Las Vegas guide and MSE thread 2015

masterwilde

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once that is done your good to go

jadamcp

Trip Report 1st to 8th June. (our 10th trip)

FLIGHTS
Thomas Cook Direct flights from Glasgow - 1 hour 55 minute delay on way out Sitting in row 10 (no window) but decent leg room, average width though, IFE good as the £4 to upgrade was waived (probably due to the plane being late) Food was very good - watched American Sniper, a Matt Damon Sci-fi and most of Birdman- the major plus was the flight was only 9 1/2 hours

Return flight food was pretty poor as sourced in the US, again only 9 hours on the way back which was great as we are usually a minimum of 14 hours.

CAR HIRE
30 minutes at immigration and then on to the shuttle to car hire for the first time via dollar, only one person in the queue so then we picked a mid size SUV (got a Kia Sportage which was pretty good).
We have a Sat Nav and manage to stop off at Town Square for one of our MANY shopping expeditions.

HOTELS

MANDALAY BAY (4 nights)
Arrive at Mandalay Bay and after a 25 minute wait at check in Room overloaking airport and up the strip on 33rd floor, Room was great although did show some signs of wear. There is also a regular tram from Mandalay Bay to Luxor meant you could be in New York New York in 10 minutes. We only spent 45 minutes at the pool after promising 1-2 hours every day, pool area was very nice but just too hot for us.
No Resort Fee with LowCostUSA before the change, on check in we were told that the travel agent covered everything, although they tried charging 2 days resort fee which was waived when checking out. 2 days resort fee was $64 !

BALLYS (3 nights)
Arrive at Ballys via the Boulevard mall - car park is shared with the Paris and when we leave the lift at the car park we get a really hard sell for shows in the usual timeshare way, at this stage we have 3 suitcases plus a couple of bags and walk away as they continue to sell - pretty infuriating. Have the same hassle as we near the check-in area but totally ignored them this time After a five minute check in queue we get our room on the 25th floor overlooking Paris/Hilton Vacations with a view of tower and slight fountain view - Room was huge, downside was the was virtually no air extract and the corridors stunk of Weed 2 out of 3 nights. Optional resort fee was honoured by Ballys but we took Wi-Fi at $13,99 per day

The walk/Road to Ellis Island - Ballys car park has been updated and a permanent fence erected over to Eliis island with shrubs and plants in amongst decorative gravel adjacent to the road improving the look of the place.

SHOPPING
We purchased an extra case for return journey with Thomas Cook for £50 when we booked the flights.

Town Square - twice, Abercrombie & Holister
Premium Outlets North - Twice - Coach, Disney Store, plus many more, Michael Kors and Van Heusen for me as I like their t shirts
Boulevard mall . Marshalls, Macys and JC Penny
Summerlin Mall - Macys, Dillards and a few others
Arroya Market Square - Marshalls, Ross
Fashion Show Mall - Macys and Dillards mostly
Four Ross Stores, prefer the one at the Riviera though, even bought a Samsonite suitcase in here as we only brought two suitcases with us.
Four Marshalls stores and preferred the MGM store, old habits and all that.

Summing up - we never filled our suitcases to the usual capacity, each suitcase averaged 17 -18 KG.


Sightseeing

Red Rock Canyon - we absolutely loved this place, stopped off at most of the trails and did at least 50m of each, saw some pretty neat wildelife too. An absolute bargain for $7 entry fee.

Hoover Dam/Boulder City - on our 10th visit we actally managed to get here arriving pretty early 08:30 and we were one of the first here - $10 to park and we spent 1 1/2 hours here but didn't do a tour as I've seen a very good documentary and the History Channel about it, on way back we went to Boulder city for breakfast where we both had ommlettes in Coffee cup caf!/Cantina where I seemed to have the hottest peppers ever in mine, spent a couple of hours in Boulder wandering aroung the small shops which was a pleasant change from the malls

We'll probably hire a car next time and Valley of Fire (suggested to me in an earlier post), Mount Charleston and may even get to that big canyon.

FOOD/Buffets/My Vegas

Mandalay Bay - Dinner on the Monday night that we arrived - My vegas 2 - 4 - 1 so around $38 for buffet with unlimited beer/wire/champagne, not too hungry but managed a few glasses of champagne and a bit of chinese/prime rib.

Aria Buffet - Tuesday Lunch - 2 Free on My Vegas - arrived around 1:30 and had several small platefulls, highlight was the meatloaf, but the italian meats and cheeses pushed it close, didn't bother with the drinks upgrade as I had the car. Our favourite buffet this time around and wonderful once again.

MGM Buffet Wednesday = 2 free dinners on My Vegas - updated to all inc. drinks package for $14,99 each, food was very good as was the bubbly, Seen someone hit $122.502 dollars on a Willie Wonka machine adjacent to the buffet queue.

Bellagio - Lunch on the Thusrday courtesy of 2 free from My Vegas - $12.99 to upgrade to AI drinks which we did. Arrived at 14:20 and the food choice for me was pretty poor and we were very disappointed, counter staff at the carvery was also quite rude, we did have a large breakfast in Boulder City so this may have affected my appetite so we had more and more champagne and sat it out till more choices came out and I had some Kobe beef and nice pototoes and small deserts, left pretty stuffed.after a bit of shopping at Ross/Marshalls at MGM we stop off at ......

