys,

Have recently returned from vegas and loved it so much we are plannin to go back in the summer. My mum and dad are both 50 this year so I wanna take them away on holiday at the beginning of July. The plan is to spend a week in Orlando and then a week in vegas. Will probably look to book the flights soon and then keep an eye out for good deals on accomodation.

I'm not really sure what the best way to book multi-centre flights is, there is 5 of us and obviously the plan is to go manchester->orlando->vegas->manchester, I've checked opodo and for the 30th june it comes back as £448 each, do you think we will get it much cheaper than this? also it says only 7 seats left on the outbound flight, is this likely to be true?

One las thing is we plan to drive out to the south rim of the grand canyon and stay over a night there, we visited the bright angel lodge this time (although a snow storm denied us a view of the canyon) it seemed nice, can you reccomend any others?

thanks

ferf1223

The Bellagio Fountains

there used to be a strip map with some distances but I can't find it anywhere.

There is this which gives approximate times and distances between several.

http://www.byways.org/explore/byways/2032/itinerary/4116

Ok, looking at that more closely it's a bit wacky...depends I suppose on where you're starting within each casino but 1 mile from Luxor to Excalibur seems a bit odd when it was only .2 miles from Mandalay Bay to Luxor...so maybe that's not the best resource!

ferf1223

The Bellagio Fountains

slash2k01 wrote: »

Hi guys,

Have recently returned from vegas and loved it so much we are plannin to go back in the summer. My mum and dad are both 50 this year so I wanna take them away on holiday at the beginning of July. The plan is to spend a week in Orlando and then a week in vegas. Will probably look to book the flights soon and then keep an eye out for good deals on accomodation.

I'm not really sure what the best way to book multi-centre flights is, there is 5 of us and obviously the plan is to go manchester->orlando->vegas->manchester, I've checked opodo and for the 30th june it comes back as £448 each, do you think we will get it much cheaper than this? also it says only 7 seats left on the outbound flight, is this likely to be true?

One las thing is we plan to drive out to the south rim of the grand canyon and stay over a night there, we visited the bright angel lodge this time (although a snow storm denied us a view of the canyon) it seemed nice, can you reccomend any others?

thanks

Firstly - do you realise how hot it will be in July? It's rather evil we think..but others are OK with it...it won't be nearly as humid as Orlando, but it will be very, very hot.

I think £448 for a multi-stop journey is pretty good myself. You could check seats on the outbound flight using something like http://www.expertflyer.com/ - free trial, but what they may mean is only 7 seats left at that price? Maybe?

As for the south rim, we stayed at Thunderbird Lodge (next to Bright Angel) and the accomodations were basic but perfectly acceptable...El Tovar is the nicest of the lodges on the rim...they also have the rim cabins which looked really cool but never looked into the prices...the food at Bright Angel was (in our opinion) horrible...we would go outside the park to eat before trying it again.

slash2k01

ferf1223 wrote: »

Firstly - do you realise how hot it will be in July? It's rather evil we think..but others are OK with it...it won't be nearly as humid as Orlando, but it will be very, very hot.

I know its far from ideal but it's the only time we can all go, just have to spend as little time out in the sun as possible lol.

Think I will keep an eye on that flight deal and book it as soon as possible. Taking the heat into account, do you think it's worth paying a bit more for a room? I'm on a bit of a budget so was thinking maybe harrahs or excalibur, stayed at MGM this time but tnh wasn't that impressed with the bungalow suite so bit worried now about gettin a cheaper room.

trets77

The Bellagio Fountains

Wedgy2k wrote: »

Hi
Just thought i'd join MSE and thank everyone for the Las Vegas advice
I've been lurking this thread for months.

My brother and I are going 3rd week of Feb to celebrate my 40th Birthday and have just booked our flights today.
Virgin £340 each - Great price thanks to the advice on here
(Was £480 when i wanted to book it last year, advice on here was to wait)
No Hotel yet, awaiting the feb deals
depending on promos available its a toss up between Flamingo, Harragh's or Ballys. As we're both now single my brother wants to stay @ Hooters..... I'm trying to talk him out of it LOL but good price currently.

Oh and the ESTA advice was superb, neither of us realised. All ESTA'd up now:)

Thanks again
Shame about the exchange rate though

there should be Feb deals a plenty by now.

http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/travel-deals/704925/?start=0

i see very good deals for Ballys ,Caesars , Flamingo , Harrahs , and plenty of others the 3rd week of feb ...available now .

hopefully you have already looked at this link in the guide , but i have now bumped it to the top of the list of Vegas deal sites as "Las Vegas Promotions" site is not updating as frequent as it should IMO



I can see your brothers thinking about Hooters , but honestly the place is okay for a drink and some chicken wings but i would not want to stay there . the strip has sexy girls serving drinks in abundance and Vegas as a whole has more sexy girls taking their clothes off than you could shake a stick at . .
Hooters carved out it's business by serving chicken wings .... you don't get rich selling chicken wings by making your business a turn off to wifes / GF's / ect . that should tell you all you need to know.

ferf1223

The Bellagio Fountains

slash2k01 wrote: »

Think I will keep an eye on that flight deal and book it as soon as possible. Taking the heat into account, do you think it's worth paying a bit more for a room? I'm on a bit of a budget so was thinking maybe harrahs or excalibur, stayed at MGM this time but tnh wasn't that impressed with the bungalow suite so bit worried now about gettin a cheaper room.

