Las Vegas guide and MSE thread 2014

ferf1223

littlemissbossy - it wouldn't surprise me given how many times they have moved it already...it is a bit silly...I wonder if they are having difficulties with the implementation or user acceptance testing or???? I can't see any reason why they would keep moving it unless it was one of those things because it just looks quite poor to keep releasing a date and changing it.

pebblesmax

I was told in May on our way home that they are having problems integrating the computer systems after the change.

am05

Hi All,

Bit they have cancelled our flight with Virgin on 24/12 as they are no longer flying. We have changed to BA on the 23rd. Have never flown with them before, couple of things...... How many bags can we take (flying economy) and when can we choose our seats? Do we have to pay to reserve seats?

Thanks

Am

masterwilde

ba you can book your seat with online free of charge, and you can take 1 suitcase each in economy

nvh

masterwilde wrote: »

ba you can book your seat with online free of charge, and you can take 1 suitcase each in economy

depending on your "Executive Club" (flying) status dictates when you can book for free though...

IIRC:
Blue = at online checkin (24 hours before)
Bronze = 7 days ahead
Silver or above = whenever

masterwilde

hi all, looking for info from the wealth of knowledge here.

I returned from Vegas recently and we left my partners purse in the room safe, various emails back and forth and purse returns to UK.

However money has been stolen out the purse and am looking for email addresses to senior management at the hotel.

I have already notified lost and found and sent another email to guest relations however i feel that the hotel manager should be notified of this.

So i beg to the communal knowledge and wisdom here

many thanks

StuieUK34

Think your gonna get nowhere here....
How would anyone, let alone a manager verify how much money was in a purse/wallet that you leave behind ???

Can see your issue, but can also see there side when u say you got back an empty wallet...
Think you might be out of luck


Out of interest, how much was in the purse ?

masterwilde

hey Stuie, the staff counted all money in the pruse and included the "deposit slip" in the purse of 7.88 coin and £200 foreign currency.

Its the £200 in notes that has been stolen, no cards or id's.

so they counted it out and either didnt put it back in the ourse or someone stole it before posting it back

rorylando45

Here's my trip report...just realised how long it is, I haven't written this much since my school days! Hope you enjoy anyways.

OK so here’s my trip report. Went for a week, staying at the Monte Carlo in a party of 9. We were 2 guys and 7 girls, and it was to celebrate my younger sister’s 21st birthday.

Saturday 7th June
We weren’t all on the same flights. 4 of us were flying Delta via Detroit, 2 of us Delta via Seattle, 1 direct Virgin and 2 were already in the USA and meeting us in Vegas. I was part of the 4 travelling via Detroit. We arrived at Heathrow nice and early on Saturday morning to find our LHR-Detroit flight delayed by two hours. Combined with a loooong queue at immigration in Detroit meant we missed our connecting flight, albeit literally by a few seconds. I was sprinting down the terminal to the gate in Detroit and could literally see the guy closing the door down the tunnel. Devastating. Anyway there were no further flights out of Detroit to Vegas that day so we had to go via Salt Lake City. Wasn’t the end of the world, had some more drinks at Detroit and at SLC and finally got to Vegas at about 9pm local time, about 24 hours after waking up.

Got a cab from the airport (he took the tunnel, I forgot to tell him not to…came to $25 incl. tip). Went to check into Monte Carlo, I tried giving the guy $50 and asking if there were any upgrades. He seemed friendly and chatty and spent a couple of minutes tapping away on his computer, it started to look quite promising – but in the end he said there was nothing available and returned the $50. In any case we had really nice rooms up on the 30th floor (2nd highest floor) with an incredible Strip view (I emailed the guest experience manager Kimberly Trevino beforehand to ask for this). However, our rooms were King rooms and we had requested two Queens. I rang down the front desk and asked if we could be switched, but she said there was no availability for that night. She said she would send up complimentary rollaways for the Saturday night, then on Sunday we could get moved to Queen rooms. More than happy with that.

We then just went out for a few hours, got some food and drinks and I think hung out in Nine Fine Irishmen and Coyote Ugly (both in NYNY) for a bit which was a laugh. Can’t remember if we did anything after that as I was really tired and pretty drunk.

