Pops904
11-12-2005, 10:06 PM
Flew Southwest Airlines from Jacksonville, FL to Houston, TX and then on to Vegas.NEVER AGAIN ON SOUTHWEST!!! We thought it strange when we booked our tickets online that there was no seat selection option, but assumed they would assign seats at check-in.WRONG! Southwest has what they call "Open Seating Policy" where it is first come, first served, so people camp at the gates like fans waiting for Rolling Stones tickets to go on sale, then it is a mad dash for seats, very much like a riot at a Brazilian soccer match! We had always flown Delta before, with wide-body planes, reserved seating and excellent service. Southwest can take their cattle-drive seating policy and shove it where the sun don't shine!
That being said, the rest of the trip was PERFECT!
Rented a car for the first time, and will always rent from now on! no more taxis, shuttles, high fares, shuttle schedules, scary drivers or tips for me! I found Vegas very easy to navigate, since it's not really very big and if you get to the mountains, you've gone too far. Here's a couple of tips that the strip properties try to keep a secret: Las Vagas Blvd (The Strip) runs straight downtown to Freemont street, and its not very far, only a couple of miles north past the Stratusphere. Secondly Freemont Street and Boulder Highway are one and the same, so if you head east down Freemont away from The Freemont Street Experience canopy, soon the name changes to Boulder Highway and you come up on Arizona Charlie's, Boulder Station, and Sam's Town. Last but not least, you can see the Stratusphere or the Luxor from anywhere inside the ring of surrounding mountains, so it is nearly impossible to get truly lost. Beware of driving on the strip, especially at night, because there are idiots that will try to drive and sight-see at the same time, worse than driving in a pack of drunks! Drivers should DRIVE, leave the looking to your passengers. Parking is free everywhere except downtown, and even downtown you can get several free hours by having your parking stub validated at the casino cage. Since we were staying at the Golden Nugget, our parking was free in their garage on 1st St.
We had heard that the Golden Nugget was the nicest downtown hotel and we were not dissapointed! Our room was very large And well-apponted, with granite countertops and marble tile floor in the large bathroom, a granite dressing table with lighted mirror right outside the bathroom door, ironing board and iron, hair dryer, and a safe. The only thing that was missing was a coffee maker, but a short walk to the Walgreen's right down Freemont cured that. $20 bought us a little drip coffeemaker, coffee, creamer, and sweetner for a week. We would get up and have coffee in our room and when we went down stairs would see lots of people (mostly men) that had to get dressed and go downstairs to get coffee and carry it back to their rooms.
We had another couple with us this trip, first timers, so we went sight-seeing on the strip and had an excellent dinner at the Outback Steakhouse on the second floor of Casino Royale overlooking the volcano at the Mirage.
Prices seemed to be only slightly higher than Outback in any other city, and the view of the erupting volcano was magnificent!
We are low-rollers, as were the people with us, so we didn't gamble much on the strip, as the table limits were high and the slot machines were so tight you could almost hear them squeak, so it was back to downtown, out to Boulder Highway, or Off-strip across the expressway to places like Gold Coast or Orleans to make our gaming bucks stretch further. Everyone had decent but not spectaculr luck on slots, and awful luck at blackjack. I did fairly well at roulette, being able to double or triple my buy-in almost at will, thus giving me plenty of bankroll to spend playing my favorite slots. All four of us hit fairly decently (in the $100 range) on nickel video slots, and my wife won $1,000 at The Plaza's 9:00am bingo game! Basically my wife and I low-rolled our asses off for 5 days and came back home with only $200 less than we left home with, making this our most successful trip gaming-wise so far!
As always, Freemont Street was a huge street party every night! There was a fairly good Elvis in front of The Las Vegas Club, A good Dixieland Jazz band in front of The Plaza, A country band at the corner of Freemont and First Street that was so bad that it was fun to watch, (They only played one set, possibly getting fired for being soooooooo bad!) The awsome saxophone player was out there (I forget his name) and a really good CCR tribute band called "Bad Moon Risin" at the corner between the Four Queens and Fitzgeralds. There is nothing like being there while the party is happening, watching thousands of people dancing in the street! There is a little hole-in-the-wall place called La Bayou that only has slots and advertises 28 flavors of high-octane daiquiris. BEWARE! Those are the strongest drinks on the face of the planet! I bought a 48 ounce margarita in a glass shaped like a football and was toasted by the time I had finished 1/4 of it. I managed to finish it all over the space of the next 2 hours, but was the most drunk I had been in 20 years! I'm a drinker, and can hold my booze, but WOW!!!The next day my tongue was still numb til about noon! the downtown casinos must pay this place to stay open so people will get really drunk and lose all their money.
Fortunately, I realized I was too drunk to gamble (sort of like being too drunk to fish) so I retired early that night to sleep it off.
If there was one dissapointment to the trip, (other than the airline)it would have to be the buffet at Sam's Town. On earlier trips it had been excellent, but I was embarrassed after bragging to my friends about it, to go there and find a poor selection of cold, tasteless food and stale desserts. A food high note was the Mexican restaurant at Arizona Charlie's, with their salsa bar sporting at least 20 different salsas ranging from mild to nuclear.
