Las Vegas guide and MSE thread 2012

nvh

ferf1223 wrote: »

never had any noise issue at all so interesting if it's said to be a noisy hotel...where are you seeing the reviews?

I think prior to when we stayed at Encore (2 years ago), there were a lot of reports on TripAdvisor saying a high room is beneficial at Encore due to the noise coming from the night clubs. At check-in, we were offered one of these free of charge.

We also faced North which meant we were away from it.

Never had a low room near to the club so not sure how bad it actually is though

secretmachines

VALUE FOR MONEY

How closely do you fit the profile of the protypical LV visitor

http://www.vegasinc.com/news/2012/apr/11/deconstructing-prototypical-las-vegas-visitor/?__utma=201616023.1645113251.1334150033.1334150033.1334150033.1&__utmb=201616023.1.10.1334150033&__utmc=201616023&__utmx=-&__utmz=201616023.1334150033.1.1.utmcsr=(direct)|utmccn=(direct)|utmcmd=(none)&__utmv=-&__utmk=7714481

Walter_Sobchak

ferf1223 wrote: »

we have stayed at Encore a few times and have never heard anything from the clubs.

XS is in the esplanade area anyway - not really near the hotel bit...not sure when Surrender nightclub is open but again it has never been an issue for us...never had any noise issue at all so interesting if it's said to be a noisy hotel...where are you seeing the reviews?

http://www.vegascasinoinfo.com/images/propmaps/wlvmap.pdf

OK, I looked up Surrender and Wed-Sat 10:30pm to closing, whenever that is...I guess that we're never really there in the summer when I suppose it may be more active but have never really noticed anything...it's probably the most chilled hotel/casino we have stayed at in Vegas, overall....thinking about it, our only real memory of any of these places (we do not go, no interest) is laughing at the people stood in the queue outside XS desperate to get in...laughing to ourselves, not actually at them...different strokes and all...but we just don't get it.

Over at the trip advisor reviews and forums. A Room tip was to ask for a high floor to avoid club noise. I think some guests still could hear the night club music even on a high floor.

Vern58

CASINOS

Having returned from Vegas at the end of last week, I can now offer my thoughts on the Tropicana Hotel (following on from earlier posts). We stayed for 3 nights and found it to be absolutely fine. The hotel is clean and bright and the casino is fairly small (which is good for navigation!). The rooms are great, with really comfortable beds, and the staff are friendly. The pool area looked nice too, though we didn't get to use it. Our friends ate in Cafe Nikki and, while a tad expensive, they said the food was very nice. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it, especially if you get a good deal. One poster before mentioned the area felt unsafe but we didn't experience that at all. We also got a free 'upgrade' to the Paradise Tower by emailing ahead, and the resort fee was waived after I moaned about it .

One question I have for others on here is - how do you go about getting comps for gambling with your Trop players card? There's no online login as far as I can see.


With regards to the rest of our trip, we stayed at the Orleans (which we love) for 4 nights at the end. Some eating places on our trip were:

• Harley Davidson Cafe (using R.com voucher) - this is pretty standard fare, but they do it well and it's great value using the voucher. A good choice for the day of arrival we thought (when you may or may not feel like eating loads). Their chilli starter is awesome.
• Garden Court Buffet (Main St Station) - A decent buffet in great surroundings, and amzaing value with the 2-for-1 vouchers. Be aware that you need to change these to a coupon at the players club first mind.
• Ellis Island - fantastic ribs n chicken again, though their comedy bendy plastic knives and forks make it a trial to eat.
• In N Out - great burgers, amazing value.
• Envy (with another R.com voucher) - fabulous steaks, and I enjoyed their rock shrimp and calamari starter (I never normally eat seafood). It was encased in a nice pepper coating of some kind and was huge, probably enough for two. Slightly annoyingly though, they asked what water we'd like and then charged us $6 for the privilege (bit of a cheap trick we thought). They also no longer do $5 mash and veg with entrees and also charged me $4 for the mushroom sauce, despite the menu saying it came with one sauce. Ho hum. The food and service were lovely though.
• Stripburger - had this the last day before flying back. I loved my burger and the chilli fries were nice, although a tad cold. I thought the burger was slightly nicer than In N Out (disagreeing with a earlier poster, but each to their own!) although I'd expect it to be at double the price. We will go back!
• Courtyard Cafe (Orleans) - I had the prime rib, which I thought was great. Maybe they get that from the Prime Rib Loft upstairs!
• Coasta Cantina (Orleans) - Mexican food - it was pretty average, quite bland. We wouldn't go back.
• TGIs (Orleans) - we like this place. It may not be such a bargain as it used to (without the special offers) but the food is reliable and we were delighted to see the Vanilla Bean Cheesecake back! It's double awesome.
• Gold Coast Buffet - pretty decent and very cheap at $7.99 pp with Bconnected membership.
• Wendys! - I had a great Son of Baconator (!) burger in Moab, and their chilli is very nice (as you may have gathered, I have a thing for chilli! ).