We haven't stayed at Excalibur for years but were perfectly happy there, though we never stayed there during the summer when the number of families with a lot of kids might be higher than other times...as for Harrah's, the room we had was VERY small and the air con had a minimum setting - so you couldn't crank up the air if your room was too hot for you...we were there (I think) in November and our room was too warm for us to be comfortable...in July I can imagine we would have boiled to death. But that could just be us and our preference of being cold to hot.

I haven't stayed at MGM at all - others here have so they may have a better idea what you might be looking for if a bungalow suite wasn't to your liking...but if I had to guess, neither Harrah's nor Excalibur would be as nice as the room at MGM...but it's all a bit relative to the price for the various rooms.

Everyone here knows I'm a big fan of Bally's and we prefer them over Harrah's and Excalibur...the rooms are big and the North Tower rooms are nicely refurbished...the South Tower rooms are (mostly) unrefurbished and quite worn (and therefore cheaper)...so booking a ST room and hoping for an upgrade is a risk but there's a pretty good rate of success...whether it's worth that risk or not I cannot say...we would be disappointed in an unrefurbished room ourselves.

Flamingo might be another to consider as they have a great pool complex - something that might be nice to have available in the heat!

You could also check the LCI rates for your dates here (max of 7 nights per booking).

http://www.harrahs.com/lci/

You are supposed to be a member of an LCI casino to get these rates - so if you can join a local casino just in case they ask for proof it might be a good idea. Looks like you could get Paris for $860+tax for your dates...or ST room at Bally's for a fairly ridiculous $463.

ferf1223

The Bellagio Fountains

trets77 wrote: »

you don't get rich selling chicken wings by making your business a turn off to wifes / GF's / ect . that should tell you all you need to know.

Ha! I never thought of it that way before - but you're so right! And yes, Hooters Girls have nothing at all on many of the cocktail waitresses on the strip...those at Wynn come immediately to mind - every one of them is stunning.

slash2k01

ferf1223 wrote: »

You could also check the LCI rates for your dates here (max of 7 nights per booking).

http://www.harrahs.com/lci/

You are supposed to be a member of an LCI casino to get these rates - so if you can join a local casino just in case they ask for proof it might be a good idea. Looks like you could get Paris for $860+tax for your dates...or ST room at Bally's for a fairly ridiculous $463.

that is a good deal, think I may take a trip down the M62 and get signed up at that manchester casino, says that you automatically become a member to the rewards program once you become a member of the casino.:D

One thing though, I need two rooms, one will have two people in it and the other will have 3. When I put 3 people in the price is $200 more, does it really matter if I put 2 people and then 3 people stay in the room, ie with 2 queen beds?

trets77

The Bellagio Fountains

slash2k01 wrote: »

that is a good deal, think I may take a trip down the M62 and get signed up at that manchester casino, says that you automatically become a member to the rewards program once you become a member of the casino.:D

One thing though, I need two rooms, one will have two people in it and the other will have 3. When I put 3 people in the price is $200 more, does it really matter if I put 2 people and then 3 people stay in the room, ie with 2 queen beds?

Fatwallet FAQ covers this subject best i think

7. Can I sneak 3 or 4 or 600 people into one hotel room without paying extra?
A. Maybe you can and maybe you can't. Depends on the hotel, the time of year, how grouchy the cleaning staff is feeling when they notice you've got extra people in there, etc. You may have trouble getting enough room keys (some places deactivatate the old keys when you say you lost the keys and get new ones), getting everyone into the pool, having enough towels, etc. You may also get asked to leave or be forced to pay an unbudgeted for extra person charge. Or you may get all the keys you need, get everyone into the pool and have no problems. I think it's a bad idea, but I know people get away with it all the time (and get caught all the time).

Wedgy2k

http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/travel-deals/704925/?start=0

i see very good deals for Ballys ,Caesars , Flamingo , Harrahs , and plenty of others the 3rd week of feb ...available now .

hopefully you have already looked at this link in the guide , but i have now bumped it to the top of the list of Vegas deal sites as "Las Vegas Promotions" site is not updating as frequent as it should IMO


Cool ta, just found the Friends and Family promotion on Fat wallet
I was making the mistake of just reading the latest posts :doh:

Ballys $434 Harraghs $455

So with filghts just under £500 each, brilliant

Thanks again