I guess that's all for now....we're going back in late march, taking our son to celebrate his 21st birthday...We are definitely going to stay at our new Vegas home, The Golden Nugget, again. Already looking for airfares (With reserved seating) and rental car rates for that trip!
But, that's just me......
That being said, the rest of the trip was PERFECT!
Rented a car for the first time, and will always rent from now on! no more taxis, shuttles, high fares, shuttle schedules, scary drivers or tips for me! I found Vegas very easy to navigate, since it's not really very big and if you get to the mountains, you've gone too far. Here's a couple of tips that the strip properties try to keep a secret: Las Vagas Blvd (The Strip) runs straight downtown to Freemont street, and its not very far, only a couple of miles north past the Stratusphere. Secondly Freemont Street and Boulder Highway are one and the same, so if you head east down Freemont away from The Freemont Street Experience canopy, soon the name changes to Boulder Highway and you come up on Arizona Charlie's, Boulder Station, and Sam's Town. Last but not least, you can see the Stratusphere or the Luxor from anywhere inside the ring of surrounding mountains, so it is nearly impossible to get truly lost. Beware of driving on the strip, especially at night, because there are idiots that will try to drive and sight-see at the same time, worse than driving in a pack of drunks! Drivers should DRIVE, leave the looking to your passengers. Parking is free everywhere except downtown, and even downtown you can get several free hours by having your parking stub validated at the casino cage. Since we were staying at the Golden Nugget, our parking was free in their garage on 1st St.
We had heard that the Golden Nugget was the nicest downtown hotel and we were not dissapointed! Our room was very large And well-apponted, with granite countertops and marble tile floor in the large bathroom, a granite dressing table with lighted mirror right outside the bathroom door, ironing board and iron, hair dryer, and a safe. The only thing that was missing was a coffee maker, but a short walk to the Walgreen's right down Freemont cured that. $20 bought us a little drip coffeemaker, coffee, creamer, and sweetner for a week. We would get up and have coffee in our room and when we went down stairs would see lots of people (mostly men) that had to get dressed and go downstairs to get coffee and carry it back to their rooms.
We had another couple with us this trip, first timers, so we went sight-seeing on the strip and had an excellent dinner at the Outback Steakhouse on the second floor of Casino Royale overlooking the volcano at the Mirage.
Prices seemed to be only slightly higher than Outback in any other city, and the view of the erupting volcano was magnificent!
We are low-rollers, as were the people with us, so we didn't gamble much on the strip, as the table limits were high and the slot machines were so tight you could almost hear them squeak, so it was back to downtown, out to Boulder Highway, or Off-strip across the expressway to places like Gold Coast or Orleans to make our gaming bucks stretch further. Everyone had decent but not spectaculr luck on slots, and awful luck at blackjack. I did fairly well at roulette, being able to double or triple my buy-in almost at will, thus giving me plenty of bankroll to spend playing my favorite slots. All four of us hit fairly decently (in the $100 range) on nickel video slots, and my wife won $1,000 at The Plaza's 9:00am bingo game! Basically my wife and I low-rolled our asses off for 5 days and came back home with only $200 less than we left home with, making this our most successful trip gaming-wise so far!
As always, Freemont Street was a huge street party every night! There was a fairly good Elvis in front of The Las Vegas Club, A good Dixieland Jazz band in front of The Plaza, A country band at the corner of Freemont and First Street that was so bad that it was fun to watch, (They only played one set, possibly getting fired for being soooooooo bad!) The awsome saxophone player was out there (I forget his name) and a really good CCR tribute band called "Bad Moon Risin" at the corner between the Four Queens and Fitzgeralds. There is nothing like being there while the party is happening, watching thousands of people dancing in the street! There is a little hole-in-the-wall place called La Bayou that only has slots and advertises 28 flavors of high-octane daiquiris. BEWARE! Those are the strongest drinks on the face of the planet! I bought a 48 ounce margarita in a glass shaped like a football and was toasted by the time I had finished 1/4 of it. I managed to finish it all over the space of the next 2 hours, but was the most drunk I had been in 20 years! I'm a drinker, and can hold my booze, but WOW!!!The next day my tongue was still numb til about noon! the downtown casinos must pay this place to stay open so people will get really drunk and lose all their money.
Fortunately, I realized I was too drunk to gamble (sort of like being too drunk to fish) so I retired early that night to sleep it off.
If there was one dissapointment to the trip, (other than the airline)it would have to be the buffet at Sam's Town. On earlier trips it had been excellent, but I was embarrassed after bragging to my friends about it, to go there and find a poor selection of cold, tasteless food and stale desserts. A food high note was the Mexican restaurant at Arizona Charlie's, with their salsa bar sporting at least 20 different salsas ranging from mild to nuclear.
I guess that's all for now....we're going back in late march, taking our son to celebrate his 21st birthday...We are definitely going to stay at our new Vegas home, The Golden Nugget, again. Already looking for airfares (With reserved seating) and rental car rates for that trip!
But, that's just me......