Sunday 8th June
Spent some time at the Monte Carlo pool, really like it down there. Not too big but loads of loungers, nice crowd, quite relaxed. The lazy river is amazing and is great at eradicating a hangover. It was pretty hot but not unbearable.

In the evening we went to Hussong’s Mexican restaurant in Mandalay Bay. I love this place and go every trip, it was just as good as last year. Had a $25 Restaurant.com voucher, think it worked out at like $15 per person including tax and tip…great value.

From there we got the lift up to the Mix Lounge in Mandalay Bay which is on the top floor. The view North up the Strip is AMAZING. Genuinely mind-blowing. There is an open-air balcony up there but you’re meant to buy bottle service (starting at $300 for vodka) to be up there. You can also stand out there if you’re smoking (or pretending to smoke as I was doing!) which gives a great view. Inside you can buy a regular drink for like $10-$15 and just sit on the company chairs. It wasn’t particularly formal, we were just in normal clothes and there wasn’t a guy on the door checking us.

From Mix Lounge we got a cab up to this awesome club I found a couple of trips ago. I think it’s called Carnaval Court (or something like that) – it’s nestled right inbetween The Quad and Flamingo’s. It’s kinda half indoor and half outdoor and just a really fun vibe. It’s less of a proper club and more like a bar with dancing. They have fans that spray out cold vapour and a really good DJ. Also every 15 mins or so they pour free shots into people’s mouths at the bar. And do all that stuff where they throw bottles over their heads and catch them behind their back etc. And also breakdancers and stuff. It’s not the most fancy or sophisticated place but it’s a really good laugh. Also if you’re on the cheap you can just go to the liquor store in the Quad and sneak in a bottle if you wanna save on the drinks prices!

Monday 9th June
More pool time in the morning. Was ridiculously hungover so couldn’t face much…at lunchtime went to the Spice Market buffet where we had a Groupon. For 2 people including drinks it was $36.98 and I even had a $10 Groupon discount so worked out at $26.98, really good deal. I like the food here, can’t really remember what I ate though. After that felt so sick that I had to go back to the hotel for a nap and ended up sleeping til 10pm. Just went down to the casino for a couple of hours then got a relatively early night.

Tuesday 10th June
We all felt quite refreshed this morning so we got up early and hired cars to drive to the Grand Canyon. We pre-booked two cars from the Hertz desk in the Cosmopolitan which was the most convenient for us; just got the free tram from Monte Carlo up to CityCenter then walked into the Cosmo. We’d booked economy cars but they upgraded us to full-size which was nice. 5 in one car and 4 in the other we set off – I was driving. Was a bit worried as I hadn’t driven an automatic in America for about 4 years but it only took me about 2 mins to pick it up again. Set off at about 8.30am.

Stopped at the Hoover Dam on the way out which was pretty impressive to see. Took some photos, wandered about for a bit then got back on the road. We planned to stop at a diner soon thereafter for breakfast but we didn’t pass one for quite a while. Ended up stopping a place called Rosie’s Den which comes just a few miles before the left-turn for the road that goes to the Skywalk. Rosie’s Den was great, really authentic, really good filling food. Try the breakfast burrito.

From there we drove on for about another 60-90 mins to get to the West Rim place. I know people say South Rim is a lot better but we couldn’t bear driving all that way. In any case we were all mindblown by the West Rim. We parked at the welcome centre, paid the $73 for the SkyWalk and went round all 3 sites that the shuttle buses drop you off at. The first is a really cool little old wild-west style town. It’s all built for purpose of course but still cool to walk around. The second site is where Skywalk is. VERY dangerous so don’t ever take your kids! They literally could just wander off the edge and plummet 4000ft. We did the Skywalk itself which was very scary but very cool. Then went to the final shuttle stop which had incredible panoramic views of the canyon. After some photos we returned to our car and drove home. Got back to Cosmo at about 6.30pm so was a 10 hour round trip in total, including stopping at Hoover Dam, Rosie’s Den and Grand Canyon. Note that the Hertz desk at Cosmo closes at 5pm so we had to use the express key drop which was quite painless. Including gas and the rental costs of both cars it worked out at $25 per person between the 9 of us which seemed very reasonable. Coupled with the $73 charge to get to the West Rim and on the Skywalk, it was under $100 per head. One of our party of 9 then flew home due to visa expiry, so I was left with 1 other guy and 7 girls.