Times Square (Duelling Pianos) $50 credit from My Vegas
We arrived about 6:30pm and had around 8 drinks before credit ran out and we stayed for a couple more, barman Marco was excellent and made us feel welcome - Duelling pianos were entertaining but the American bachalorette party stole the show in the bar area, they had a ball even the grannies/mums and aunties, left around 9:50 and trammed it back to Mandalay Bay a bit worse for wear but managed to negotiate a way past the "bin" on the walkway to Excaliber

Mirage Buffet - Saturday Bruch - Excellent 2 for 1 dinner with my vegas around $37 dollars for dinner and drinks, best prime rib this time around and last visit too, hot crab legs with butter sauce was also great, made good use of the champagne as I didn't drive at all on the Saturday.

Ellis Island - 2 dinners on Friday/Sunday - Steak special and full rack of ribs Ribs for me plus a breakfast the day we went home. Enjoyed them all.

SHOWS - not one this time around......

Summing Up - I felt like I could have come home after the 4 days in Mandalay Bay, we were last in Vegas in November and I felt "Vegased Out" ! Ballys brought me back thankfully . I really loved having a car this year and didn't ride the Deuce or SDX once, car hire is a must from now on and driving was pretty straight forward. Now looking at May or Oct 16 for our next week in LV unless a cruise in the Med wins that race.
Thomas Cook Direct flights more than likely for the vegas trip though, who cares about air miles Cheers !
Jada

azzap

nvh wrote: »

I use a 4S as my day-to-day phone and it's perfect with Google Maps - not sure how it would work if you've got a pre-'iphone 4' generation model, but definitely worth a go

Yes it's an iPhone 4. Will play around with googlemaps, sounds like a great way to save on a GPS that is to threes data roaming overseas.

Brats64

martmonk wrote: »

Thought it worth posting the above again.
I was talking to an old couple yesterday at the pool and they said they'd never been to a free show. Made me think of this offer and it still looks live.
I took the couples email address and sent them the link so hope it works for them.

Thanks again to Chyna-s for posting.

Are you sure this is still available ?
We have a reservation at Aria,but when I clicked through to the mycheapvegas site,I could find no link for free show tickets.So I used the direct link for MGM shows posted further down the post.
That allows me to put in room reservation number,but only provided a few show options....but all the ones I tried said not available...anyone else tried,and successfully booked a show recently?
It says no shows available for selected month when trying to book.It only show three shows...Love,Zumanity and Terry Fator...but all 3 say no availability for chosen month.I assume it knows when our hotel stay is,and must be booked up for October.....or is the promotion just nor available anymore ?

martmonk

nvh wrote: »

Excellent - thankyou! double security to get through then!... can't wait! :eek

think yourself yucky, I had triple security in Istanbul a week before.

martmonk

Brats64 wrote: »

Are you sure this is still available ?
We have a reservation at Aria,but when I clicked through to the mycheapvegas site,I could find no link for free show tickets.So I used the direct link for MGM shows posted further down the post.
That allows me to put in room reservation number,but only provided a few show options....but all the ones I tried said not available...anyone else tried,and successfully booked a show recently?
It says no shows available for selected month when trying to book.It only show three shows...Love,Zumanity and Terry Fator...but all 3 say no availability for chosen month.I assume it knows when our hotel stay is,and must be booked up for October.....or is the promotion just nor available anymore ?

No, which is why I said it 'looks' live.

I have no idea what you mean by:

'We have a reservation at Aria,but when I clicked through to the mycheapvegas site,I could find no link for free show tickets.So I used the direct link for MGM shows posted further down the post.'

Needs to be a direct mgm booking I think.

The show bookings need to be in the same date range as your room booking,

duchy

Looks like I'm sneaking a few days in Vegas onto another trip.
Vegas is a catch up with friends and pool time for two nights (one of my friends is Mormon so gambling and drinking isn't very high up the list this trip ). We're probably going to stay at the Tuscany for the girlie part of the trip but I have an extra night after they head out before I leave Vegas. MyVegas only has weekend nights available at NY NY and the Luxor -neither of which I know very well (they probably have CircusCircus and Excalibar too but neither appeal) so between those two which should I choose - I'm leaning towards NY NY as the casino I seem to remember was a bit nicer but it's a long time since I've visited either as most of my recent play has gone to Ceasars.

Thoughts ?
It's the Labor Day weekend Friday night btw so likely to be busy.

StuieUK34

I'm back now, in work today
it sucks!! Dam lotto ticket didn't win on Saturday, so cant fly back out to Vegas!
Will sort out trip report/photos this week...
oh, and I hate RESORT FEE's!! first time we have ever had to pay them!

Brats64

martmonk wrote: »

No, which is why I said it 'looks' live.

I have no idea what you mean by:

'We have a reservation at Aria,but when I clicked through to the mycheapvegas site,I could find no link for free show tickets.So I used the direct link for MGM shows posted further down the post.'

Needs to be a direct mgm booking I think.

The show bookings need to be in the same date range as your room booking,

Chyna-s' initial post states you need to "click on 2 free show tickets" on the mycheapervegas.com link....there is nowhere on that site that shows the link.
Our booking was direct with an MGM property.
You can put your room reservation number into the MGM resort direct link from Chyna's post,and access the " book shows" page...although,as I say only 3 shows,showed up....when clicking on Book now,all three then come up with no events for selected month.

I would assume the offer is finished.

StuieUK34

It was a fluke offer, and a slight balls up!
As anyone with a 2 night reservation confirmation code could use that link when it appeared back then... (regardless of who they booked through, when the rooms should have been booked via the affiliate site)

However, the tickets were back row seats, as in super back row, like sitting in the Hallway!!!
Our stays were comped, and we had 4 confirmation numbers which were on 2 night bookings.....
I got us tickets to "Blue Man, Jabbawockeez and LOVE" through that link on the day Chyna-s posted the link...
Will explain more when I do my trip report