We also had a couple of nice wins on the Wizard of Oz machine (after reading that people like it on here!). We went to the Gold Coast for the first time and won $935 on our last spin from $40. Glinda appeared from nowhere and turned 4 of our reels into 'Wilds' (we had no idea what was going on!!). Then we won another $200 on an Oz machine in the Orleans (again on our last spin!). I'll see if I can post the pic of the bigger win.

We also did a 6-day roadtrip in the middle of our trip through Northern Arizona/Southern Utah, so if anyone has any questions on National Parks in that area, perhaps I can help!

Vern58

CASINOS

How do you post pics!!?? Or do I need to have posted more and be more specialer?

Walter_Sobchak

Vern58 wrote: »

How do you post pics!!?? Or do I need to have posted more and be more specialer?

Thanks for the report. upload your pics to http://imageshack.us/

Then copy and paste the links here.

Did you visit Zion and Bryce? We are visiting at the end of the month for a few days. Any tips/restaurant reviews would be great thanks!

Vern58

CASINOS

Big(ish) Wzard of Oz Win:

Vern58

CASINOS

Walter_Sobchak wrote: »

Thanks for the report. upload your pics to http://imageshack.us/

Then copy and paste the links here.

Did you visit Zion and Bryce? We are visiting at the end of the month for a few days. Any tips/restaurant reviews would be great thanks!

Not this time, but we have done before! We drove from Vegas to Zion and back in a day. It's very nice there. I think we ate in Chilis in St. George - I've had probably my best ever fajitas in there! (Though I was famished.) There's also an In N Out burger there, as we discovered on this trip. Yum.

When we went to Bryce we stayed in Kanab UT and coupled it with a trip to the Grand Canyon North Rim the next day. Both were jaw dropping. We stayed at the Aikens Lodge, which was a reasonably cheap and clean motel. We ate in the Rocking V cafe where I had a very nice steak and my Dad had an amazing buffalo steak. My OH had an italian dish she didn't like (but as I said to her, what do you expect in cowboy country!). There aren't many choices to eat in Kanab, and no bars at all (I think that's due to Utah's licensing laws - no drink without food I believe).

photome

VALUE FOR MONEY

Vern58 wrote: »

Envy (with another R.com voucher) - fabulous steaks, and I enjoyed their rock shrimp and calamari starter (I never normally eat seafood). It was encased in a nice pepper coating of some kind and was huge, probably enough for two. Slightly annoyingly though, they asked what water we'd like and then charged us $6 for the privilege (bit of a cheap trick we thought). They also no longer do $5 mash and veg with entrees and also charged me $4 for the mushroom sauce, despite the menu saying it came with one sauce. Ho hum. The food and service were lovely though.

• Stripburger - had this the last day before flying back. I loved my burger and the chilli fries were nice, although a tad cold. I thought the burger was slightly nicer than In N Out (disagreeing with a earlier poster, but each to their own!) although I'd expect it to be at double the price. We will go back!
• !

Thanks for posting

We had a different experience at Envy, We didnt get charged extra for an extra sauce. they didnt charge for the 4 slices of fancy bread or the extra special 3 different colour salt.

Most of all though we asked for a bottle of sparkling water and this fancy bottle appeared, and we thought "wonder how much that will be ?", when the check appeared there was no charge for that either we were well impressed.

I think it was me who you are disagreeing with about Stripburger, thats not a problem most people on here disagree with me about stripburger;). As you mention, Stripburger is at least double the price maybe 3 times for a burger, but IMO isnt worth the extra cost

photome

VALUE FOR MONEY

Walter_Sobchak wrote: »

Thanks for the report. upload your pics to http://imageshack.us/

Then copy and paste the links here.

Did you visit Zion and Bryce? We are visiting at the end of the month for a few days. Any tips/restaurant reviews would be great thanks!

We stayed in Tropic when we went to Bryce, which is in the canyon itself, we had a very comfortable cheap motel, it may have been the only place to stay as the place was so small, it had one restaurant, which we had noticed on the way out in the morning, but we only just managed to get a meal at about 8pm as they were shutting:o

Bryce is awesome and from some of the view points you can see the town of Tropic in the bottom of the canyon

Another thing I just remembered about Tropic is us standing in the middle of the road taking pics as there was no traffic, the town only has a population of about 400.

On the way from Tropic to the park entrance were some very easy, short but spectacular trails