After a quick rest, shower and change of clothes we all had a few drinks in our hotel room and decided to go out to a proper club. We had bought in advance online the “V Card” for $45 which supposedly gets you in to all sorts of clubs/bars in Vegas for free and without having to wait in line. I was sceptical but the girls all really wanted to get it so I thought why not. We decided to try out Hyde in Bellagio; I rang them in advance to check that we were good to use our V Cards and the lady said yeah sure. So we all got dressed up and went down. I was very impressed with the V Cards, we went to the front of the line and showed them to the bouncer and he pretty much let us in there and then. He also gave the girls a free drinks token. I think it helped our cause that our party was a 7:2 girls/guys ratio but still, we only had to wait for a couple of minutes and didn’t have to pay a cover charge at all. Even for that alone it was probably worth the $45 we paid for the V Card. The club itself was quite small and very packed. I kinda liked it, others in our group liked it and some didn’t like it much. It has great views of the fountains but it was really busy. After an hour or two inside we left, and those of us who were still standing went back to Carnaval Court for some further fun. When I got back to the hotel though, somehow managed to lose $400 at Blackjack…doh!

Wednesday 11th June
Spent some more time by the pool in the morning, before heading off to Red Rock Canyon in the afternoon for Scoot City. I did this on my previous trip but my sister really wanted to do it so I got it for her as a birthday present. It was just as fun as I remember it. We had a new tour guide this time, his name was Cody and he was great. My sister really enjoyed it anyways. We got back to Monte Carlo at about 5.45pm.

At check-in we had been given a 2-for-1 voucher for the Monte Carlo buffet, so me and my sister thought we might as well use it (the other 6 had already eaten in the afternoon, at Gordon Ramsay’s Burgr…they said it was the best burger they’d ever had). So me and my sis went down and got some food, it was pretty hit or miss. Some of the stuff I thought was great (Mexican, pepper steak, salad bar) but other stuff was quite poor (mac n cheese, corn on the cob). Served a purpose anyway.

We then spent the evening at the PBR Rock Bar inside the Miracle Mile at Planet Hollywood. It was $10 all you can drink for girls and $20 for guys. We definitely took advantage of that, drunk a lot of beer. Also played some beer pong and got challenged by a couple of American guys. Was a close game but ultimately lose 10-7. Got back about 2am or so I think.

Thursday 12th June
Today we for some inexplicable reason decided to jump off the Stratosphere. I booked this up before I left, but with every hour that drew nearer I started sweating more and more. We got a cab all the way up. I’d never been to the Strat before, was expecting it to be quite grotty but was pleasantly surprised at how nice it was. Checked in for the SkyJump along with my sister, and we both got the lift off. Was seriously on full-on dripping sweat mode by this point. I made my sister go first so that she couldn’t back out. She started crying but she did jump. It was then my turn, stepped out onto the platform and just leapt. It felt like it was over in a couple of seconds but apparently the descent lasts 16 seconds. It was awesome anyway, really fun and I would recommend to any thrill seekers. It’s not really the same freefall feeling you get on a bungee jump but the adrenaline when you’re up on that open air platform is immense.

From here we went downtown to Fremont St, just to spend some time wandering around. We got lunch at Hash House A Go Go inside the Plaza which was great, really exceeded my expectations. I had the BBQ Chicken Burger and it was great. Also stayed there to watch the Brazil vs Croatia World Cup match.

Spent a good few hours wandering around Downtown, popping into various casinos etc. Bought those giant frozen daiquiri drinks which were nice and refreshing. Played some slots, spoke to some people, went to see the $1m cash in Binion’s. Also went to check out the shark tank in the Golden Nugget. I’d bought my swimming trunks cos I wanted to go on the slide that goes through it, but the guy on the door wouldn’t let me in with my frozen drink.

