Las Vegas guide and MSE thread 2015

pennylane99

gamboller wrote: »

U get about a 25-30 dollar credit for starbucks daily

I was there in April and got $9 a day breakfast credit

azzap

Any recommendations on GC Helicopter discounts? From booking at this end before we go (next month), we are looking at at least £250pp from the recommended tours. Seems very expensive though don't want to miss out.
Thanks

am05

Hi Guys,

We are going to vegas in October and this will be our 9th time. We have booked to stay in Excalibur flying with Virgin through last minute.com

I have been reading the last few pages on "comp perks".

I am a member of Mlife and am at Gold level. The only perk I have ever got is free resort fee in MGM a few years back.

Am I doing something wrong or is there a different way to get perks? I guess I just don't understand

Many Thanks

Ann-Marie

vegasvisitor

am05 wrote: »

Hi Guys,

We are going to vegas in October and this will be our 9th time. We have booked to stay in Excalibur flying with Virgin through last minute.com

I have been reading the last few pages on "comp perks".

I am a member of Mlife and am at Gold level. The only perk I have ever got is free resort fee in MGM a few years back.

Am I doing something wrong or is there a different way to get perks? I guess I just don't understand

Many Thanks

Ann-Marie

If you use facebook, you may want to consider playing MyVegas to get some comps. Even with a small amount of play (and it's free unless you buy additional chips!), you could get some 2/1 buffets or similar.

Also look into Social Rewards, free Total Rewards credit for doing some shares, tweets, and watching videos.

Cornwall_Girl

The voucher at http://www.lvlg.com/lasvegas/attracts/must-do.htm for bogof on the eiffel tower has the expiry date of 31st March 2015. Does anyone know where I can get a valid date voucher? It only needs to be valid til the end of the month.

Thanks

vanilla8

am05 wrote: »

Hi Guys,

We are going to vegas in October and this will be our 9th time. We have booked to stay in Excalibur flying with Virgin through last minute.com

I have been reading the last few pages on "comp perks".

I am a member of Mlife and am at Gold level. The only perk I have ever got is free resort fee in MGM a few years back.

Am I doing something wrong or is there a different way to get perks? I guess I just don't understand

Many Thanks

Ann-Marie

You need to go to the MLife desk and ask for perks- free show tkts/buffet. Also go to them before you check out and ask if they can take anything of your bill(charge everything to room) they will not take off tips so we always pay tip separate to room charges.

We had pool charges taken off this trip at a myvegas redeemed NYNY room (+$150) but didn't get anything taken off at Monte Carlo as we were told it was due to staying on a comped MLife room (We got this comped room after checking our MLife account online)

martmonk

Collected rental car from dollar desk at TI today. No need for DVLA code.

Also collected free show tickets for zarkana and blue man group, which we got on the show offer for MGM bookings someone posted a while back without any dramas.

Checked out of flamingo and heading to Luxor for 4 nights, then signature for last 3.

I've been keeping a trip report up to date and will post later in the trip. It's huge so probably I'll post it in 2 or 3 pieces to break it up.

stoneman

ohh you bring back many a day queuing at that desk, looking at the stall opposite that does the hair extensions wondering if they would suit me.:p:rotfl:

duchy

stoneman wrote: »

ohh you bring back many a day queuing at that desk, looking at the stall opposite that does the hair extensions wondering if they would suit me.:p:rotfl:

And did they ? :j

martmonk

Here goes, forgive spelling and grammar errors;
Day 1 is Monday June 8th...

First section written on the plane from Philly to Vegas. The rest as it happened or at the end of the day so forgive the switches from past to present tense and vice versa.

I make little mention of gambling as we are light gamblers anyway but this trip it has been minimal so far - some slots and a few hours of blackjack, amounting to a small overall loss with no great wins to shout about unfortunately.

Day 1 - 8:30 Aer Lingus flight NCL - DUB. £25 per person, same again for bags. £100 total.
Arrive and collect bags, get on free bus to Bewleys hotel around 10am.
Room ready so checkin, back to airport on free bus to catch a local bus into town. $3.10 per person

Good wander round, lunch at Elephant & Castle in temple bar - best chicken wings we've had outside of New York! Some shopping then return to hotel early evening.
Used the supercard at Elephant & Castle which I've linked to a couple of current accounts in the UK, worked a treat.

Day 2 - back to airport for 8:40, first flight is to PHL at 11:35 and there had been some scaremongering by airport staff about horrendous US immigration queues. Needn't have been that early, cleared security and the US immigration by 9:45. Hang around until boarding at 11.

Flight shorter than scheduled at 6hrs 45 mins so we are in PHL at 1pm local time.
No dramas on flight, about 3/4 full and we had a 2 about 3/4 of the way back (A330).

We had just over 2 hours in PHL which gave us the chance to have a look around and grab a drink as we slowly walked to the gate for the next flight which boarded at 3. OH sat next to Floyd Mayweather's uncle Roger whilst waiting to board.

A little late taking off due to the push back tug breaking down but we should get to vegas on schedule nonetheless - 6pm local time.

