Touring holiday to Nevada, California & Arizona

wdyw

Murphy_The_Cat wrote: »

hmm, MTK2 will only be 15 months old when we go and still in a stroller. Is it somewhere that we can get close to in 4 wheels and then walk the last bit ?

Yes- its no distance from thr car park to the ruins

wdyw

blindman wrote: »

End to end I think the strip is 3 miles, so a round trip is 6 miles!

Long way to walk with kids :eek:

It only seems like 3 miles ...its actually 4.5!!! (i thought it was 4.2 but I think that was from Strat to Mandalay)

pavlovs_dog

MTC, can i be cheeky and ask what sort of budget you're doing it on? cos it sounds amazing, yet amazingly out of our league (although being only 2 not 4 would, i guess, save some $. and we're happy with the basic car, whereas i know you like to go for the big boys )

also, have you bee booking via US sites to pay in dollars wherever possible, to take advantage of the exchange rate? how much is/has it saved?

bluemorph

If you are staying for 2 nights in flagstaff make sure that you take ear plugs as amtrak run through there all night long, could not believe how loud the trains were.

DKLS

Feel inspired to do something similar Murph, and have to agree, cant do a compact car in the states, way too scary. The standard hire vehicles are dire.
Once I find somewhere, that will rent me a Saleen Mustang, or other muscle car with a ridiculously large V8 engine, I will be booking my trip.

duchy

The "Do I need a car in Vegas" debate....
After six trips here's my take.
Most Americans will tell you that you DO need a car-but most of them haven't sat on a bus in years themselves
The strip can be jammed solid with traffic
The Deuce bus runs from end to end and a pop on hop off pass is $5 for 24 hours -although parking is free at all the hotels you'll easily spend more than that valet tipping-plus the cost of gas needs to be added.
There are several free shuttles between various hotels
Hotel car parks are often quite a hike from the main areas of the hotels
Taxis are plentiful and not expensive
Vegas in the summer is a nasty heat and a/c in a car is a godsend
Usually I don't bother-but for our trip in July we are considering it mainly due to the difference in heat (we've done August as well as the cooler months before) and the lousy air quality that time of year. We're also considering a spot of hotel hopping rather than staying at just one hotel-a car is useful for that although a taxi is easy too.

youngatheart_2

We stayed at Ballys (on the strip) last year for a few days. I rented a car from, I think, USRENTACAR.CO.UK which gives you the option of picking up the car from quite a few different hotels. I know when I was searching that a few companies did this.

boatman

bluemorph wrote: »

If you are staying for 2 nights in flagstaff make sure that you take ear plugs as amtrak run through there all night long, could not believe how loud the trains were.

I know exactly what you mean!!!!
Meteor crater is worth a visit. Got my car from here

Murphy_The_Cat

Hurray, last boarding has been pinned down and we're staying on a farm for a few days (man o man, have we got a great combo of accomodation :j)

pavlovs_dog wrote: »

MTC, can i be cheeky and ask what sort of budget you're doing it on? cos it sounds amazing, yet amazingly out of our league (although being only 2 not 4 would, i guess, save some $. and we're happy with the basic car, whereas i know you like to go for the big boys )

also, have you bee booking via US sites to pay in dollars wherever possible, to take advantage of the exchange rate? how much is/has it saved?

you can ask, but I'm going to be a touch evasive, explain my circs and be a bit vague.
1) vagueness. Most of the rates that I've been offered are plus tax (& the tax rates varies from locale to locale), some include full breakfast, some include continental breakfast, some include none.
2) circs. & I was going to mention this in one of my posts anyway. This time, we are booking 'family' accomodation that may include a 2 bedroomed motel/hotel room, hiring a house with 2 bedrooms or if we're stopping in a B&B/Inn, having to book 2 rooms.
So this time around, I've had to work harder to get accomodation that fits our requirements.
3) Evasive. This year is out 10th Wedding Anniversay, the last chance to get away before MTK starts school and we're also away for 24 nights, so our accomodation budget could be truly huge, if we let it be.
I consider that I've booked us into some good places that will closely fit our criteria, but what we are looking for, in all honesty will differ from what you are probably looking for. I reckon that we're staying away for about £65 per night, which (IMO) for what we are getting is (again IMO) pretty damned good.
We could have spent a LOT more, or, if I/we were prepared to compromise and only have 1 bedroom, saved a lot more.

As regards the car, I think that we will clear well over 2500 miles whilst we're away and for me, luxury/comfort is a priority (as well as weighing a lot, I'm 6ft 3in tall as well). I appreciate that you may not want to go the whole hog and get a SUV or luxury car, but getting a 'standard' car rather than a 'compact' would be a good idea (IMO).

As for paying in $$$'s, all the people that I have dealt with have been Americans, living in America, or American websites, so its a case of $$$'s or $$$'s :rotfl::rotfl:

bluemorph wrote:

If you are staying for 2 nights in flagstaff make sure that you take ear plugs as amtrak run through there all night long, could not believe how loud the trains were.

After checking out the cottage location on google earth, we're definitely going to be aware of the trains, but they're not going past the end of the garden (unlike in Santa Barabara, where they are :rotfl:)

dkls wrote:

Feel inspired to do something similar Murph, and have to agree, cant do a compact car in the states, way too scary. The standard hire vehicles are dire.
Once I find somewhere, that will rent me a Saleen Mustang, or other muscle car with a ridiculously large V8 engine, I will be booking my trip.

After hiring a convertible on a previous trip, its not something that I would do again (not that I could do anyway for another 15 years or so :rotfl:)

duchy wrote:

The "Do I need a car in Vegas" debate....

My perspective is probably more along the lines of if I need to take the children out in the middle of the night, to give Mrs Cat some R&R time.

youngatheart wrote:

We stayed at Ballys (on the strip) last year for a few days. I rented a car from, I think, USRENTACAR.CO.UK which gives you the option of picking up the car from quite a few different hotels. I know when I was searching that a few companies did this.

how does the car hire from your hotel idea work ?

boatman wrote:

I know exactly what you mean!!!!
Meteor crater is worth a visit.

added to the list of things to do.
Thanks for the hire car suggestion, but they were a touch to pricey, plus, there is a chance that they would want a one way hire charge because I was taking the car out of State :eek:

Sheel

The last time we went to LV we hired a car for a few days as we stayed in the GC for a couple of nights. Hired it through Airline Network and picked it up at NYNY hotel.

Think we'd booked an intermediate , but they hadn't any left so we got a free upgrade. Turned out to be a Jeep :cool:



Our brother and sis in law once took the pee out of a pic we'd taken of our hire car in Florida, so we take one on purpose now with Mr Sheel posing beside it on every holiday