Around dusk we got a cab back down to Monte Carlo and got showered/changed etc. Had a few drinks then headed down to Mandalay Bay to go to the Crossroads at House of Blues restaurant. I told them on the phone we were all coming to celebrate my sister’s birthday, and they were very accommodating. They gave us a big circular table on an elevated platform and they even brought out a dessert with a candle stuck into it and sung Happy Birthday. We were all quite extravagant so the bill came to like $470 for 8 people including tax and tip but we had been drinking lots of cocktails etc and also had a $50 R.com voucher so it came to $420 after that, just over $50 a head which was pretty good considering all we’d eaten/drunk I thought. The mac n cheese was AMAZING there.

From here we went to the open air karaoke bar at Hawaiaan Marketplace just opposite CityCenter. It’s a really good laugh there, spent a good couple of hours drinking and singing. Even if you’re not great at karaoke everyone is really friendly/drunk so it’s just a good laugh. After that we went to Koi bar inside Planet Hollywood. We only got there about an hour before closing but they let us in. It wasn’t too busy, really small. Wasn’t great in there to be honest but the girls had all you can drink so we got pretty drunk and had a dance. It was fun I guess but not a “must-do”. Got back home about 4am probably.

Friday 13th June
Everyone was pretty hungover so had a slow morning, then we spent the afternoon at the South Outlet Premium Mall. Got some really good bargains in the Timberland shop and a few others too. The girls seemed to like it also, and I managed to find somewhere to watch Spain vs Holland as well.

When we got back we dumped our stuff in the room and headed over to Fatburger for some sustenance. I did the XXXL on my last trip but didn’t feel like getting that sick again, so just for the L this time. Superb as usual, really juicy.

Friday evening we went to Zumanity at NYNY. This was the first time I’d been to a show in 5 visits – not normally my kind of thing but all the girls wanted to go and I didn’t wanna be antisocial. We bought our tickets the day before from the Tix4Tonite booth inside the Golden Nugget. They came to like $73 including all fees which seemed OK given they were $75 face value. My sister had to go and pick them up from the Zumanity box office on the day of the show. The show itself anyway was good, best part was the nudity (obviously) but some of the acrobatics and flexibility was incredible. The talking parts and audience participation parts were really funny too. Overall I’d say this didn’t put me off going to further shows in the future, the other girls absolutely loved it though.

From here we had some drinks in Nine Fine Irishmen, and their resident band Ri Ra were performing. They were actually really good, it was a jolly atmosphere as LA Kings had just won the ice hockey. The band did requests too so we spent a good hour or so drinking and dancing in there. From there we walked down to Hooters, the girls wanted to check it out but it was pretty dry in there to be honest. Quick pit stop at the liquor store then got a cab up the strip for one final visit to our favourite Carnaval Court! Great night there then back from for 2am-ish.

Saturday 14th June
Packed up and all headed back to the airport. Flight home was much more straightforward than the one out, woke up at Heathrow at 11am on Sunday morning feeling pleasantly refreshed. A couple of the girls who were due to be flying home via Seattle with Delta had their flight cancelled, and the next Delta routing wouldn’t get them to London til Monday morning!! So they complained and Delta then paid to get them onto the direct Virgin flight…result for them.

Also need to mention that my sister put a $20 into a slot machine on the way home just before we were boarding and hit a mini-jackpot, cashed out with $350. What a result!

OVERALL:
A great trip, was good to see it from the different perspective of being with girls. All my previous four trips have been with “lads”. Managed to fit in a few new “first times” (Grand Canyon, SkyJump, Zumanity, Hyde, Koi) whilst keeping some of the old favourites going strong (Carnaval Court, Hussong’s, Scoot City). Weather was great throughout, hot but not disgustingly so (maybe 38-42 degrees most days). Monte Carlo was a great hotel, I would 100% recommend it. It’s size is really manageable, getting up and down to the room from the lobby is very quick and not a ballache like at places like MGM grand. Also like the free tram that goes up to CityCenter and Bellagio. Gambling was pretty sh!tty for me, probably about $600 down overall but don’t really care too much about that. The rest of the girls who were there all for their first times really enjoyed it and I think I gave them a good overview of what Vegas has to offer. We are already talking about going back next year!

StuieUK34

Wheres the photos ?!!!!!
Nice TR !