Vegas Vacation

You may have noticed that I’ve been absent for several days… or nobody noticed. In either case, this is what I’ve been up to! My wife treated me to a vacation in Vegas for my birthday and we had a pretty good time. It was a short trip on a shoe string budget, but was well worth it.

My wife travels a little for work and is a member of Hilton Honors, their rewards club. A month or two ago she was contacted about getting a discounted trip in exchange for attending a presentation about Hilton’s timeshare program. She was extremely skeptical and was able to get a suite at the Hilton Grand Vacation Club on the Las Vegas Strip for $25/night plus $50 in credits for food or gambling at the Las Vegas Hilton (not on The Strip).

We took the short flight to Vegas, hopped on a shuttle and made it to the hotel without too much fuss. The hotel was pretty nice, as are most of the large hotels in Vegas (on The Strip anyway). The suite was basically a 1000ft furnished apartment with kitchen, bedroom, bath, huge tub, living room, dining table, etc. Unfortunately, while it was on The Strip, it was at the north end, far removed from everywhere we wanted to go.

Since we didn’t drive, or rent a car, we were limited to cabs, shuttles and the monorail. As soon as you set foot in a cab, the meter starts off at almost $3.50 (I don’t know if this is normal since I never take cabs). Just to get from one end of the strip to the other it was over $13. The monorail is $5 per person per ride, unless you get a $13 day pass. I believe a 3-day pass is also available. In hind sight, this may have been the most cost effective way to go, but does require more walking since it’s not necessarily door-to-door, depending on where you go.

Our first stop was The Bellagio for the buffet we saw on the Food Network. It lived up to our expectations and while I was reluctant to pay that much for a buffet, I soon realized it was well worth it. We feasted on salmon, sword fish, prime rib, chicken wellington, crab legs, veggies, sushi, fruit, and delicious deserts.

From there we walked over to Paris, which I remembered being one of my favorite sights from our first Vegas trip several years ago. You quickly lose your sense of time and day with the partly clouded sky painted above you. We were served free drinks (not free after tips) readily and often, but lost most of my day’s allotment of gambling money. We decided to call it quits and move on.

At the Flamingo we lost a little more money and with my last $5 of the night, tried a 100 line penny slot machine. It quickly paid out and I took my $5 up to $245, which is where I should have cashed out. Unfortunately, it dropped down to $60, while we tried to get back on its winning cycle, and we called it a night. By then it was after 1:30am and we went for a walk. We made it to Wynn, a mile away, before deciding to grab a cab and get back to our hotel.

The next morning we got up, hangovers and all, got ready and went down to the seminar. They definitely did their job and made it seem like a good idea, but I wasn’t biting. We were told that it would take an hour or two, but ended up lasting three hours. The $50 promised to us ended up being $70, which was a pleasant surprise.

We took a cab over to the Las Vegas Hilton to convert our credits, found the same kind of slot machine we won on at the Flamingo and doubled that money. We cashed out and had lunch at the buffet there. It couldn’t hold a candle to the buffet at the Bellagio. This time we decided to take the monorail down to the other end as it was time to meet up with my wife’s sisters who drove in from Utah.

The monorail dropped us off at the MGM Grand, but still left us with quite a walk over to the Excaliber where the sisters were staying. As soon as we walked in the door we were asaulted with offers from staff, probably trying to sell us more timeshares. This hotel may be one of the only places to stay with children, with the midway and the King Arthur show downstairs, but I don’t think we’ll be going back.

The four of us made the trek over to the Hooters hotel and casino for their $100 free slot play. That was a joke – you had to play at some roped off $5 machines and could only win the jackpot. No cashing out or free money here… Feeling let down by this, we decided not to give them any of our money, though we really shouldn’t have been surprised, and took a cab over to the Flamingo so we could try to win again at our favorite machine. No luck there and we left before losing any real money.

A short walk down the strip brought us to Casino Royale, which, in my opinion, was the dumpiest place we stopped at. We played a little bit, tried the free slot play, and broke even. After that, it was time for a walk and we wanted to check out the Venetian. I have to say that that place is amazing, but it was after hours already and everything was closed. We walked down the canals and somehow ended up in the Palazzo.

Feeling pretty exhausted, we stopped at Denny’s for a quick bite to eat at around 1:30am. That is seriously a great place for people watching. You see all sorts… We couldn’t help but be entertained by the drunk girl passed out with her head on the table with her hair in her food. One of her friends finally carried/dragged her out before we left and took cabs to our separate hotels.

We finally got to bed that night at around 3:00am and our checkout was at 10:00am. Ouch. Getting up at 8:30 did not feel good… But we made our way down and waited for the sisters to show up so we could grab some breakfast before heading to the airport. They were a little late, so we stopped at a Denny’s by the airport and ate quickly. By the time we got to the airport we were late, but so was the plane. After checking in our baggage and ourselves, we made it to the gate just as it was boarding.

It was a great three days without having to feel like an adult! I look forward to our next trip to Vegas, but it’s really not a place for kids. It was hard leaving our son and going out of down for the first time, so I’m not sure when we’re willing to do that again… I also don’t know if I want to do the timeshare presentation thing again. I know a lot of people do that to get free shows, chips, hotel stay, etc. Other deals can be found and you don’t have put up with the high pressure sales people.