This is the only part of the journey I'd do differently. The flight is 5 hours and there's no in flight entertainment (A320), no food service other than soft drinks (you can buy snacks and salads, nothing hot). We are in 8a and b but again flight only 3/4 full so guy in c moved to give us the row. Also OH realises she's lost her kindle, probably in the departure lounge at DUB.

If going from Dublin again I'd perhaps look at options where the first flight takes you a little closer to vegas so the second isn't so long, or try and have a few days in the first city.

The DUB - LAS returning to NCL was less than £450. For me £500 each (incl Aer Lingus) plus £60 for Dublin hotel was worth it. Any flights from NCL for our dates started around £700 per person. Similar or marginally less at at other UK airports but then we'd have the cost of getting to them to add. We treated the 24 hours in DUB as part of the holiday and used up some euros I have from recent work travel.
Part of the reason was our late(ish) decision to come and that we weren't as flexible on dates as we usually can be.

I type this as we are on the PHL- LAS flight and I feel fresher than I have on direct flights in the past, be interesting to see if that continues to this evening when I need to stay awake.

Taxi to Flamingo, small q at checkin. Tried $20 trick but no joy, best he could do was offer us a better (newly refurbed with fridge) room for $30 per night. Declined as I only paid $30 to start with.

The exchange went like this - I handed over passport with cc and $20 bill sticking out of the photo page and said to him "here's id, cc and something for you because I'm sure you'll do your best for us." He gave me the upgrade option which I declined, it wasn't until we moved away from the desk and I went to get the cc from inside the passport I realised he'd put the $20 back in there too.

There was a nice surprise though - apparently we have $18 per day breakfast credit at Club Cappuccino which I wasn't expecting. They do coffees plus breakfast croissants, bagels and a few other bits. We're not massive breakfast eaters, preferring lunch and/or dinner for our 'big meals' whilst in Vegas so this seems ideal. Of course it also brings the room rate down to $12 per night plus resort fees! (Hotels.com)

Room itself is spacious with a great view of the strip. Bathroom in need of refurb but this was always intended to be the cheap first three nights before we move to luxor (booked direct) for the weekend (3 nights plus one free myvegas night), then Signature (also direct booking) for the last three. I always think that comments like this should be qualified by saying that the room is great. If it was first time in Vegas I'd be very pleased when you consider the cost and the space, and the view and then compare that to your expectations closer to home for a room at the price. It's just that we've been spoiled over the years and each room we get seems to be compared, in our heads anyway, to the one bedroom terrace overlooking the fountains we had a few years back at Cosmopolitan.

Quick shower then head to bath and body works at miracle mile so OH can get some shower gel - we always end up buying a load of stuff (hand soaps and sanitisers mainly) at b&bw but we'll do that later in trip once we have the hire car.

Cross the road to Cosmo for secret pizza slice, head back to Flamingo and have a drink at the 5 o'clock somewhere bar so we can sit outside and people watch. Quick explore around the hotel as we've only passed through and never stayed then back to the room as OH is flagging a bit. I'm still feeling fresh but 11pm is a good effort so we hit the hay. This section written just after 6am whilst OH is still asleep!

Day 3 - I'm awake at 5 so I connect the one device we can connect as part of resort fee (will visit front desk later to try and make that 2), check some emails and update this report.

Breakfast at Cafe Cappuccino is great, we go over the $18 but only by $2.50 I can live with that! $2.50 for two large bacon breakfast sandwiches and an iced latte is a good deal! The sandwich is bacon, egg and cheese inside a large croissant. There's a selection of different sarnies and bagels along with pastries, muffins, yoghurts etc.

9am and we head for the pool. The queue is mahoosive, takes 30mins to get in. All of the beds around the go pool are already taken but we find a couple up by the kids pool. We spot an entrance up here which we'll use in future as there's no queue.

Three hours is enough in the heat (got up to around 35) and we are starting to feel a bit peckish. Decide to head down to miracle mile to use restaurant.com voucher we have for Fresh Grill and Bar, however when we get there we realise it's not a restaurant as such and we would struggle to spend the $50 required to get the $25 off. Might see if there's something we can change that voucher to for later in the trip. Instead we sit outside cabo wabo and watch the world go by. We share chicken wings (good but not as good as in Ireland!) and quesadilla. I have a beer, OH a cocktail so the total (with tax and tips is $50 (about half is the cost of drinks)). Then back to fresh grill and bar to redeem a groupon for two yard size frozen drinks, we both get the iced tea vodka in the massive beer bottles that we'll use as savings jars when we get home.

Slow walk up the strip supping our drinks and eventually back to Flamingo. We walk through Cromwell which was almost finished last time we were here but not open. We like the look of it and might consider staying here and/or the Linq in future if the prices stay as low as they were when I was booking this trip.

OH does the last couple of hours by the pool whilst I watch game 4 of the Stanley cup final in the sports book - Lightning at Blackhawks - Blackhawks win 2-1 to tie the series at 2-2.

