Las Vegas guide and MSE thread 2014

pebblesmax

We have just booked our second trip for 2014. 23rd Sep to 13 Nov this time. We were a bit cold the last few days of last trip, so decided to bring it forward a month or so.

That will make it a total of 15 weeks in Vegas for us in 2014.

ferf1223

wynnvegas wrote: »

I assume most cars come with a satnav

you can get a package with one included but it may be more cost effective to buy one if you'll be using it a fair amount - worth pricing up the options...if you buy one before you go you can pre-load it with the places you want to go and get used to it, then sell it when you get back...maybe check ebay, or there are various places you can buy a refurbed one with US maps.

Edited to add - if you have a sat nav you may be able to buy the US maps for it - that's what we did.

We pretty much always pick up our car at TI now (and we always book through carhire3000 or whatever they are now they are always the best price for us - others have had good deals elsewhere but anytime we check CH3000 beats everywhere else our dates)...we get a taxi from the airport to the hotel then pick up the car on our first full day...it's a lot more relaxing we think...we used to always, always pick up at the rental facility but it's no longer our preference...we just drove to the hotel and parked it for the night anyway and we save a day's rental which offsets the taxi fare. Only downside is we don't have the car first thing in the morning but we've come to plan for that.

What sort of car will be down to personal preference...for that much driving you'll probably not want an economy car but how big you are comfortable driving and how much luggage you will have will obviously impact what sort of car you hire...personally we would go for a car as opposed to an SUV purely because the SUVs we have had haven't had a luggage screen and we wouldn't want to be driving aroudn with our cases in the back and visible when we were stopping, but that's just us.

Driving in the US is much, much easier than in the UK.

Your trip sounds great. Zion was wonderful, we only went for a day trip...I actually liked it better than the Grand Canyon overall.

ferf1223

pebblesmax wrote: »

We have just booked our second trip for 2014. 23rd Sep to 13 Nov this time.

you're no longer avoiding us by scheduling your arrival on our last day! two overlapping trips this year - awesome!

sensibleadvice

wynnvegas wrote: »

many thanks SA. True to the moniker!


Can I ask what model you got and how much the rental was?


Cheers,


Billy

The model we had was a GMC Terrain 3.2 V6. Choice was from a line of about 20 all prepped and ready with keys in, just go along the line and pick the one you like. There were perhaps 4 or 5 different models, all seemed comparable.

2 weeks in August cost £412. Sat nav was only payable locally and was $139 for 2 weeks. Price included additional driver FOC

http://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/2013-gmc-terrain-denali-36-v6-first-drive-review

301bhp, 272 torques and silky smooth. Electric boot, lane detect, cruise were very useful.

We got 24mpg (US gallon) which works out at around 29mpg (UK imperial) over 1700 miles with no effort or fuel saving driving. Fuel prices varied but typically around 1$/litre so when all that is converted it worked out at less than 10p per mile.

ferf1223

sensibleadvice wrote: »

Sat nav was only payable locally and was $139 for 2 weeks..

I do think buying one would be a good option if that's about what they cost to rent, pretty sure you could buy one outright for that?

One other thing I meant to mention is sometimes the price to rent for 4 days is only a bit less than a full week...so it's worth pricing up different options if you're considering having a car for part of the time and not other times...additional days over a week can add a disproportionate amount to the rental too...it seems that in general booking in full weeks works out the most cost effective, at least when I've checked. We pick up on our first full day and on the last day we drive ourselves to the airport to check-in and get rid of our bags, then back to the strip for a bit and then onto the rental car facility and shuttle back...we prefer this as it's less faffing with our cases on the shuttle and I always feel a bit better about the homeward journey once we've checked in officially.

sensibleadvice

ferf1223 wrote: »

I do think buying one would be a good option if that's about what they cost to rent, pretty sure you could buy one outright for that?

One other thing I meant to mention is sometimes the price to rent for 4 days is only a bit less than a full week...so it's worth pricing up different options if you're considering having a car for part of the time and not other times...additional days over a week can add a disproportionate amount to the rental too...it seems that in general booking in full weeks works out the most cost effective, at least when I've checked. We pick up on our first full day and on the last day we drive ourselves to the airport to check-in and get rid of our bags, then back to the strip for a bit and then onto the rental car facility and shuttle back...we prefer this as it's less faffing with our cases on the shuttle and I always feel a bit better about the homeward journey once we've checked in officially.

I looked at that when we got back and something like this seems comparable to what we had and covers all US and Europe. I'll definitely do that next time as I don't have a sat nav so it's good value.

Definitely agree re booking whole weeks. That was another reason why we taxi'd to hotel and pick car up next day because at the end of 2 weeks travelling it would have been tight to get back to Vegas, check in and get the car back. The way we did it we drove back to Vegas, checked in, criused the strip and decided on impromptu trip to Hoover Dam which was brill (we flew over it a few days later and could see all where we'd been).

Triker

For a sat nav, we bought something like this from Walmart.http://www.walmart.com/ip/TomTom-VIA-1435M-4.3-GPS-w-Lifetime-Maps-Voice-Recognition-Handsfree-Bluetooth-Calling/24216171?action=product_interest&action_type=title&placement_id=irs-srp-1&strategy=PWVAV&visitor_id=62741905623&client_guid=9e6f1580-ae1c-4583-a478-d6ac3737b38f&config_id=8&parent_item_id=20549414%2C22960524%2C27877482&guid=91f50e78-f2be-4f58-a402-a16f3a2387e8&bucket_id=irsbucketdefault&findingMethod=p13n

Much cheaper and easy to use, plus you can sell it on when you get home or keep it for the next trip!

Bri1

Triker wrote: »

For a sat nav, we bought something like this from Walmart.http://www.walmart.com/ip/TomTom-VIA-1435M-4.3-GPS-w-Lifetime-Maps-Voice-Recognition-Handsfree-Bluetooth-Calling/24216171?action=product_interest&action_type=title&placement_id=irs-srp-1&strategy=PWVAV&visitor_id=62741905623&client_guid=9e6f1580-ae1c-4583-a478-d6ac3737b38f&config_id=8&parent_item_id=20549414%2C22960524%2C27877482&guid=91f50e78-f2be-4f58-a402-a16f3a2387e8&bucket_id=irsbucketdefault&findingMethod=p13n

Much cheaper and easy to use, plus you can sell it on when you get home or keep it for the next trip!

I got one of these last year at Wallmart, works better for me than tom tom's & cheaper, nice bit of kit easy to update while you are there if you want to http://www.walmart.com/ip/Magellan-RoadMate-5045LM-5-GPS-w-Lifetime-Traffic-and-AAA-Tourbook-Refurbished/24280188?action=product_interest&action_type=title&placement_id=irs_top&strategy=PWVAV&visitor_id=62748563035&category=0%3A3944%3A538883%3A1005539&client_guid=c22f6da4-622f-4398-9ffc-1528ae13a438&config_id=2&parent_item_id=24216171&guid=db684bb8-7a75-407f-b475-2625f95ffc78&bucket_id=irsbucketdefault&findingMethod=p13n

pebblesmax

ferf1223 wrote: »

you're no longer avoiding us by scheduling your arrival on our last day! two overlapping trips this year - awesome!

I am so looking forward to meeting twice this year. 2014 rocks!

photome

ferf1223 wrote: »

you're no longer avoiding us by scheduling your arrival on our last day! two overlapping trips this year - awesome!

When is it you are going in september?

we will hopefully be going on 29th sep for 10 days ish

would be good to meet you and pebbles in september