Vegas bound. Any ideas?

CR, knowing your girlfriend is in her early 20s ruins your mystique.

 

never apologize for resurrecting the vegas thread! we love an excuse to talk sin city.

you must be a hotel guest to enter the pool areas, unless the pool is running a club-type set-up. you may be able to circumvent that by buying a cabana; worth checking out with a phone call or two, especially since many hotels now post cabana rentals on their websites.

i can talk about manadalay bay and the hard rock through personal experience. some people go crazy over MB because of the sand pool, but attractive people -- i'm not so sure. the hard rock might work better for you, but just know what you're getting into if you're talking about REHAB for sunday (which is a sight, certainly, but it gets old fast). And if you're not interested in REHAB, you aint going to the pool, so that's one day out of your agenda. still, i suppose you might want to to rehab just to say you did.

i've had many friends tell me they like TAO Beach at venetian, so you might want to consider that. i have never been to that pool or to wet republic. in any of these cases, consider that if the hotel IS running a pool club, you may have to pay extra for admission. you'd also want to know that getting chairs can take quite an effort, so keep that in mind if you feel like wandering to the pool at 130 pm.

tickets for the backstreet boys mandalay bay on 7/2 are still available.

 

I book Planet Hollywood for 4 days end of June.
Any comments, recommendations, dos, don'ts???

 

Just got back last week from Vegas, and had a great time. Stayed at the Strat to save money, and it worked out fine because we had a rental car and had no problem parking in garages along the strip. The car was a nice midsize and cost less than $100 for Monday-Thursday, so can't complain. Plus we went to Lake Mead one day, so that made it well worth it to me.

Didn't spend much time gambling at the Strat, but the one time I played blackjack there, the dealer didn't know English hardly at all and seemed to have trouble adding the numbers if she had 3+ cards showing, which concerned me. The rides on the top were awesome though, and there's a bar called Air Bar on the 108th floor, which has nice waitresses and the most amazing view of the city at night.

We also saw "Bite" at the Strat, and it was cheesy, but fun. My brother-in-law even got pulled onstage by a topless vampire, so he was grinning from ear-to-ear the rest of the night.

Buffet at the Bellagio was nice (around $30 per person), and had cool stuff like Chilean Sea Bass and leg of lamb. It also had some white chocolate scones that were unbelievable. Although a glass of wine cost $11, which seemed a little steep to me.

My sis liked the Sahara because she was new to blackjack and they had $1 tables. They were always pretty packed though and good luck finding a dealer that wasn't an unpleasant jerk (but I guess that's to be expected).

I really like just taking in all the sites, and I can say I never had a watered-down drink. Got a pina colada in a cool globe glass at the Paris that was (almost) too strong to drink, and a mango daquiri at Rhumbar (Mirage) that definitely didn't cheat me.

However, a highlight for me was Freemont Street. The casinos aren't near as interesting, but there was lots of activity going on in the area and the drinks and goodies were super cheap compared to the strip. I thought it was pretty neat, and less pretentious in a lot of ways.

 

I heart this thread. Going to be booking myself a trip back there in September or October because of it.

 

Want a party pool? Check out the Monte Carlo or the Flamingo. Obviously Rehab is sweet at Hard Rock but you are off the strip. I've heard great things about Mandalay Bay.

But I've stayed at both the Flamingo and the Monte Carlo and the pools are full of young people and booze.

 

the Strat still have crapless craps? i used to go in there for that around trips to the gamblers book store.

 

CR, talk the girlfriend into going to the Saphires pool at Rio or Moorea Beach Club at Mandalay.

 

I think it's safe to say that all the pool scenes are either great or really great. It's pretty hard to mess that up.

 

Do eat at the buffet and get the 24 hour pass. Do buy your booze at the ABC store. It is pretty reasonable. Eat at Earl of Sandwich it was really good. We don't have them in Michigan and they claim to have invented the sandwhich. It is a bold claim.

Do get a coupon book. They should have $5 off buffets and stuff, but remember the 24 hour buffet pass is $35 so its a great deal in itself. Do gamble in the pleasure pit - basically strippers above the card tables.

 

First time I was in Vegas was - I think - 1989. No pools to speak of in those days (I stayed at the immortal Vegas World which had a rooftop one), last place they wanted their guests hanging out was by the pool. No decent bars for younger people then either (I was 24).

 

See that's the way it's best. If I want to go sit by the pool or go for a swim, I don't want there to be a 'scene.'
I've never understood the appeal of 'the scene.'
But that's just me.