The original plan for tonight was to use the myvegas bogof for a rodizio dinner at Samba Grill (Mirage), but it's me flagging tonight and we don't think we'll get the value out of it if we go. Instead we head to PF Changs. A couple of soups and a noodle dish each with tax and tips is $55 (no alcohol which keeps the price down). We'd been once before and used TR points to pay, this time I don't have points as I gave up on social rewards, mainly because it was a relatively late decision for us to come and I didn't think I'd have time to accrue any cash. Last time I had longer and got us around $100.

I hadn't realised until I tried to use the card in both Cabo Wabo and PF Changs that you don't earn points for spending in either.

After leaving we stroll the strip and head back to the room. I'm asleep about 10:30 and up again at 5. Might try a nana nap this afternoon before we go up to Fremont and the baseball to see if I can sleep past 5am.

Day 4 - breakfast at Cafe Cappuccino is 2 yoghurt and granola pots with an iced tea and water for $19, so $1 to pay on checkout!

Kids beach pool bang on opening at 9 and there's minimal q. Last until just after 12 as the heat is intense and stomachs are after some lunch. Decide on Hash House at the linq. HUGE portions, sandwich and fries each, 2 diet cokes, $45 incl tax and tips.

Walk some of the strip before sitting in the habitat at flamingo for an hour just chilling. Back to the room to get changed for Fremont and baseball (specifically booked this game as the promo is dollar beer night) - no nana nap unfortunately!

Sdx to Fremont, major change since our last visit (April last year) is the fact you can no longer consume bottles or cans on the street so the shops selling alcohol bag it and staple the bags up. You can drink but it has to be in a plastic cup, plenty of people finding a rather obvious way around this new 'law'(?) as the casinos have plastic cup stations at the doors intended for you to use on exit with a drink bought inside.

We sit at the sports bar inside Fremont casino to take advantage of $2 Heineken and $2 Margarita before taking a taxi to cashman field ($9 plus tip).

Great night, $1 beers are small(ish) cups, maybe just over 1/2 a pint, aluminium 16oz bottles are $2. We have plenty, along with hot dogs and a nacho helmet (what it says really - a novelty baseball helmet filled with nachos).

* I've some pics saved to Dropbox but the link won't paste in here for some reason! probably an ipad quirk so I'll update this post when we get home. You'll all want a nacho helmet!
Seats are directly behind home plate, 5 rows from the front. All the seats around us are occupied by MLB scouts with endless pieces of paper, speed guns and stopwatches.

Met the producer of the 'Masked Magician' show you might remember in one of the beer queues, nice guy.

Taxi back to Fremont afterwards turns out free as a local couple joining the q with us ask to share then won't take cash when we get there despite our repeated insistence. Sdx back to Cosmo stop then fight the crowds along the strip and get back to the room just before midnight. Have to call guest services at 20 past to get security to go into the room next door and turn off an alarm that's been constant since 12. I'm assuming Brits and that's there usual 'get up for work' alarm!

Day 5 - Awake at 6:30 but just chill in the room for a while before we go down for breakfast. Today is a moving day and pick up hire car day - let's see if I need that new dvla code which I generated yesterday....

Breakfast was just under $18 so free!
Express check out so will have to wait for emailed receipt to make sure all was ok. We've got a week to call in if there's any issue.

Left bags and set off for fashion show mall for a few hours before picking up car at Treasure Island - didn't need DVLA code I generated yesterday.

Back to flamingo to collect bags before driving to luxor and checking in. I'd booked a pyramid room for 3 nights on an upgrade offer so expecting a tower room. I tagged on a myvegas free night in a pyramid room and hoped they'd link them and upgrade that night too so we didn't need to check out and in. After a short conversation on the subject they agreed.

Room is great although I'm missing not having a fridge a little.

Straight through to Mandalay Bay to redeem our bogof lunch buffet. It's 2 pm by this point and 20 past by the time we get in. They close the lunch buffet at 2:30 and take all the food away at 3:15 so we felt a little rushed. Didn't stop us eating a mountain of food though - the BBQ ribs a particular favourite. There are certainly better buffets on the strip but there's nothing wrong with this one - it was our first visit.

About 4 we set off for primm to use the Travelzoo vouchers we bought - $50 credit for $25. As I bought 1 on each account we've got $100 for $50 cost to play with. Redeeming is straightforward at the customer service desk next to the food hall.
Obligatory stop on the way for a 'big gulp'.

Most of it went to Ralph Lauren with a couple of shirts for me and a dress for OH, managed to get an extra 15% at the till - there's a text number for RL to get offers and on that particular day 15% according to signs at the door - however when I tried to text the number it failed. Explained this to the cashier who said its only for US phones but she'd put it through for us. Few other bits and pieces bought and it's back on the road to Luxor.

Get back after 8:30 with no plans for this evening except attending to the enormous blisters OH has on both feet. Every year the same!

That's it for now, 10:30 and probably just going into casino for slots, or maybe stay here for an early night after last nights excessive drinking at the baseball.