Las Vegas guide and MSE thread 2013

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  • KarenG
    KarenG Posts: 1,010 Forumite
    saffstar wrote: »
    We stayed in both versions of the deluxe suite last/this week. I actually think you'd be more cramped in the one that's divided into a bedroom and living area. The 'one big room' layout seemed a lot more spacious - it was wider and you haven't got the dividing wall taking up space. With that layout there's also more room to shift the coffee tables out of the way so you can pull out the sofa bed.

    How do you find Vdara itself? Any recommendations for food / drink there? We are staying for two nights only with $150 resort credit so suggestions happily received!
  • KarenG wrote: »
    How do you find Vdara itself? Any recommendations for food / drink there? We are staying for two nights only with $150 resort credit so suggestions happily received!

    Have a look at where you can use the resort credit.
    Sometimes its just in-room dining, Cafe Vettro and Market Cafe.
    It could be valid for any MGM properties.
    We have had both but last time it was the former, we used ours in Cafe Vettro and it was very good.
  • Totally agree about the increased number of kids - they're everywhere! I did feel very sorry for the the toddlers being pushed around smoky casinos in their strollers in the middle of the night but it does seem to be becoming more of a family destination.

    We did notice a lot of people in Islamic dress there too - I also thought this was strange given my understanding of Islamic rules on gambling but I suppose Vegas really does have something for everyone!

    KarenG wrote: »
    How do you find Vdara itself? Any recommendations for food / drink there? We are staying for two nights only with $150 resort credit so suggestions happily received!

    I loved it - very clean, calm and friendly. The location is brilliant in my opinion too. Currently the only place to eat within the hotel is the Market Cafe (there's also a Starbucks under construction that's supposed to open this Autumn). The food is simple but really good - I had a late night salad that was delicious and my brother and SIL had burgers and fries that they said were amazing. I think that you can use resort credit in Aria as well (I'm sure I'e heard of people using it at the Aria buffet)

    I'm halfway through my trip report and have gone into a bit more detail about the hotel in that - will try and post it tomorrow, hope it's useful to you.

    The only potential downside, as you're taking your children with you, is that the pool is small with no slides etc. Having said that, the kids who we saw there all seemed to be having a whale of a time :)

    The only reason I won't stay there next time is that there are other hotels in the mid-strip area that we want to try before we start doing repeats!
    "Don't sacrifice what you want most for what you want now"

    MFW: Mortgage Cleared!!! 14 1/2 years early :D
  • duchy
    duchy Posts: 19,511
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    I'm not sure it's MORE kids in general ...more the fact it's the first weeks of US school holidays ?
    I Would Rather Climb A Mountain Than Crawl Into A Hole

    MSE Florida wedding .....no problem
  • Froggitt
    Froggitt Posts: 5,904 Forumite
    saffstar wrote: »
    I loved it - very clean, calm and friendly. The location is brilliant in my opinion too. Currently the only place to eat within the hotel is the Market Cafe (there's also a Starbucks under construction that's supposed to open this Autumn)
    According to the Kings of Construction, they refurbished 5,000 rooms at The Venetian in fours months.......how can it take as long to build a Starbucks?
    illegitimi non carborundum
  • photome
    photome Posts: 16,352
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    duchy wrote: »
    I'm not sure it's MORE kids in general ...more the fact it's the first weeks of US school holidays ?

    Think you have hit the nail on the head.

    When we there in April we remarked on seeing fewer kids than usual.

    we had a weekend downtown and 4 nights in Caesers palace and noticed very few at either place
  • rorylando45
    rorylando45 Posts: 451
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    Got back from a week-long trip last Sunday. We were 4 guy friends in our 20s travelling from London. Here is a trip report, hope you enjoy!

    Friday 21st June:
    Our journey began with a trip to Dublin, as we had booked our flights return from Dublin to Vegas. The journey to Dublin involved a train to Holyhead after work (depart Euston at 7.10pm), and then an overnight ferry to Dublin. We had a few hours to kill in Holyhead so went to a nearby pub and did some karaoke. We got a bit carried away and MISSED THE FERRY! It was due to depart at 2.30am, we turned up at the ferry port at 2am and told we were too late. Luckily they let us on the next sailing for free, and I think it was only 10 mins later or something. If we hadn’t got on that we’d have been utterly screwed! Anyways got some decent kip on the ferry just on one of the sofas, then woke up in Dublin. By the way our ticket for the train/ferry was a combined ticket called a “RailSail” ticket, it was only £43.00 which was pretty good I thought considering there are no luggage restrictions.

    Saturday 22nd June:
    Got a cab from the ferry port to the airport at about 6am. There was no traffic, cost about 25 Euro if I remember correctly, not too bad between 4 people. Really nice friendly cabbie too. We were only travelling with hand luggage so whizzed straight through the airport, enough time for a Guinness (it’d be rude not to, being in Dublin right?) before our flight left at 8.30am back to London. Slept on the flight, woke up in London at 10am odd. Had a couple of hours to kill in Gatwick then left on the BA flight to Vegas at 12.30pm. They ran out of beer after ONE circuit of the trolleys, I was speechless. Had to make do with whiskey for the remainder of the flight. IFE looked good but I didn’t actually end up watching anything.

