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"Camp Bellagio"

Discussion in 'Vegas Trip Reports' started by NurseLisa, Apr 15, 2004.

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  1. NurseLisa

    NurseLisa High-Roller

    Joined:
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    Location:
    Portland, OR
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    My Trip Report

    Well our wonderful first aniversary trip certainly turned out different than we expected. I will be very memorable, but not because of the Amazing place we stayed, but because we had NO Electricity and were finnally evacuated and transfered to a less than ideal room at the Luxor.
    Friday
    We arrived on Friday morning at 11:00. We caught a shuttle to the Bellagio which was included with our vacation package. I quickly remembered why I hate those shuttles. We stood at the curb for more than 30 min before one finnally showed up. Luckily we were at the beginning of the line and we got dropped off first. We arrived at the Bellagio just before Noon. We went to the desk to see if we could check in and found that they had a room available right then. The woman at the front desk was very kind, and even gave us a gift certificate for free bottles of His and Hers Bellagio perfume for a gift since it was our Aniversary. We were up to our room by 12:15. It was BEAUTIFUL!!! with an excellent view of the Fountains.
    [​IMG]
    The new decor is really nice! We were starved, so we went down to Olives for lunch right after dropping off our bags. We had a great lunch (at the cost of about $50) then headed back to the room.
    We got our clothes changed and headed out to the Dessert Passage shops, looking for a shirt and Tie for my husband (we didn't have time to shop prior to leaving). Had some starbucks there and then returned to our room to change shoes...then walk down to Mandalay Bay for dinner. We ate dinner at Rum Jungle...it was quite good and pretty empty at 5:45. After dinner we caught a cab down to Freemont street where we thought we'd play our first craps. We did pretty well at the Golden Nugget when we first got there, but ended up leaving later down $40. Then back to the Bellgio after nearly getting killed by a crazy Albanian cab driver who was going 95 on the freeway and 50 down the Bellgio driveway while cursing like crazy at all the cars that were stopped out front watching the fountain show.
    Saturday
    We had a great nights sleep in the amazingly comfortable room then went down for a nice light breakfast at the gelato shop. We wanted to eat an early lunch because we had dinner reservations at Nob Hill prior to going to see Zumanity.

    We had lunch at Margaritaville then spent the afternoon at the pool. What A nice pool!!!

    Dinner at Nob Hill was very good. We had the 6 course tasting menu which was WAY too much for me. I tried to talk my husband into just the 4 course, but he wanted the lobster pot pie. So we did all 6 and boy was I hurting in the end...we also had the paired wines and that was a very good thing as well. AFter dinner we had about an hour before they started seating for Zumanity so we went over to the Tropicana and purchased tickets for the Monday night Comedy Stop show with our two for one coupons. Zumanity was a good show. THough I doubt EVERYONE would like it. If you aren't liberal it's probably not for you. [​IMG] It's pretty Risque!

    After the show we headed back to the Bellagio, played a few slots, and headed to bed early (about 1:30) because we were going to the Grand Canyon in the Morning ( I didn't know where we were going, my husband planned the trip as a surpise, I just knew we had to get up early). We called for room service to deliver at 7:30 and headed to bed.

