Exposing the Myths of Las Vegas

I love to travel. And one of the places on my wish list of places to see was Las Vegas. Who, over 21, doesn't want to see the bright lights, sights and sounds of the strip? But could I afford it? And after I played the slots and won my first million, (insert laugh here), then what would there be to do? But curiosity got the best of me and I went onto Expedia.com and priced a trip.

Boy, was I shocked! A trip for two to Las Vegas could be had for less than I had spent in the past for a long weekend at the beach. And I am not talking just hotel bill here. I am talking hotel and airfare combined. Yes, you read right. Two people can go to Las Vegas for 5 days and 4 nights for less than $800.00 (hotel and airfare). So, I booked a trip and gave it try. Well, I must have liked it because I have been back 8 more times since that first jaunt in 2003. And every time I go, I find something new to see or do.

First, let's talk about hotels. Now the thing is this..do you want to spend your entire vacation budget on a luxury hotel that you can brag to your friends about or do you want to spend it on a week of FUN? You can stay at the Wynn or Bellagio and spend a small fortune or you can stay somewhere reasonable like the Imperial Palace, Sahara or Stratosphere and have a little money left to eat, play and of course, gamble.

Just go to your favorite travel site and price a trip. The less pricey hotels I mentioned are all good hotels. I have stayed at several different ones in Vegas and have yet to have a bad experience. The Imperial Palace is moderately priced and is in a fantastic location. It is right in the middle of the strip, which makes it easy to walk to many of the other hotel/casinos in either direction. This saves you money on transportation.

The Sahara and the Stratosphere, both also economical hotels are very nice, but are on the far end of the strip. While they have the disadvantage of being away from the other strip hotels, they have the advantage of being closer to Freemont Street, making bus travel there a lot faster. One thing to remember is that no matter what hotel you stay at, you are more than welcome to go in and out of all the others as much as you want to for shopping, sightseeing, dining and gambling.

They are happy to get your money any way they can, even if it isn't spent on rooms. Pick your hotel, airline and flight time wisely and you can save major bucks. Best times to fly are during the week and especially on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Hotels are also cheaper on weekdays than weekends and some of them even offer free days during the week.

And no, you don't have to be a high roller to get the offers. Just join their players club for free and play a few slots and you will get rate brochures in the mail for future trips. My friend and I each got an offer for 3 free nights at the Plaza after we played there. Did we use them? You bet we did. We scouted the websites for cheap airfare and our cost for that trip was less than $200 each for airfare. We booked them back to back and used mine the first half of the week and hers the last half. 6 days in Vegas for under $200 each. All we had to do was switch rooms midweek.

Now that we have touched on hotels, lets move to food and entertainment. Ok, you've won so much money, you just don't care to gamble any more, now what? Just kidding, of course, but surely you will want to do something other than gamble. I set myself a gambling budget of $50 per day and I stick to it. I figure that we save so much on hotels, even with the gambling budget, a Vegas trip is still cheaper than going to the beach. Believe it or not, I can play on that $50 just as long as some other people play and blow hundreds. No, I don't win big, but I don't lose big either. But that's a whole other article, so back to the subject of entertainment. There are enough free things to see and do to keep you busy for a whole week and not spend big bucks on high dollar shows.

And if you really must see a show and you don't mind giving a couple hours to a timeshare sales pitch, you can get tickets for two to a show and a dinner buffet. Just don't buy a timeshare as this defeats the whole purpose of saving money on the trip. Ok, I am trying to inject a little humor here. You can laugh, but seriously those timeshare people will hold you hostage until you sign a contract if you are not downright assertive when you say NO. So, go see the lions at MGM. Go to the M&M store/museum (even see a free M&M movie).

See the white tigers and the volcano at the Mirage or my two personal favorites, the Sirens of TI and the dancing water fountains at the Bellagio. Those are all free and there are more if you do a search on "Things to see and do for free in Las Vegas". I like to print them out and put them in a report binder, so I can browse it on the plane. You can also go online and find coupons on different sites for food or shows that can be printed out on your computer.

Oh yes, food. There is cheap food and there is expensive food. It just depends on your taste and how much you want to spend. Some of the best meal deals are for night owls who are out past 11 pm. One thing you need to do is check out the magazine in your hotel room. It's called "What's On". In it, you will find coupons for food and entertainment. There will also be coupon booklets along the strip here and there and at all of the monorail stops.

Also, prior to my last trip, I found a website called Las Vegas Perks that sells a coupon book for $35.00. That may sound like a lot, but I knew I would get my investment back when we used the buy one get one free coupon for the Star Trek Experience. It was around $39.00, so every other coupon I used was just icing on the cake. The website lists every coupon in the book, so you know upfront if it will fit your needs or not.

There was a buy one get one free for the Sahara brunch buffet and the Imperial Palace breakfast buffet. Those two alone saved us an additional $22.00. Not to mention the others that we used. One word of caution, there are some pricey restaurants in th book, so be careful. There was one that offered a buy one $20.00 entree, get one free. Well, there was no entree on the menu that was $20.00.

They did give us $20.00 off the total bill, but it was still pretty staggering by my standards. So, here's a tip..if the restaurant has a menu posted outside and it looks expensive inside, check the menu out before you go in. We had a buy one get one free for the House of Blues and I got a delicious chinese chicken salad there. It was reasonably priced and well worth it. There were lots of others and we used as many as we could while we were there. All in all that book probably saved us around $100.00 or more.

For transportation, if you don't want to walk, you have your choice of rental cars, cabs, bus, trolley and monorail. The monorail is about the fastest way around, however, it is more expensive than the bus or trolley. You can get day passes for the bus or monorail, which is much cheaper than paying per ride. With a day pass you can get off and on the bus all you want for one price. During the month of August, when we went, they ran a special on the monorail. Day passes were only $9.00. Normally they are $15.00 per day. The bus was $6.00 per day. We splurged on the monorail passes because it was so much faster and more comfortable than bus travel. We only took the bus the day we went to Freemont Street, because the monorail doesn't go there.

Our final subject..kids in Vegas. Come on now, do you really want to take children to what I consider Adult Disneyland??! You can, if you so desire, and you WILL find things for them to do. Circus Circus has an indoor amusement park under a giant dome over the parking deck. Other hotels are have some kid friendly perks. Heck, Excaliber even looks like the Disney castle. If you do opt to take kids (personally I wouldn't), just remember, no one under 21 is allowed on the casino floor.

This limits whomever is watching the kids to the shopping mall areas, restaurants and the amusement areas. Still, a good time can be had doing those things. The mall areas are an amusement for adults in themselves as they are themed to look like other places such as Venice, New York, etc. The Venetian has canals and gondola rides. Paris has an Eiffel Tower. The Stratosphere has rides on top of it that all the money and liquor in Las Vegas couldn't get me to ride on. And the architecture in Vegas alone is awesome. If you go, kids or no, you will have a good time and most likely, you will go again. Happy travels.