Las Vegas guide and MSE thread 2014

d0nkeyk0ng

We went in March as part of a lads' holiday.

Flights: From Heathrow to LV. With BA. Nothing special. Old plane which would have felt modern pre-2000.

ESTA: Fairly quick and painless.

Hotel: Stayed at the Mirage. Hotel was nice although the room was only on the fourth floor and overlooked the front of the casino so the main view was a concrete roof! Worked out to £50/night each for two people for four nights. Wifi was free but not always reliable.

Dining: Foodwise, we breakfasted at the poolside cafe. There's also a "deli" which serves typical OTT American fare, a Starbucks, a pizza place and a 'gourmet' burger restaurant. Didn't really go out of the hotel to eat. Huge queues for the buffet cafe which we didn't bother with.

Nightclubs: Take your passport and don't wear trainers. Smart shoes, jeans and a shirt is fine. No violence, stupidly drunken behaviour or any of the stuff the plagues British clubs. Try and get into a pool party if you can.

Shopping: We went to the North outlet. Bought stuff that would have cost 3-4x in the UK in some outlets.

Weather: End of March was the perfect time to travel. No rain, beautiful clear blue skies and hot sunny weather.

Money: The best currency exchange was at the post office and it's better to take cash with you rather than take money out there. You need to tip everywhere - for the blackjack dealer, for the concierge, for the bellboy etc.

LondonDreamer

gizmat wrote: »

hi, is somebody able to tell me if the terraces at the cosmopolitan are sun facing,i was looking at the studio terrace rooms. thanks in advance

If you are looking at the fountain view terraces, these rooms all face north so away from the sun. The south facing rooms (looking out over CityCenter) will not have the fountain view, but will have the sun. There is a small handful of east and west facing rooms in the east tower, which will obviously have sunrise or sunset as applicable.

dcockerton wrote: »

Hi All,
We are off to Las Vegas in August and was going to exchange some points for the myVegas buy one get one free on the monorail but I see that it counts as one of my 4 rewards. Does anyone know if there are any coupons or deals to buy one get one free?
Thanks, great site and great help.

The monorail should not count as one of your rewards, as the restriction is for MLife owned properties which it is not.

pebblesmax

dcockerton wrote: »

Hi All,
We are off to Las Vegas in August and was going to exchange some points for the myVegas buy one get one free on the monorail but I see that it counts as one of my 4 rewards. Does anyone know if there are any coupons or deals to buy one get one free?
Thanks, great site and great help.

I was under the impression that the monorail rewards didn't count towards the total. Monorail, Sugar factory, HoB, Wolfgang Puck are separate from the mlife rewards.

ferf1223

d0nkeyk0ng wrote: »

Money: The best currency exchange was at the post office and it's better to take cash with you rather than take money out there.

I suppose some parts of the country the PO may be the best rate around, but not everywhere (certainly not in London).

looking here it doesn't look like the PO is anywhere near the top for collection even excluding London.

http://travelmoney.moneysavingexpert.com/holiday-money/

Not sure that it is better to take cash with than take money out there, it depends on what is meant by 'best' - with the right plastic it would be better value to withdraw at an ATM in the US. We do normally take about 1/2 of our spending money in cash for various reasons - it's what we are comfortable with...but we could, in theory, probably get a better rate withdrawing when there on the right card at the right ATM.

ferf1223

dcockerton wrote: »

Hi All,
We are off to Las Vegas in August and was going to exchange some points for the myVegas buy one get one free on the monorail but I see that it counts as one of my 4 rewards. Does anyone know if there are any coupons or deals to buy one get one free?

It didn't count toward one of our rewards in October when we used one...there used to be 2-for-1 vouchers about but it's been awhile since I have seen them...it used to be great as the 2-for-1s were good for any type of ticket so we used to buy a 3-day pass with them.

We bought a week's ticket on the MyVegas BOGOF and found it wasn't worth it for us - and we were staying at Bally's...we just didn't use it as much as we thought we might...if we did it again we would probably just go with a one-day pass and plan to use it enough to justify it...in the end we got our money's worth but only just.

photome

d0nkeyk0ng wrote: »

We went in March as part of a lads' holiday.

Flights: From Heathrow to LV. With BA. Nothing special. Old plane which would have felt modern pre-2000.

ESTA: Fairly quick and painless.

Hotel: Stayed at the Mirage. Hotel was nice although the room was only on the fourth floor and overlooked the front of the casino so the main view was a concrete roof! Worked out to £50/night each for two people for four nights. Wifi was free but not always reliable.

Dining: Foodwise, we breakfasted at the poolside cafe. There's also a "deli" which serves typical OTT American fare, a Starbucks, a pizza place and a 'gourmet' burger restaurant. Didn't really go out of the hotel to eat. Huge queues for the buffet cafe which we didn't bother with.

Nightclubs: Take your passport and don't wear trainers. Smart shoes, jeans and a shirt is fine. No violence, stupidly drunken behaviour or any of the stuff the plagues British clubs. Try and get into a pool party if you can.

Shopping: We went to the North outlet. Bought stuff that would have cost 3-4x in the UK in some outlets.

Weather: End of March was the perfect time to travel. No rain, beautiful clear blue skies and hot sunny weather.

Money: The best currency exchange was at the post office and it's better to take cash with you rather than take money out there. You need to tip everywhere - for the blackjack dealer, for the concierge, for the bellboy etc.

Just my 2penneth but the PO is never the best rate, and all things being equal it is bettter to withdraw cash in a US ATM as long as you have the best card/s

Seldom_Seen_Kid

Just a quick message to say thank you to ferf1223 for the reply yesterday. We popped down after a hour by the pool, and the information was perfect.

Saks Outlet was nowhere near as good as San Diego, but we did very well in Nike and Ralph Lauren.

ferf1223

glad to hear it...I still haven't been to the Saks outlet though I always mean to...someone here a few years ago said at one point they had Mulberry bags, but not in a long while. I would make a special trip for that.

Seldom_Seen_Kid

No Mulberry bags. A few decent Marc Jacobs, and then the usual brands (Michael Kors etc). The clearance section was a bit of a jumble sale, but the rest of the store was nicely laid out.

Wammer

I got $1.698 cash withdrawing in the US a couple of weeks ago. The best rate for buying in the UK according to ferf's link is $1.57. No brainer.

The monorail rewards doesn't count towards your 3 or 4 rewards.