Las Vegas guide and MSE thread 2011

scottish_lass

August

Flights booked for Aug. Looking at hotel rooms now, when would the deals usually start for Aug. Looking at staying 4nights Flamingo and 2 nights Cosmopolitan!! Then we are of to San Francisco for 5 nights haven't started to look for hotel there yet any suggestion would be appreciated.

rpstdavids

March

scottish_lass wrote: »

Flights booked for Aug. Looking at hotel rooms now, when would the deals usually start for Aug. Looking at staying 4nights Flamingo and 2 nights Cosmopolitan!! Then we are of to San Francisco for 5 nights haven't started to look for hotel there yet any suggestion would be appreciated.

Stayed at the Holiday Inn Express at Fishermans Wharf last week for a few days before heading to Vegas.

Booked it through the 'Friends and Family' link in another thread on this board. Cost was $85 per night which included breakfast.

The hotel itself was good, rooms were quite spacious and clean. The location was good, a short walk to the Wharf and also the cable cars stops were close by to get you downtown.

If you are not looking for anything flashy, I would recommend this place. I would definetally stay there again for that price.

rpstdavids

March

nvh wrote: »

can't wait to hear your trip report!

Ok, I get the hint

I'll write a short trip report soon.

Froggitt

rpstdavids wrote: »

Stayed at the Holiday Inn Express at Fishermans Wharf last week for a few days before heading to Vegas.

Booked it through the 'Friends and Family' link in another thread on this board. Cost was $85 per night which included breakfast.

The hotel itself was good, rooms were quite spacious and clean. The location was good, a short walk to the Wharf and also the cable cars stops were close by to get you downtown.

If you are not looking for anything flashy, I would recommend this place. I would definetally stay there again for that price.

And we stayed at the standard Holiday Inn Fishermans Wharf. Again nothing to write home about but clean and spacious. There is a Marriott opposite and a Dennys next door for brekkie.

Vikki_74

Froggitt wrote: »

And we stayed at the standard Holiday Inn Fishermans Wharf. Again nothing to write home about but clean and spacious. There is a Marriott opposite and a Dennys next door for brekkie.

We stayed there too in September! Good location, agree nothing special about the hotel itself but it was fine for what we paid - I think it was $86/night, booked through Priceline.

If you could get a good deal on the Holiday Inn Express though I'd go there instead - it's pretty much next door and you get a decent breakfast included in the price.

sarahlasvegas

August

adamg wrote: »

Time until Tuesday, 23 August 2011, 08:00:00 (UTC time)

169 days4076 hours244584 minutes14675080 seconds

Im about 12 hours ahead of you on my countdown...

169 days i need to get to the gym!! :beer: I cant wait

photome

August

scottish_lass wrote: »

Flights booked for Aug. Looking at hotel rooms now, when would the deals usually start for Aug. Looking at staying 4nights Flamingo and 2 nights Cosmopolitan!! Then we are of to San Francisco for 5 nights haven't started to look for hotel there yet any suggestion would be appreciated.

I have already booked my first 4 nights at the Flamingo in Aug (subject to poss change) via F and F a GO room for $59 a night

rpstdavids

March

Ok as promised here is my trip report, sorry if I've waffled on a bit in some places.


Plant Hollywood Hotel and Casino 27th Feb til 3rd March.

After 3 great days in San Francisco it was time to finally head to Vegas. This was my 12th visit to this great city since 1994, and every time I've visited there have always been some major changes to the place.

Our Virgin America flight arrived early and we were in PH about 30 mins later. I had booked the room through expedia, and with the discount code at the time and cashback from quidco it worked out to about £145 for the 4 nights. At check-in we were upgraded to one of the bigger 'resort' rooms with a view of the Bellagio Fountains for free :j


This was my first time staying at PH, although I has visited the casino before. The corridors leading to the room are quite dark, but the room itself was quite light and the view was fantastic. After sorting our cases out we headed down to the casino to get our bearings. The casino was quite lively, with music blearing out everywhere. It might not be everybody's cup of tea, but I loved it!

After a short while, and about $100 down. decided to head over to the Cosmo to check it out. Quite liked the look and feel of the place, and as it was now around 5pm we went and tried out the buffet. It was $27 each, but well worth it. The food was good and there was loads of choice. After this had a quick wonder around City Center, but found it quite confusing to get our bearings around the place, so next paid a visit to NYNY and then over to MGM for a quick go on the machines to keep my MGM card points balance valid, but again had no luck:( After this we headed back to PH for a few beers and watched the band playing in the Extra lounge. We also checked out the 'Pleasure Pit' section of the casino, well worth a visit in the evenings just for the scenery .


For Monday we decided just to spend a casual day wondering up and down the Strip. Didn't make any major plans for this trip such as a Grand Canyon or Hoover dam trip as my mate who was travelling with me had also visited Vegas before and had done these trips, so didn't see any point in doing them again. Visited most of the casinos between PH and the Fashion Show mall, sampling the odd beverage or two here and there and just soaking up the atmosphere. The Strip seemed fairly quiet to me compared to previous visits, it was quite nice not to have so many people wondering around.
We spent the evening Downtown. Used the new Express Deuce bus to get there, which at $7 for a 24 hour pass seemed good value. Ate at the steakhouse in the Fremont. The food was good and reasonably priced. Spent the rest of the night wondering from casino to casino, taking in the hourly light show, watching the live street entertainers and admiring the lovely cocktail waitresses/barmaids dancing on the bar outside the Golden Gate casino. I know a lot of people don't like or don't feel comfortable in the Downtown area, but I love it.

