Las Vegas guide and MSE thread 2011

pebblesmax

November / December

I saw this on TV. My SO refuses to consider helicopters because he says this type of thing happens more often than is usually reported.

photome

August

pebblesmax wrote: »

I saw this on TV. My SO refuses to consider helicopters because he says this type of thing happens more often than is usually reported.

That is one of the reasons I have never been in a helicopter

Tesco_points_addict

Blooming ek, @I'm going to Vegas on Monday and it looks like it is really cold! Was there this time last year and it was 18 -19degrees

luci

May

The only time I have been in a helicopter is to go offshore to a North Sea oil platform. I have toyed with the idea of going to the Grand Canyon in one, but something keeps stopping me.

I agree that this happens more often than we hear about in the UK.

ferf1223

March

we loved Carrot Top...my hubby wasn't interested in seeing him but laughed so much - though he has always watched a lot of American telly and got most of the references. I would see him again - though we did get our tickets through tix4tonight - not sure how the price compares to the offer.

luci

May

The cheapest I've seen it at T4T was $39 + service charge so $36 is a good price.

ratkarth

trets77 wrote: »

tell me about it. although we rented a Villa in spain on the cheap this year, that won't be an option next due it being toddler unfriendly.

I have no idea what to do for a holiday in 2012.

We're cruising in jan from Southampton for a trial I just can't face 2 hours in the airport
The other option which I suggested was. Loads. Of family all come too so a holiday to Vegas with 6 babysitters

photome

August

ratkarth wrote: »

We're cruising in jan from Southampton for a trial I just can't face 2 hours in the airport
The other option which I suggested was. Loads. Of family all come too so a holiday to Vegas with 6 babysitters

We have done that, its a great idea

adamg

August

ratkarth wrote: »

We're cruising in jan from Southampton for a trial I just can't face 2 hours in the airport
The other option which I suggested was. Loads. Of family all come too so a holiday to Vegas with 6 babysitters

Remember to tip the porters at the docks well :j

tdawber

November / December

We just had 2 weeks as Vegas virgins, I’m not really one for doing holiday reviews but thought it might help others and I just wanted to put down some of our experiences to try and help other newbies out there.

We stayed at The Signature at MGM Grand in Tower 3 (a really quiet tower). Not sure if we would stay here again as it is a pretty long walk to the strip, but if your in Vegas for a short trip this place is a good option if u can get it at a good price, but be aware of the 23 dollar a day resort fee.

We got a strip view on floor 27 which was great (didn’t tip or pay any extra), the hotel was pretty quiet the last week in November, but the 1st week in December when the Pro Bull Riding started Tower 1 and 2 got really busy and so did the Vegas traffic.

We didn’t rent a car at first, but found it a necessity especially to get off the strip and do more shopping and other sight seeing. We hit the Black Friday sales hard! Found loads of sales at JC Penneys, Tommy Hilfiger etc.

We gave it a few days to settle in and just walked around, then we got a taxi to the Car Rental Centre at McCarren after booking online with Hotwire were we found the cheapest Compact car, but actually got an intermediate as there were no compacts left, it was a Dodge Caliber.

We valet parked everywhere on the strip and just paid 2 dollars when we picked it up, this way of getting around is so much easier and a treat when you are on holiday, we did self park at Hooters and on Freemont, but wished we had done a valet afterwards.

Found the Monorail expensive, 12 dollars for 24 hours.

We signed up to a lot of the casino Players Clubs to get the freebies, this was a cheap way of having a day out and have a bit of free fun! We won a total of around 80 dollars on the 1cent slots with the freeplays, found the DaVinci 1cent slot and the Moolah 1cent slot really good at paying out.

Went to the PRIMM outlet mall and also hit all the Premium Outlet malls in Vegas, the PRIMM was about 1 hour drive south. My opinion is the shops at PRIMM were much better and it wasn’t as much of a jumble sale in the shops, presentation was a lot better. MGM do a shuttle to the PRIMM around 11am in the mornings, which is pretty neat if you don’t have a car.

