Las Vegas guide and MSE thread 2011

luci

May

The Cosmopolitan is a fantastic hotel and if you can get that with flights for 5 nights for £700 you should grab it. The hotel alone would cost that for 5 nights Sun-Thurs and even more if it was over a weekend.

photome

August

costingbunny wrote: »

It is a Virgin deal - the flight is with KLM and Delta though. Defo want a direct flight though. Furthest I've been in NYC and prefer to go straight though rather than make the journey even longer. BA have some deals as well - is flying BA better than Virgin - the guide says Virgin uses older planes for the LON-VEGAS route?

I see.

There isnt much to choose between BA and Virgin (from london) in economy..my vote just, would be BA.

You wont get a price of £700 for 5 nights at Cosmo including a direct flight though, as Luci says that is about the cost of the hotel alone, although of course that would be for 2 people whereas your quote is £1400 for 2, so flying indirect at say £400 each would leave about £600 for a hotel which would get you a very good one for 5 nights and may get the Cosmo in their cheapest room.

duchy

May

Finally got around to complaining about a mess up on my flight home in September. Was flying out with United and back with Continental and had to call to book the CO seat.For some reason my United card number didn't move over to the CO system. Got a snotty agent who first said I couldn't have the seat I wanted "As they are only for elites" so I pointed out I'm elite with UA and CO then told me she'd book me a preferred seat as I have frequent flyer status but wasn't going to add my number as I didn't qualify for miles. I wasn't going to argue with her but knew I got miles with United for that fare class-so just said there were other reasons like bag charges and IrOps for having a card number in a booking so please add it. She *said* she had-but hadn't.

When I got to Newark for my flight home I was told by the gate agent that as the flight was so horribly overbooked after the hurricane (this was right after) that if my frequent flyer card had been in the booking they'd have moved me up to Business First to make room in economy !!! As I was on a connecting flight they'd moved other people instead by the time I got to the gate.

I wrote to CO to complain about their agent not doing what she was asked and had said she'd done -and to UA just to comment that the integration between the two systems hadn't worked (card should have shown up in the CO system automatically when I booked) but not really complaining.

Result- Continental gave me 3000 miles and United 9000 (a one way award ticket in the US costs 12.5K ).
Just shows how much the airlines vary with compensation -CO were far more at fault yet compensated less-Sadly when the United/Continental merger is complete they are going to be using the Continental system for compensation though !

Still waiting for $100 back in baggage compensation as United left my bag in Chicago but that seems to be going through.

It sounds like a lot went wrong but actually it was a great trip despite having to move flights to get out of the east coast ahead of the hurricane with 8 flights in a week (should have been 9 but when I changed flights I was moved for free from an indirect flight from Washington to Phoenix to a direct one from Baltimore instead). On things that went right-I had a six hour wait at Manchester to connect to Heathrow (it was £200 cheaper to fly Newark Manchester Heathrow rather than Newark Heathrow direct -and despite the "experts" at flyertalk telling me I had no chance of getting moved onto the earlier flight for free-I did (I had NO intention of waiting six hours and had bought a £10 cheapy rail ticket to London to use instead as a back up).

duchy

May

I *will* move machines if I need to whilst waiting for a drink -just stay in the same block and keep an eye out for the waitress. Really depends on the casino though-some the service is pretty fast others it's so slow I've ended up giving up on them.

I once tried tipping in advance-more by accident-in O'Sheas of all places LOL It was really busy and I had no change so gave her $5 -she offered to go get change and I told her to keep it as it was so busy in there-she was back what felt like every five minutes after that and I just tipped the usual $1 -when she was about to go on her break she bought me two drinks unasked -I guess it wouldn't work so well at more upscale casinos with such a low amount -but the principle is the same-look after the waitress better than some other customers and she'll look after you too.

duchy

May

photome wrote: »

I see.

There isnt much to choose between BA and Virgin (from london) in economy..my vote just, would be BA.

.

I agree BA is better than Virgin (newer planes , better service) but not by much but I wouldn't rule out indirect as you can often get much better prices - better seating and for me the best bit is arriving in Vegas and walking straight out of the airport and into a cab instead of having to stand in line to clear customs and immigration for ages first.

stoneman

October

Just back, 9 nights in Vegas and a 4 day caribbean cruise with NCL, even a nights stay at the Biltmore, wow,wow, and triple wow!! will report later, and BTW I still hate Miami

adamg

August

stoneman wrote: »

and BTW I still hate Miami

Makes two of us

dontone

June

Traincrashing wrote: »

Ooo they sound like nice drinks, I never really think about peach flavoured drinks, even though I love peaches. I've never used any machines like these before, are they easy to understand? I've tried watching peoples videos they put up here but I just dont have a clue. I keep hearing about the Alice in wonderland one, and the hangover, and sex and the city, but I don't have any idea at all how I would even play them!

I highly recommend getting a margarita or a similar cocktail if you are having a go at the slots and if you don't drink beer. I'm a Malibu drinker too, and found that the tipples that the waitresses were bringing were very full of ice and the drink was very watery and horrible. Fair enough, you get them for free if you are playing but they aren't nice at all.
Something like a margarita is far better, and a lot nicer
In regards to slots, I used to love all the old favourites like Wheel Of Fortune, etc. But this time I had a go on all sorts of slots and it was a lot more enjoyable.
Try looking on Youtube for "las vegas slots" for some ideas. There are all sorts to look at and I actually made a list of the ones I wanted to try. The Sex in the City was too expensive for me, but I enjoyed ones like the Wizard Of Oz, Lord of the Rings, and Star Wars - although they do get played a lot. There's a brill one that has "Whammies" on it, I think it's called Place your Bet, a lot of fun that one, and Black Knight. I just played minimum bet and did well some nights. You just have to be a bit careful when you first bet to make sure that you haven't pressed the max bet first IYSWIM. You can so easily spend you money that way and not get anything in return. If you aren't sure first, there is an info bar (as someone has already mentioned) that will help a lot.

ferf1223

March

dontone wrote: »

The Sex in the City was too expensive for me

You can play one game at a time for $0.50 on the original...the newer one has a lower max bet than the original (but I personally hate the newer one).

And the Whammies one is called Press your Luck - it's based on a US game show from the 80s. When we were there in September the free promo play machine at PH was a Press Your Luck game...so you had the chance to throw back your first prize to try for something better if you wanted.

ferf1223

March

costingbunny wrote: »

It is a Virgin deal - the flight is with KLM and Delta though. Defo want a direct flight though. Furthest I've been in NYC and prefer to go straight though rather than make the journey even longer. BA have some deals as well - is flying BA better than Virgin - the guide says Virgin uses older planes for the LON-VEGAS route?

We've had the debate here before, but I still think if we wanted to go direct we would go with Virgin solely due to the flight times...but others prefer getting to Vegas on the later BA flight.