No kidding. I wouldn’t pay Strip prices anywhere around my town. Didn’t mean for my comment to sound like a personal attack.
It is definitely this way post covid and was going that way before. I checked the price of my two nights of a stay at Harrahs from 2019, and it was about 50 pounds TOTAL (ok, so the resort fee probably made it near double, but still it was pretty damn cheap to stay there). Now I often look at the cheap places aren’t blinking at 150 quid a night. For the crappy hotels. Low roller joints mostly went years ago (Buffalo Bills was one of my favourites, their cheap frozen margaritas and “chinese diner” in the back were so cheap and good. I walked through its replacement, Cromwells, once). Now its Ellis Island and Casino Royale, and those tripled their beer prices. Even downtown, the 20 pounds I paid without a resort fee to stay at Main Street Station 5 years ago, included a $16 buffet breakfast. It’s up above 100 pounds now, with resort fees to boot.
When we’re in Vegas we do things that we can’t do elsewhere. So a nice dinner and a show, people watching on the Strip, places like Omega Mart or the Stratosphere, and we typically spend $20 on the cheap slots for a little entertainment, and maybe a funky shop or two.
Sure. I’m not saying that absolutely everyone in Las Vegas is trashy and low rent. But the whole thing seems to be squarely aimed at what trashy and low rent people perceive luxury and high-end stuff to be, without actually being those things in reality.
For whatever misguided reason, I felt like the whole place would be mostly above my socio-economic level, not aimed squarely below me at working class people.
The vast majority of the places I saw advertised were chain restaurants, or Food Network celebrity chef places- Guy Fieri, Giada de Laurentiis, Bobby Flay, Gordon Ramsay, etc… I’m sure they have nice food, but when I’m thinking high-end dining, I’m thinking French Laundry, Le Bernardin, or Alinea, not Vanderpump a Paris or The Bedford by Martha Stewart.
Not true. Vegas has restaurants (and bakeries) by the likes of Thomas Keller, Jose Andres and Daniel Boulud. It might be a challenge to get a better lunch for the dollars demanded. (This list is places I enjoyed, from least to most.)
But yeah, in some other ways Vegas reminds me of the comedian John Mulaney’s jokes about Trump.
Donald Trump is almost like what a hobo imagines a rich man to be. No, it’s like years ago, Trump was walking through an alley, and he heard some guy just like, “oh boy oh boy, as soon as my number comes in, I’m gonna put up tall buildings with my name on 'em. I’ll have fine golden hair, and a TV show where I fire people with my children.” And Trump was like, “that is how I will live my life”..
The trick to Vegas is to go in August when it’s blistering hot. Last year I spent about $50 a night after the resort fee for two nights at Caesar’s.
I haven’t been to Las Vegas (or indeed the US) for a couple of decades but when I went I was essentially backpacking, staying at cheap hostels etc and the only five-star hotels I stayed in were in Las Vegas.
The trick at that time was to hang around elsewhere (LA in my case) watching the last-minute Las Vegas prices. They seemed to go super-low from time to time. I had understood this was because when there were no big conventions in town, Las Vegas would be relatively empty so the hotels would offer ridiculously low prices, to keep up their occupancy.
Is that still true?
That used to also be true of November, Christmas and January. Not any more.
Yes. Just good luck finding a time when there isn’t a convention in town. Right now there is so much pent up demand that the hotels don’t have to lower their rates to get people to come to town. The place is packed all year long, and likely will be for a bit. Although when Fontainebleau opens that will take some of the stress off room availability.
They’re still cheap times to go. I was just there in late January; accommodations were to be had for good prices, though maybe not $35 at Caesar’s.
If a cheap room is your main criterion go down the road an hour and a half to Laughlin.
It’s not my criteria. It just was, due to overabundance of rooms, the way things were. Far less so now. A week in Vegas could be had for the same price as a night in San Francisco Union Square. Last time I checked the two of those for a friend in April, A night in Vegas in the likes of the Flamingo, ie: not high end, was more.
It used to be a decent spot for the likes of us to fly to from the UK, even if not our final destination, it was cheap, we’d do two days then perhaps fly to Reno (for Lake Tahoe) or Denver (for rockies loop), or other such adventures. Not now, sadly. Just land in somewhere like Phoenix, taxi to airport hotel, and out the next day, not even bothering to see the city.
I stayed on Fremont Street last weekend. The first night, I bought a double call drink at the hotel bar. Cost me 14 bucks.
Bottled beer at most places was 7-8 bucks a bottle.
Food prices were comparable to everywhere else, although we certainly didn’t eat anywhere ‘fancy’.
Our rooms were comped, which made the overall experience much more affordable.
But I won’t be going back anytime soon.
My wife and I made a very quick trip to Vegas last weekend. We were in town less than 24 hours, just to see Adele in concert.
The concert was fantastic. Vegas was so-so.
I guess some hotel bars are more expensive than others. I think $4 was the most expensive beer I had on Freemont street end of 2022, where we stayed about six days. around Christmas, maybe $6 for that super big one in the Plaza. Regularly paid about $2-3 around the rest.
We found some of those massive (32 oz?) cans at a store for 4 bucks. The prices were probably jacked up at the bars because of March Madness coinciding with St. Patty’s Day.
There were LOUD street bands each night we were there. And by loud, I mean far too loud for my 70-year-old ears. We could hear the bass and drums pounding inside our hotel room.
Yeah, if you’re buying at a store as opposed to a bar, it’s a lot cheaper. But one thing I noticed was a lot of signs at the stores telling you that it was illegal to consume drinks bought there on the Freemont Street Experience, which was very different than it used to be. There was always a ban on glasswear, but those big cans used to be okay.
So, yeah, you could drink cheap, so long as you didn’t mind not being in the middle of Freemont, which is kind of the point of staying on Freemont.
It’s one reason (among many) I don’t stay at the Golden Nugget anymore. Those fucking bands play loud and late. (and bad music too)
I’m usually there for work and don’t want to hear that crap after 10:00 p.m. (ever, actually, but especially when I’m trying to sleep)
I don’t think this is the case. There were a fair number of outdoor bars where people were buying beer and cocktails and then walking away, drink in hand.
I may or may not have done that myself.
They RUINED Slots-O-Fun! Used to have a craps table near the front and the excitement of the players brought everyone in. And cheap blackjack. Now it’s just dead