We went to Red Rock Canyon which was okay, a cheap day out at 7 dollars per car, the 13 mile scenic drive was pretty neat and they had a really good gift shop. Fab place if you want to hike or do some climbing and horse riding.

We signed up to the players clubs and spun the wheel at the Cosmopolitan (a real pretty casino), my fella won a free buffet at Wicked Spoon and I won 5 dollars free play. Other prizes were, spa days, 100 dollar free play etc. We didn’t see any advertising for this spin the wheel offer, but thanks to MSE peeps we found out about this.

We both shot handguns at American Shooters, which was awesome as handguns are illegal in the UK. We also went to the Gold and Pawn Silver shop from the show Pawn Stars, which we both enjoyed alto we had to wait around 30 minutes to get in.

Went to Wallmart to get our food shopping in, first one we went to was the one in Paradise (a total oxymoron.) We would recommend that you avoid this Wallmart as it is full of less fortunate people.

Regarding beggers etc, there are a lot of street performers, card flickers and beggers (of all kinds) on the streets which you just have to accept, its not like being a tourist in Florida, if you are well traveled you wont find this a problem, IMO.

Show wise found the shows that we saw didn’t sell out and you could easily get upgraded by the usher if you wanted to, either for a fee or sometimes for free. We also found that the theatres in the casinos were not that big, so where ever you were sat u got a good view. Monte Carlo was about the biggest theatre we went to. We got all our tickets from tix4tonite.

David Copperfield at MGM, show was okay, he did about 5 good illusions.

Jabawokeez was amazing and the theatre at Monte Carlo was really nice, we paid for the cheapest seats again (section 4) which was the back row. The venue wasn’t even half full, the usher started re-seating people to the front, we ended up 3 rows from the front! Favourite show of our holiday.

The Rat Pack is Back at Rio, was an okay show, but we preferred the Rat Pack Vegas Spectacular which is a British Show, they have dancing girls and musicians are more ‘’into’’ the show, vocals at the Rio show were amazing tho. The show was about 75 mins long in Vegas. We paid for the cheapest seats with Tix4Tonite, there was an option to pay the usher 5 dollars each to get in the gold circle if you wanted the opportunity to get fondled by Marilyn Monroe, but we were happy with our sofa seats.

Crazy Horse Paris at MGM, was an interesting good show, again we paid for the cheapest seats. The ushers here weren’t so keen to move people unless you kicked up a stink, the cheap seats here aren’t great, but there was plenty of seating available, the cheap seats sorta compare to sitting on a bus and are tightly crammed in so makes it very difficult to get out if you need the rest room or a drink, this is a small theatre. We got upgraded to a booth cause my fella is a tall guy and would have obstructed other peoples view, lol.

We also saw Absinthe, paid for the cheapest tickets and was loads of unreserved seating available when we got there, we saw this on a Sunday night, would recommend this show too, I would say its like Cirque for adults, its really funny. I would recommend going for the earlier of the two showings, we got in the tent pretty early and get to soak up the atmosphere, where as people waiting for the later show were queuing outside for our show to finish and it was pretty cold.

Luxor - if you want to get hassled by sales people, this is the place to go/stay, it was rather annoying, I wouldn’t stay here full stop, we got offered a freebie 4 day stay, but we declined.
We came here for the Bodies and the Titanic exhibitions, which were both very good and would recommend. We did the 3 for $52 (including tax) deal which they were offering at MGM Grand.

We went to Roos and More after a recommendation from ferf1223 from this forum, and if you are an animal lover this is a total must doo, I would never have known about this place if it wasn’t for ferf1223 and this forum, so I thank her very much as it fulfilled a lot of my dreams to pet and meet otters and also to meet other animals like a monkey, armadillos, snakes, the bear cat (I forgot its name) but he was my favourite animal, he smelt like popcorn.

Cant wait to visit again