Las Vegas guide and MSE thread 2015

azzap

Sorry to ask the same question again. Does anyone know of any current discounts for helicopter Grand Canyon trips? Visiting next month, everything looks to be £250min. The sticky suggests we can maybe fund discounts over there in local magazines?

Also, separate question. We are arriving at the Venetian from LA. Will be without GPS as the journey to LV looks easy easy enough. Will we be able to find the hotel parking access easy or would it be worth the GPS investment?

John259

azzap wrote: »

We are arriving at the Venetian from LA. Will be without GPS as the journey to LV looks easy easy enough. Will we be able to find the hotel parking access easy or would it be worth the GPS investment?

From the Strip (Las Vegas Boulevard) it's an easy and obvious right turn.

Make sure you've got a map of the Los Angeles freeways though.

Take plenty of water or soft drinks for the drive, because the Mojave Desert is seriously hot.

azzap

John259 wrote: »

From the Strip (Las Vegas Boulevard) it's an easy and obvious right turn.

Make sure you've got a map of the Los Angeles freeways though.

Take plenty of water or soft drinks for the drive, because the Mojave Desert is seriously hot.

Thanks I have an understanding of them actually, and I know the drive to LV is a fairly straight and easy one. It's more when I get into Vegas, the strip, how difficult it it. I know some hotels have their parking lots hidden and Ccessed from the back.

John259

azzap, I found this:
http://gamboool.com/venetian-self-parking-garage-and-valet-parking-information-and-directions

vegasvisitor

azzap wrote: »

Thanks I have an understanding of them actually, and I know the drive to LV is a fairly straight and easy one. It's more when I get into Vegas, the strip, how difficult it it. I know some hotels have their parking lots hidden and Ccessed from the back.

Venetian parking is accessible from the strip. You'll come in on the I-15 though, what you will want to do is get off the I-15 somewhere around Flamingo (or before). You might even want to drive in via the Welcome sign and right up the strip.

We never used to use a GPS, but bought one last year when we were driving from Phoenix to Vegas, via Sedona, Flagstaff, Lake Havasu, Oatman, Laughlin - so we thought it would be worthwhile for that trip, and for future trips. I've actually got quite used to it now, kind of rely on it a bit!! It's even handy if you're just looking for a restaurant. For example when we were in San Diego, we wanted Italian food. We selected Olive Garden. Got there and it was too busy, so selected the next closest place. We'd have been driving around looking otherwise, as we were on the outskirts of the city.

azzap

lesley74 wrote: »

Venetian parking is accessible from the strip. You'll come in on the I-15 though, what you will want to do is get off the I-15 somewhere around Flamingo (or before). You might even want to drive in via the Welcome sign and right up the strip.

We never used to use a GPS, but bought one last year when we were driving from Phoenix to Vegas, via Sedona, Flagstaff, Lake Havasu, Oatman, Laughlin - so we thought it would be worthwhile for that trip, and for future trips. I've actually got quite used to it now, kind of rely on it a bit!! It's even handy if you're just looking for a restaurant. For example when we were in San Diego, we wanted Italian food. We selected Olive Garden. Got there and it was too busy, so selected the next closest place. We'd have been driving around looking otherwise, as we were on the outskirts of the city.

Drive in via the welcome sign and right up the strip would be truly ideal. Is there a way to route map directions to include this?

Will have free data roaming thanks to three at home, perhaps I could download a GPS type app for the odd times I may need it?

John259

azzap wrote: »

Drive in via the welcome sign and right up the strip would be truly ideal. Is there a way to route map directions to include this?

The sign is on the Strip (Las Vegas Boulevard) alongside the airport. So you need to exit I-15 somewhere south of there, go east to the Strip, then north on the Strip to the sign and continue north to the Venetian.

FWIW here's Google Maps showing the route. To force Google into taking the route via the Strip I had to select "walking" mode, hence the long time it displays. I also had trouble making it select a sensible route off I-15 and gave up, but you can zoom in and pan around to do that yourself. You could even drop into StreetView mode and do a virtual drive of the route.
https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Welcome+to+Fabulous+Las+Vegas+Sign,+South+Las+Vegas+Boulevard,+Las+Vegas,+NV/The+Venetian,+South+Las+Vegas+Boulevard,+Las+Vegas,+NV/@36.1019822,-115.192243,14z/data=!3m2!4b1!5s0x80c8c43e49978efb:0x7edf0a3a459f4e9b!4m14!4m13!1m5!1m1!1s0x80c8c5e9de7914e1:0x887aec1399fc99bb!2m2!1d-115.17275!2d36.082014!1m5!1m1!1s0x80c8c415ac77058b:0xa1b4397e7377d345!2m2!1d-115.169653!2d36.121174!3e2

vegasvisitor

You could come off the I-15 down near Silverton, at 'Blue Diamond Road' exit, but take it east then turn left onto the strip.

If I go onto streetview on the I-15 I can see a sign for Blue Diamond exit 33, it has an east and west under it. Keep right for east. You can't miss the strip from there.

Perhaps your phone and 3 data will help. I wouldn't know as I've not got data abroad so never tried it.

HTH

nvh

azzap wrote: »

Will have free data roaming thanks to three at home, perhaps I could download a GPS type app for the odd times I may need it?

was going to suggest this - thats what we do - Three sim with free roaming and Google maps (which does navigation and also uses traffic conditions for best route etc) in an old phone

As long as your start point has mobile reception, you're laughing (and even in the desert we've had signal so would only be an occasional blip)

One thing I've noticed is you should override the settings in Vegas if you want to use data day-to-day in casinos etc; get it to use a manual network selection of the AT&T mobile network... seems to default to t-mobile and its dog slow!!!

nvh

martmonk wrote: »

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.

Thanks for mentioning some of your DUB experience - we are there next month, and doing similar... unfortunately due to luggage costs (and ticket cost) on A.Lingus / RyanAir from Manchester, it made it quite expensive so annoyingly we are using Avios and routing via. LHR - this means two nights in Dublin instead of 1, but it is still significantly cheaper than going to DUB from MAN, and we go in the evening on the outbound so don't take any extra time off work to accommodate this (and we'll get the lounges I guess)

Interesting re: the scaremongering you mention. Our flight is one of the 9am's and there's a few so be interesting to see how busy it gets. Once through immigration, is there anything at all to do? any hints / tips?