Travel plan idea blog

Las Vegas vacation planning: where to party, sleep, and book

A college student is planning trip to Las Vegas and needs advice:

For next winter break, Jan '08, myself and my friends are trying to plan a celebratory trip of all of us being 21 to Las Vegas from NY. I have a few questions for those who have done such a trip. Is it best to book online through expedia or go through a travel agent? Any recommendations on hotels? I'm thinking a 6 night stay, is that too much or to little? I figured about 1k per person budget for flight and hotel. So basically any information or personal experiences will be a big help here. Thanks in advance.

Considering this guy's age, hotel suggestions included the Palms and the Hard Rock. Most everyone thought 6 nights was too long. As for where to book, there was no clear winner. Here are some comments (some could be moderately offensive as they talk about hot girls and some may have poor spelling / grammar - they came from my favorite football message board):

The Hard Rock is supposed to be for the younger crowd. I just booked a trip to Vegas on vegas.com and it seemed to be a good deal.

6 nights in Vegas!?! 6 nights is a LOT. I don't know how you plan to spend your vacation but Vegas is very expensive. If you plan on gambling at all (and losing of course) or going out to bars/clubs 6 nights will cost you much more than 1k. Not to mention, if you are in Vegas, odds are you won't sleep much. Vegas for 3 or 4 nights is much more kind to your body and wallet.
You wont last 3! ;) 3 days max dude.

Get hotel rates online first and then call each casino. Shop the hotel rate...if you guys play poker book a room that will give you the poker rate..for instance im goin in march and we got a poker rate (129 for thurs an 199 for fri/sat) as long as we play 6 hrs per day in the poker room (combined) we get that rate.

Go to the Palms because it is the best place in Vegas for a younger crowd and is crawling with women. better than the hard rock. however, if you stay for 6 days, you could end up sucking on an exhaust pipe by day 4. time runs together there and you will either run out of cash or run out of gas and collapse if you are there 6 days.

If all you have is one large, stay off the strip at the suncoast. You could room there and its pretty nice for $50 or so a night plus they have free transport to and from the Strip. I have a vacation home in Vegas and the off strip casinos such as the new Red Rocks have every amenity that you can find on the strip. your $ will go further and the local girls are smokin hot.

I'm going to Vegas soon. We want to see some comedy shows have some good food and maybe some other shows that involve the scantily or not clad women. Hard Rock sounds cheesy to me for some reason, almost like a planet hollywood get up. One place we definitely want to atleast try to make a stop to is the Playboy Club. We have friends that went their a few weeks after it opened who loved it.

Don't go thinking you can walk from the Wynn to the Luxor on me. I like to watch people staggering down Tropicana from the Strip, thinking they can walk to the Palms or the Rio. It's unintentionally amusing. The area around the Strip is bigger than you think. I had my bachelor party in Vegas. We were staying at the Rio. We went over to Paris and stayed until 1-2am. When it was time to leave, the line for a Taxi was about an hour long. We said screw it, and walked over the the Rio. It was 90+ degrees out and there was a ton of construction on Flamingo over the 15. We found ourselves walking on Flamingo with people honking and yelling at us. It was actually a really dangerous thing to do. That was a bad decision.

I stayed at Harrah's when I went, and the location was fantastic even if I didn't like the casino all that much. You're never in your hotel room, so consider that when picking your place. We had friends at the time that were staying at the MGM Grand...their pool was phenomenal with a lot of very good looking women all over it, at least when I went in summer '05.

Just came from Vegas last week for a family reunion and we stayed at Circus Circus. (It must have been the only place with RV parking on the strip.) Do not go there if you want any high-roller amenities or if you are allergic to kids. Mind you it was a decent room at a decent price but I swear the place didn't have one hostess under 45 bringing people their drinks.

The Palms is the hottest casino for the younger crowd right now. Hard Rock used to be, and I hear it still has the hottest outdoor pool scene. Palms is off the strip, which is a good thing as well, imo. 3 nights is plenty for most people!

I've been to Vegas five times and I’m only 25. Some quick tips. Check Orbitz for hotel rooms, you can find some great hotels for really cheap (Mandalay, TheHotel,Caesars). Try kayak.com for your plane tickets and maybe hotel (I never tried for the hotel).

I thought the same about Hard Rock (something like planet hollywood which is lame) but Hard Rock on Sunday night is insane. Make sure you go to Body English at Hard Rock on Sunday night. Hard Rock is actually pretty expensive to stay at compared to the Orbitz hotel prices. I'm not sure what happened in the last month but when I went to Vegas, the Palms was the most dead casino in Vegas.

The weather in January is as cold as NYC. I went last month for MLK weekend and it was 20 degrees out. If you go on MLK weekend, the porn convention will be intown. Alot of hot girls but big crowds, tough to get in everywhere which means heavy greasing if you want tables or even want to get in a club (depends on your group's girl to guy ratio).

The best nightclubs in vegas right now are Tryst (Wynn), Tao (Venetian), Pure (Caesars) and Body English.

I wouldn't stay at the Hard Rock either, it's pretty pricey. Just go there to gamble and to check out Body English. I'd stay at MGM or even Paris or Alladin or one of those for cheaper. TAO is great- probably the best club around. Tryst and Pure are also great... In March, the weather can get nice. 50 or 60 degrees during the day. But the pools probably won't be open, they weren't last year when I went in March. So keep that in mind. As for strip clubs- Scores is definitely the best. I hung out with Flava Flav last time I went. Probably a story I'll tell my grandkids.

We Stayed At The Mirage at the center of everything. booked the room, airfare and airport transfers thru a travel agent on America West (which is part of USAirways now i think). $1200 4 days 3 nights...6 years ago. we rented a car for $19 p/d from a rent-a-wreck type agency at another hotel and did Ethel M tour, driving around the city, to the Stratosphere, Hyatt, out to dinner, etc. valet parking in Vegas is free!!! cost us a couple $$$ in tips and your car was cool when they returned it. our biggest expense was our cabana day spent by the pool.

Well there was a lot of information there - I hope you find some of it useful. Again, please don't blame me for any spelling/grammar issues in there. I suppose you can blame me for being to lazy to edit everything.

Posted by James Trotta at February 23, 2007 2:16 PM | TrackBack