Is Las Vegas still the cheap vacation?

3/25/20085:16:33 PM Link 0 comments | Add comment

It used to be that Vegas was a place that you could go for a cheap vacation. Because the casinos wanted you to spend money on gambling, you could get cheap food, cheap rooms, and cheap shows. For the most part, this is no longer true. Hotels are fancier, the food is fancier, and the shows are bigger.

Is there still a way to do Vegas on the cheap? The short answer is yes, the longer answer is still yes, but you have to look for the deals. For one, go during the week. Your room on Monday to Thursday nights might be a third of what it can be on the weekend. Not to mention, Vegas is not as crowded during the week.

Next, do your homework, read up online at www.vegas.com. There is a wealth of information about restaurants entertainment etc… Make sure you look at the free attractions guides and don't forget that the casinos themselves, the shops, the lobbies themselves are free attractions.

Next, unless you are going at a popular time or you are dying to see a certain show, make no dinner reservations and buy no show tickets. There are places on the strip, at coca-cola world and fashion square mall where you can get half price shows and half price dinners. The best part of the dinners is that you pay like $3 a person for the half price coupon and then the dinner entrees or buffets, etc… are half off. On a recent trip we saved over $20 alone on dinner. Now for show tickets, you can get reduced prices on many shows at these places. The problem is that the discounts are often off of the highest price tickets. Most of us don't really need to sit in the front row for $90 which is a deal compared to the actual front row price. My solution, go to the box office and ask for the cheapest seats. So what if you are sitting in the back. Most of the theaters do not have a bad seat. Not to mention these theaters are not the cramped Broadway spaces those of us from NY are used to. Your seat will be roomy and comfortable in almost any show. Its nice not having to sit on your neighbor's lap.

Finally, walk around and read signs and read menus. Almost every restaurant has a posted menu. Reading them not only provides entertainment you can make a list of places that sound good that are not super expensive. We saw prices for food as high as $385 per person for a tasting menu of food I would not eat on a bet to 7.95 Prime rib diners. There is also a range of everything in between. In general, avoid those fancy celebrity chef restaurants or the ones with signs with diamond awards on them. Over rated and over priced. Most of us do not even know what some of the courses are. I love to eat and even I needed a dictionary to figure out what some of the food choices are. I'll give you a hint, if food involves a dictionary, most of us don't want to eat it. In many cases, there are other restaurants in the same hotels that do not have fancy chefs that offer good food at reasonable prices. We saw cheap Italian at the Venetian, cheap steak at NY NY, and other great specials. If you do want to eat at those famous restaurants, either go for lunch or eat at the café version of the restaurants. Wolfgang puck, Mario Batali, Emeril, and others have small café style restaurants attached to their big fancy expensive restaurants. These places offer the same great service, amazing food that normal people would eat, and reasonable prices.

In closing, Vegas may not be the same cheap getaway you used to hear about, but you can have a great time on a reasonable budget if you do your homework.