    Sunday
    At 6:30 I woke up because I heard someone calling "Room Service" out in the hall. I jumped up wondering why the alarm didn't go off and noticed the alarm wasn't lit up...looked at my watch and realized it was 6:30AM I went out in the hall and heard the woman explaining to the people accross the hall that the kitchen was totally dark and that they woudln't be getting the hot food they ordered. I asked her about our order and she said she'd be happy to bring us some coffee and danishes, but there was no electricity so there was no hot food. We ate our danishes (thankful that we were going to get soemthing)got dressed and wandered downstairs to catch our tour bus.
    There were people lined up in the lobby checking out and people with clippboards trying to help them since the computers were down. The conservatory was nearly empty with everyone in such a tizzy and the cafe back there closed, so we got some nice photos of the easter display and headed out to catch our tour bus
    [​IMG]
    ...we caught a plane from the Lower Las Vegas Airport to the Grand Canyon National Park Airport and over Hoover Dam. Then got on a bus that sotpped at a place for lunch and then two places for an hour each at the Grand Canyon, then flew back to Vegas.
    We got back to the Bellgio to find HUGE lines of people with suit cases in the lobby checking out (or being moved to other MGM properties). We found a woman in black with a clipboard named Petra and asked to be updated on what was going on. She told us and I QUOTE "There was an accident on the highway last night about 2:20 AM. A Diesel truck crashed into the substation causing a power outage along our side of the strip. Other hotels' power came back on, but the Bellagio's transformer exploded and melted all the wires. The have opened up some eletrical plant in LA on Easter This morning(easter sunday) and have put a new transformer a truck and it's headed for Vegas. IT's about 6 hours to get it here and then anywhere from 5-12 hours to install it. So worst case scenario we'll be without power for 18 more hours. We can relocate you to MGM Grand or you can stay here with us and play "Camp Bellagio"." We had two more nights to go and really didn't want to spend them packing up and moving to MGM only to find out in the morning the power was back on at the Bellagio. So even though we really wanted a warm shower, we chose to take the flashlight she offered us and head upstairs. All over the casino there were waitresses with tubs full of cold bottled water and beer. [​IMG] We grabbed a couple of beers on the way to our room. Here's the darkened Casino
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG] We changed into clean clothes and went over to Mon Ami Gabi for dinner out on the patio, hoping that we'd see the lights come on while we were dining. NO SUCH LUCK.. THe waiter there was so kind. He thought it was HORRIBLE That our vacation had been ruined and even offered for us to stay at his house. We went to the Paris shops and purchased some Candles, then played Craps. We were up $250 when we left the Paris and headed back to "Camp Bellagio". Mentally exhaused we headed back to the room and were just going to sleep until we woke up and hopefully then we could take a nice hot shower....
    Monday
    Monday was our first Wedding Aniversary, we woke up once again to no lights. We discussed, no I'd say argued about, weather or not we should stay another day without electricity or move to another property. I decided to get dressed an go down to see what was up, and see if I could find coffee anywhere. They were serving a buffet breakfast in the convention cetner, so I took some coffee and fruit and eggs up to the room after talking to a hotel person who told me we'd have to leave the hotel. They were going to be moving us to the Luxor. THey said that it was all that was left after they had filled up all the MGM properties yesterday. I went upstairs and told my husband that they had settle our arguement for us, we were leaving. We packed up and were to the luxor by 11:00 where we checked into the only room they had available which was on the first floor in the East Tower. It had a lovely view of the service entrance. This room was nowhere comparable to the accomidations at the Bellagio and I wanted to cry when we walked in to it. I was just greatful to be able to take a hot shower, which was the first thing I did. In the shower I found half used shampoo bottles, which was a little disconcerning, but I tried to get over it and just wanted to get out of the room as soon as possible. We went over to Mandalay Bay had lunch and then just sort of wandered around aimlessly. It was strange, we felt so displaced we didn't know what to do....We were both like...what do you want to do? I don't know what do you want to do? We had nothing planned for this day, [​IMG] thinking we'd be enjoying the Bellagio pool and the nice room, it was our anniversary after all. But we didn't like the Luxor Pool, too crowded, too much cement, and too many kids. And we didn't want to spend time in our icky room so we just wandered the casinos and played a little craps, finnally lost the money we'd won the other night at the Paris and decided to call it quits and go to dinner.
    We had originally planned to go to Jasmine at the Bellagio for our Anniversry dinner, but since they were closed the Conceierge who put us a the Luxor and gotten us a reservation At Areole at the Mandaly Bay. We had a wonderful dinner there and that was not a dissappointment. THey food was great and the service was amazing. After dinner we played a little more Craps at the Luxor then went to the Comedy stop at the Tropicanna. IT was funny, but a very smokey place.
    We then headed back to the room to pack so we could be at the airport by 10:30 the next morning.
    When we went to get into bed at about 1:00AM we pulled back the covers to find pubic hairs on the sheets. [​IMG] Frustrated as H*ll, we slept on top of the covers and called it a night.
    Tuesday
    We got up and ate breakfast at the Luxor Buffet, it was nothing to write home about, the orange juice was watery and disappointing after the Bellagio's fresh squeezed. We checked out early and told a mangaer about the uncleanliness of our room. THere was really nothing that she could do about it since the Bellagio was paying for the room, so she comped the drinks we had the night before and the breakfast we just had at the buffet.