The next day we used our passes again to go down to the LV outlet centre. As usual I spent more here than I planned. A couple of pairs of Sketchers shoes, jeans, polo shirts etc. The prices were so cheap I couldn't resist. Also stocked up on thick work socks from Dickies, the steel toe capped boots I wear kills ordinary socks with in hours!

Decided to head to Ellis Island for the evening. I've meant to visit several times on previous visits, but never got around to it. Got to the restaurant, only to be told there was at least an hours wait for a table! Headed off to the bar to sample their brews whilst we waited. It was OK there, but then the damn Karaoke started, not my scene at all, but luckily our table was now ready. The food was pretty good and quite cheap. The total price for a starter platter, two main meals and a couple of beers was less than $35. After food we paid a quick visit to the casino, which is rather small. Once again I had no luck, but my mate took one of the machines for $200 again. We then headed back to PH for another beer or two, and to check out the 'Pleasure Pit' once again :beer:.


Wednesday morning we had breakfast at the 'Earl of Sandwich' at PH. The sandwiches were very nice and reasonably priced. The place is open 24 hours and worth a visit. After this we headed over to the Imperial Palace as we had a couple of free passes for the auto collection there. I'm not really a car person, but my mate is. Despite this I still quite enjoyed the collection, and we spent a couple of hours wondering around there. Most of the cars are for sale, and may of them are priced in the several million dollar mark, so I wonder how many they actually sell. There were two blokes manning the sales desk whilst we were there, but I didn't notice anybody enquiring about the cars. After this we went over to the Fashion Show mall to visit the Apple store, I had promised someone at work that I would get them an ipod touch, which worked out about £45 or so cheaper than over here, also picked up an official Apple case for my ipad. We then wondered slowly back to PH, once again sampling a few beers on the way.

For the evening we went Downtown again. It was a lot busier than the Monday night, the NASCAR race was starting the weekend, so people were starting to arrive for this. There were a few cars on display, as well as a few large trucks selling NASCAR merchandise. Once again the barmaids at the outside bar of the Golden Gate were pretty hot, but the band playing on the stage by there were so bad, they were actually good the watch, if you know what I mean. It was two guys with terrible wigs on playing rock songs quite badly. Tried my luck again at the machines in a few of the casinos, but still no joy. The Fremont street light shows were pretty good, one featured Queen, another KISS and the last one we saw was the Doors. They also have a new attraction downtown called 'Flightlines', where you get to ride on a zip line about 40ft in the air for about 400 meters or so under the Fremont Street canopy. It seemed fairly popular and we did think about doing it, but we were told that there was a 2 hour wait, so we didn't bother.

Thursday morning it was time to leave. We checked out and left our luggage as our Virgin flight wasn't until 16:35. We went for a late breakfast at Planet Dailies, which was ok, but a bit pricey. Then headed over to Paris Casino for a final attempt to win something. I was now down to my last $50, so decided to blow it on the $1 Wheel of Fortune machines. Managed to hit $250 on a bonus spin, so finally I hit something fairly decent. It was now approaching 1pm so decided to head back to PH to collect our bags and a taxi to the airport. Had another quick go on one of the machines at PH, and low and behold, hit another $250, then another $100 then yet another $120 on different machine. I was now well over $600 up on the day, my luck had finally turned, but it was time to leave:(.

Got to the airport about 2:30ish, the International terminal at McCarran airport isn't the most exciting! Stuck another $20 in one of the airport machines to see if my lucky streak was still going, but it wasn't. The flight boarded on time and we were back in Gatwick about 30 mins early. The flight was pretty good and had loads of empty seats, so there was room to spread out a bit. We were then faced with a 7 hour rail journey to get back home to West Wales. A long day overall, but worth it for the trip.

Sorry if I've gone on a bit, didn't intend on it being this long, especially as we really didn't do anything that exciting!

Time now to start planning trip number 13 to Vegas, hopefully that will be the luck one.

scottish_lass

August

Thanks for all the advice. Searching sites the best deals i can find are

Flamingo 4nights Aug $394 ?£245 approx
Cosmopoliton 2nights £245
Chancellors hotel san francisco 5 nights £621 or
Holiday Inn express £724
Would really like a better deal with the san francisco hotels, anyone any ideas.
Review of Chancellor hotel seem ok but expedia etc have no availability!

photome

August

scottish_lass wrote: »

Thanks for all the advice. Searching sites the best deals i can find are

Flamingo 4nights Aug $394 ?£245 approx
Cosmopoliton 2nights £245
Chancellors hotel san francisco 5 nights £621 or
Holiday Inn express £724
Would really like a better deal with the san francisco hotels, anyone any ideas.
Review of Chancellor hotel seem ok but expedia etc have no availability!

That seems a lot for the Flamingo, although I am guessing you must be there on a Fri and Sat night..what dates are you there