    Landed on time in Vegas and got a cab to a motel just next to Hooter’s for our first night. We were staying at MGM for the remainder of the trip, but for some reason it was reeeeally expensive for our first night, so we decided to just check into a cheap motel for our first night. The motel was decent enough (it was called America’s Best Value Travel Inn or something). The pool in particular was really nice believe it or not. Saturday night we just went out and about, drunkenly gambled lots of money, and ended up in (I think) Coyote Ugly! Fun night.

    Sunday 23rd June:
    Woke up at about 7am with a thumping hangover, went and relaxed at the pool for a while and started all over again. Somehow over the course of the previous night our toilet seat had cracked, I’m still waiting for a charge for that to appear on my CC statement, nothing yet though! Sunday morning we went for breakfast at Coco’s which is just in front of the motel, next to Hooter’s. It was pretty standard diner food but they had some good deals, I think we got bacon pancakes eggs and juice for $4.99 or something. Once we were all compos mentis we moved over the road to MGM at about 11am. Queued up for checkin and tried the $20 trick, just asked if we were able to get 2 rooms near each other with a Strip view. He said yeah sure, he also said he would give us rooms which were ready now so we didn’t have to wait until 2pm. Pretty good service I thought.

    Turns out we got rooms on the 18th floor which were actually facing South Strip, i.e. we could see Trop, Excalibur, Luxor, Mandalay Bay. I was hoping we’d be looking up the Strip but I guess I did just ask for a Strip view so can’t complain too much. Spent part of the afternoon at the pool, which imo is one of the best parts of MGM. It’s not very child friendly but for adults it’s just brilliant. The lazy river is so good. Early evening we went up the road to the Harley Davidson caf!, we had a 10% off coupon and thought it was pretty decent food. Later that night I was playing Cherries Jubilee in MGM Grand and got the 3 Jubilee symbols which would have given me the progressive jackpot if I’d been playing with max credits, but that particular spin was only with 1 credit, so I won nothing. That felt pretty sick. I also somehow ended up with a henna tattoo on my neck that night, thank god it washed off after a week!

    Monday 24th June:
    We woke up late morning, got a bit of breakfast then went to the lobby to get picked up for Scoot City! The email said to be there by 12.30pm but the pick-up didn’t show til about 12.50pm. I guess he was stuck in traffic or something. But yeah Scoot City was so much fun, I would really recommend it to anyone who hasn’t done it yet. Dunno if it’s worth $250 per car, but if you get one of the half-price Groupons then it is a major bargain! Loads of good photo opps too.

    After Scoot City we went down the Strip to Mandalay Bay on the monorail. Went to the incredible Hussong’s for Mexican food, it is in my opinion the best Mexican food in the world. Absolutely incredible, I am getting hungry now just thinking about it. After that me and one of the other guys bet $1000 between us in one spin on red on European roulette in the MGM high rollers room. Needless to say, it was black! After this we went up the strip and ended up in some outdoors bar/club just north of The Quad. I don’t know the name of it, but someone might know what I’m talking about. It has a big circular bar in the middle. It was a fun night anyways!

    Tuesday 25th June:
    We booked MGM on a promotion that included a free buffet, so we went for brunch/lunch on the Tuesday. I thought the breakfast stuff was really good (pancakes, bacon, egg etc.) but the lunch stuff quite average. In particular the pizza was really poor! But still really nice and we definitely got our money’s worth. After this spent more time at the pool, then went down to the sign. We got the monorail to Mandalay then walked from there. Took a good few photos there, then ended up back in our rooms to do a “centurion” which was a right laugh. After this we actually ended up going to the same bar/club from the previous night. Wasn’t as fun second time round but still a good night. On the way home stopped in at Fatburger to conquer the XXXL challenge, and miraculously did so. They gave us a certificate and took a photo of us to put on the wall. I think it was 24oz so it was pretty big!

    Wednesday 26th June:
    Went down to the sportsbook at MGM for noon to watch the Brazil vs Uruguay Confed Cup semi. I had $20 on the draw, but of course Brazil scored in the 88th to make it 2-1. After this we went up to the Spice Market buffet at PH. Was reeeally impressed with this buffet, thought all the food was superb. The cheese and bacon mash was so good! The pizza here was fantastic as well. And the frozen custard ice cream was so refreshing in the heat. We bought tickets for this at Tix4Tonite, think it worked out at something like $20 but we got both lunch and dinner as we went across the threshold.