    Now I am waiting to hear what the Bellagio plans to do for us...Petra had told us they would comp us for two nights stay in the future because we booked through a travel agent rather than directly through the hotel. I am telling them they either give me the price of the three nights I paid for but didn't get, or they bring me back for a new vactation. I plan to call them tomorrow. When I called before we left I was told to call a day or two after they got power back so their computers would be up and working.
    AMAZING HUH?

    I'll add some photos later

    [ April 15, 2004, 08:42 PM: Message edited by: NurseLisa ]
     
  2. tvon

    tvon VIP Whale

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    wow that really sucks! you'll have to give us an update what they do, they owe you big time!

    anyone else find it funny that even the vegas newspapers aren't very clear on what happened, and the hotel told people it was due to a truck accident? And also this hasn't been on national news (not to my knowledge).. strange. Maybe they are trying to downplay peoples terrorist fears, since the RJ article said sabatoge hasn't been ruled out.
     
  3. NurseLisa

    NurseLisa High-Roller

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    I'm almost positive the Bellagio made up the story about the truck accident to keep the hotel guests from freaking out. No one would have been happy with a "unknown cause" while they were still packing their stuff on the 22nd or 28th floor!
    And then to find out the idiots who developed their backup power system put it in the same conduit as the main system is cream on the cake. What the heck did they think the back up system was for. Why even have a backup power system if you can run it while you are repairing the main system????
     
  4. stuffic

    stuffic Low-Roller

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    From what you described, Bellagio seemed to be as accomodating as they could under the circumstances at the time. And it will take awhile for them to re-coop, I'm sure. But you're saying you still have to pay for those days? There is no way they should charge you for those nights in the dark and when you weren't there. They'd have a major boycott on their hands (not to mention possible lawsuits) which is bad business. You definetly deserve better compensation.

    Uh-oh....this was my favorite hotel... [​IMG]

    By the way, it did make nationwide news. I first heard about the blackout on Sunday night's news and I'm in the Midwest.
     
  5. milehiman

    milehiman VIP Whale

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    Wow

    I'm sorry it happened to you, but was wondering if anybody from the board would be there during the blackout. Coming back with first hand knowledge and writing about it gives us insight on what it was like during that time. It sounds like you made the best of a bad situation.

    It's too bad that your stay at the Luxor was so bad. Honestly it's one of my favorite places to stay in Vegas.

    I'm glad you enjoyed your meal at Nob Hill though. It is a lot of food. Did you have the special Port with dessert?

    Let us know what the Bellagio is going to do to make this up to you.
     
  6. bigdogmom

    bigdogmom VIP Whale

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    Yikes!

    What a story! I'll also be interested in hearing how this ends. Do keep us posted! :eek:
     
  7. wam

    wam Low-Roller

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    so sorry to hear about the disappointment. the reason for the outage makes no sense. push the bellagio management for a full credit for this trip and two free nights on your next visit. from a public relations perspective they should go out of their way to make amends for this problem. keep pushing them, nurselisa and happy anniversary.
     
  8. jenaphir

    jenaphir Well-Known Member

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    i printed your trip report and mailed it to my mother (she doesnt understand the internet, no matter how much i try to explain it to her). she is dying to read it.

    ive been waiting patiently to read a trip report from someone who was there during the blackout. its like the last thing you would expect to happen on a trip to vegas.

    im sorry they couldnt refund your money, but i do give them credit for offering you future rooms. it seems to me that they could have just told you that you need to get a refund from the travel agency and then do nothing for you themselves.

    your picture of your view of the fountains is so beautiful.
     
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