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Vegas Hotel/Restaurant Recs
DH & I are trying to plan a trip to Vegas for either early June or late Sept this year. Researching reviews on trip advisor is so overwhelming because there are so many hotels. I think I have it narrowed down to Aria, Cosmopolitan or Bellagio. Can anyone offer opinions on what one to choose. Also looking for suggestions of restaurants. We are going for 4 nights so we want to do one go all out dinner and then the other meals we want to keep on the lower side ( as much as possible in vegas ). We also want to see at least 2 shows. I'm thinking Cirque O & Penn & Teller but open to other suggestions as well. Mostly we want to just walk the strip and see the sights. We dont plan on gambling but may try one or 2 table games for the heck of it. Also how much spending money do you think is needed for 4 nights, not including the show tickets. Can I get by on $800 for both of us for the 4 nights ? We dont want to penny pinch but I also dont want to keep this trip under 2500K & I'm thinking airfare & hotel will be $1500-1800. A co worker gave me the name of her travel agent and I will email her to try to get the best deal on the hotel and flight. Any suggestions or expert advice would be greatly appreciated.
Re: Vegas Hotel/Restaurant Recs
Hello! My mother and I went to Vegas in December - you will have a fabulous time! We did not stay at any of those hotels, but I have heard the Cosmopolitan is really wonderful. But, I don't think you could go wrong with any of those three - they are all centrally located on the strip. We're not big shoppers, so we definitely didn't spend $200 on that, but we did gamble quite a bit! Miso's blog was very helpful to me for restaurant advice: http://www.weezermonkey.com/p/usa.html.
Hope that helps!
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We've had fabulous meals at both SW Steak and Mon Ami Gabi.
Those are great choices for hotels, but will likely be on the pricier side. If you want to save some money that might be one way to do it. There are hotels in every price point in Vegas. You could also try Priceline.
We've seen O and it is fantastic!
We recently went to Vegas (Nov 2011) and prior to booking our vacation, I had pretty much narrowed it down to the same three hotels that you have. We went with the Cosmopolitan and loved it. It's right on the strip as in you literally walk off the sidewalk and into the casino/hotel. Aria is placed further back off the strip and of course the Bellagio is the center of everything.
We chose the Cosmo since it was relatively new and so we weren't going to end up with a dated/worn hotel room. I think at the time we booked, Bellagio was undergoing renovations to their rooms which may now have been completed?
The room was large with a separate living room area, "bedroom" and large bath. The balcony was nice, but since it was November, we didn't really take advantage of it. For what we paid, we were very happy with the Cosmo and would stay there again if we were to visit Vegas again.
If you want to check with a travel agent it can't hurt, but I'd be surprised if they can give you a better price than you can find on the internet. If you sign up for emails from the hotels they send out deals all the time (I just got one this morning for the Venetian), and I was also shocked by how much money I saved by booking a hotel/flight package through Southwest the last time I went.
I have reviews of all the hotels I've stayed in here in my blog, including the Aria and Bellagio. I think the Aria is better -- newer rooms and Bellagio can be a zoo. From what I've heard the Coso is great but I know it's been on the pricey side when I've looked.
Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.
Mark Twain
My Travel Blog
Based entirely on walking through the lobbies of these hotels I'd pick Bellagio.
We ate at Bouchon (sp?), Olives and Switch that I remember. All were good but Bouchon's breakfast was by far my fav.
I would use priceline to bid on your hotel. We went 2 weeks ago and stayed at Aria for $76 per night. There is also a hotel resort fee of $20 per night, but almost every hotel on the strip charges resort fees now. It was nice, but we didn't spend much time in the room. If you bid on South Strip area, you have a good chance of getting this hotel, Vdara, or Bellagio. I would bid about a month out. You can check betterbidding.com to see what others have gotten around your dates.
I would also check kayak.com or fly.com for cheap airfare or travelocity for package deals. $800 for food and entertainment for 4 days is not a lot in Vegas, esp. since O is pricey, but I think you can definitely cut your air/hotel budget by a lot.