    From there we got the express bus up the road to the North Outlet Mall. I didn’t realise it’d be outdoors, I thought it’d be indoors like the South one. So that kinda sucked cos it was about 45 degrees outdoors! Bought a few decent bits and pieces here though, all 4 of us got matching sleeveless black denim waistcoats from Levi’s so that we could pretend to be in a band (it worked like a treat). From there we got the express back down the road to Fremont St. It was only my second time at Fremont St but I gotta say I absolutely love it! Def wanna spend a couple nights at one of the hotels there on next year’s trip. It’s a much more relaxed chilled out vibe. Also I don’t know if anyone has seen this before, but some of the casinos give out free little raffle ticket things, and every half hour they draw a ticket? Anyway one of the tickets they drew was my ticket! At first I thought I’d won $10k, started getting pretty excited before they informed me that I’d only won a free spin on their mega slot machine. Ended up with $2 from that but better than nothing haha! Also won about $40 on one of those Quick Hit slots, pressed “Cash Out” and it started dispensing my money in nickels! Yes it paid out 800 nickels, enough to fill 2 buckets. Checked out the shark tank water slide at Golden Nugget, looked really cool but we couldn’t go on it as it was closed. Also got out photo taken with $1m cash at Binion’s for free which was quite cool. After this we decided we wanted to drop all our shopping back home so got the bus back down to MGM. Changed into matching denim waistcoats, then spent the rest of the night putting on the persona of a punk rock band on the Warped Tour.

    Thursday 27th June:
    Went across the road to NYNY to play pop-a-shot in the arcade. I broke my personal best of 66, managing to score an incredible 69. From there we got the bus up the road to Mirage for the Cravings buffet, which was again incredible. We had a Travelzoo voucher, think it was $39 for two for all you can eat and drink. The Asian food in particular I thought. We then went one block south to TI to Kahunaville, we had a voucher from Stuie on this forum. Was a real good laugh on there, the bartenders put on a really cool show. After this we saw the Sirens performance outside, dragged on a bit but for free can’t complain.

    Thursday night we went to Hakkasan nightclub in MGM. I think it’s quite new, opened about a month ago. Wasn’t really my sort of thing, only spent an hour or so in there. Think it cost $30 to get in. A beer and shot was $26! Just as a warning, some guy was going around earlier in the day selling wristbands which supposedly got you all you can drink and free entry to the club. Turns out it was fraudulent, he just got the wristbands made up himself. Glad we didn’t buy them in the end! Went back to Fatburger after Hakkasan and this time failed miserably on the XXXL challenge.

    Friday 28th June:
    Friday was an absolute scorcher, think it was as hot as 46 or 47 degrees. I woke up early and went down to the poker room at MGM, had some nice hands but ultimately left $60 down. Spent most of the day at the pool as it was too hot to do anything else. In the evening we went to an outdoor karaoke bar, opposite Cosmo. It was quite a laugh but you have to pay $5 for each song you do which I thought was a bit crap! Had a good time there though.

    Saturday 29th June:
    This was our last day. We got up and checked out and had a couple of hours to kill before our flight. At checkout they tried to charge us for our free buffets. I told them it should be free, and after about 10 mins of checking, she agreed that it should be free. She also removed 3 nights worth of resort fees to apologise for the delay. This saved us about $170 between us which was a nice gesture.

    I had $100 left and decided to try and turn it into $1k. I managed to get the $100 up to $500 in about 10 mins of blackjack. I then decided to lump the whole $500 on a red/black spin roulette. I chose black and of course it was red! Would have been nice if that had come in so I could come home with some money in my pocket! As it turned out, we got a cab to the airport at about 2pm. Think it came to about $15. Whizzed through the airport with only hand luggage, the flight back was utterly uneventful. I slept for most of it, woke up at 10am in London feeling very refreshed and without even the slightest hint of jetlag.

    Well that was it..gambling wise a pretty diabolical trip for me. If either of my $500 roulette spins had come in it’d have been a lot healthier. Oh well. Foodwise it was fantastic, alcohol wise fantastic, weatherwise it was a bit too hot imo. Already planning a trip for next year for my sister’s 21st, will be beginning of June which will hopefully be slightly less boiling.
  • duchy
    duchy Posts: 19,511
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    OMG Great report ...but next time fly Ryanair to Dublin instead (no luggage you leave it at Gatwick left luggage and collect it before checking in at Gatwick ....or twilight check it the evening before if Virgin). Cheaper than the train/ship and less potential for disaster. Glad it all worked out and sorry to hear Black wasn't your colour ;)
    I Would Rather Climb A Mountain Than Crawl Into A Hole

    MSE Florida wedding .....no problem
  • Georgiegirl256
    Georgiegirl256 Posts: 7,005 Forumite
    It sounds like you and the guys are auditioning for the next Hangover movie rorylando45! I had to laugh at the denim waistcoats and pretending to be a band! :rotfl: seriously though, it sounds like you all had an awesome time!

    What's the $20 trick btw?
  • ferf1223
    ferf1223 Posts: 8,935 Forumite
    great report, rorylando - I also love the idea of the matching waistcoats...did make me chuckle. some gutsy gambling moves there too - my hat's off to you. :)
    Does remembering a time that a certain degree of personal responsibility was more or less standard means that I am officially old?
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