If you bid on priceline.com for a 5 star on the strip you will get a great hotel. I think the only options are Wynn/Encore, Venetian/Palazzo, Aria and Mandalay--all great hotels. If you want to save some money, this is the way to go IMO. Check out betterbidding.com to get an idea re: how to bid and what price to offer.
Of the hotels you've listed I'd personally pick Cosmopolitan (which my husband describes as upbeat elegance, lol) or Aria. Bellagio is a great location but we weren't fans of our room or the service.
Caesars doesn't charge the resort fee. We recently stayed at Caesars and loved it. Great restaurants (Mesa Grill, Raos) and it's pretty central on the strip. Bellagio is next door and one tower of rooms overlooks the fountains.
Save money on your hotel and enjoy the gambling, restaurants and nightlife. We booked our hotel and airfare through Southwest.com and got a great deal.
We stayed at ARIA in late November/early December and loved it! The location is wonderful, the restaurants were good, CityCenter is right there, the staff was great and our room was awesome!
TI, IUIs, IVF = c/ps and BFNs
Just got back from a 2nd trip to Vegas two days ago... Stayed at Caesar's this time bc we were traveling with a group, and stayed at Palazzo on my previous visit.
I loved the ambience of Cosmopolitan. Aria and Bellagio are also nice, but the Cosmopolitan really stuck out to me in a good way. But as others have noted, you can't go wrong. They are all centrally located.
As far as restaurants go, places I've been:
The budget really depends on where you eat. You can easily spend $200 or more on dinner every night, depending on where you go and how much you drink.
As far as shows go, I've seen:
I've heard great things about Cirque du Soleil O so that's next on my list.
Hope this helps!
We recently went to Vegas for three nights at the end of January. In terms of dining, we had three splurge/expensive meals at Le Cirque (Bellagio), L?Atelier de Joel Robuchon (MGM) and Stripsteak (Mandalay Bay). Of those, I highly recommend Le Cirque or L?Atelier as they were two of the best meals of our life. Stripsteak was good and we got a great deal by purchasing a discounted gift certificate on restaurant.com.
We also ate at Todd English?s Olives (Bellagio), Bouchon (Venetian), Jean Phillipe Patisserie (Bellagio), and Fleur (Mandalay Bay). I probably wouldn?t go running back to any of these places. While the lunch meals were good, they just couldn?t compare to our dinners at Le Cirque and L?Atelier.
We went to shows at both O and Penn & Teller. O was amazing and worth every penny. I?ve been to two other Cirque shows in Las Vegas (Mystere and Zumanity) and O was so much better and more exciting. The Penn & Teller show was interesting and we stuck around after the show ended and were able to meet both Penn and Teller.
In terms of your hotel choices, you can?t go wrong with what you have listed. If money was no object, then I would stay at the Cosmopolitan. However, if you want to have a larger budget for dining and other stuff, then I would recommend staying at a less expensive place. We stayed in a suite at TI for three nights and with our airfare from Seattle spent about $700 for both of us. Granted, this was in January but had we stayed at Cosmo (which is where we wanted to stay) we would have spent several hundred more. We decided we wanted to use a larger chunk of our budget on dining. You?ll have to decide what is more important to you.
An $800 budget for spending money is doable, but tough. Over the course of our three nights, we spent more than $500 alone on the two shows (we did have very nice seats) and about $700 on food with another $100 spent on going out/drinks one of the nights to XS (Bellagio). We didn?t do any gambling. I will be posting a detailed trip review in the next month so keep a look out for that!
Unfortunately, I totally agree with this. It was my mom's first Cirque show and I was so excited for her. She still enjoyed it, but it was really not good. The set is amazing, but I don't think that is enough to pay to see it (our tickets were free with our room reservation). I told her that I still have to take her to see a "real" Cirque show!
Agree with this. I actually slept through Ka.
It was free.
My friend worked for Ka and called last minute to invite us. This was within a month of the show opening so maybe it's better now but it was a real snoozer back then.