WTF?! 2014 Trippies are out - Proves to be self gratifing ratings

The 2014 Trippies are out again this year, disappointingly the voting results seem to prove that the survey has become a self gratifying review of a limited based on a very limited sampling of vegas visitors and readers of their site.

The D while very deserving of some of the awards, I had to take a WTF moment for some of the categories like best hotel room in Vegas. I don't see how a sampling of votes from people with a breadth of experience staying in hotels across vegas would vote the The D in this category. Given the close relationship VT has had with the hotel over the past year it gives suspect to the quality of the survey and maybe some bias to Derek Stevens.

Secondly I have to seriously question the editors vote on best shopping and ranking of the Crystals with Forum shops. SERIOUSLY? Don't get me wrong Crystals has some very upscale stores that offer items to only be found in Vegas. However I know of very very very few people who have ever made a purchase at the mall. With shops at Palazzo, venetian canal shops, CP Forum shops, and Miracle Mile shops each with an incredible variety of tenants and price levels to appeal to all consumers, WTF would you rank Crystals better then them.

The only conclusion I can have is the guys over VT are slipping. Really disappointed in this years ranking and only hope this is a blip, and not an indication that this award is going into the crapper with the likes of other BS rankings that the VEGAS property self marketing machines produce for themselves. For those interested in reading you can find the link below.

http://www.vegastripping.com/news/blog/5212/ladies-and-gentlemen-the-trippies-class-of-2014/#comments

 

Maybe only one person voted in the readers category. Everything is about the D. I have yet to eat there, but Heart Attack Grill as worst restaurant? I actually have heard great things about the burgers there, kitschy yes, but the food is good from what I have heard.

Critics lists often suck. Take movies for example. If a critic hates a movie, I am guaranteed to love it. If they love a movie, I am guaranteed to fall asleep within 5 minutes.

 

Seems like every year the Trippies are nothing more than the opinion of that site's insiders and fans of Five Hundy by Midnight. The results lose credibility. And I am a fan of both Vegas Tripping and Five Hundy. But there is clearly a downtown bias and a bias toward anything or anyone associated with those two organizations.

 

Don't blame me, I voted for VMB

 

i think the editors choice part is still pretty good but the user voting has degenerated in the last couple years into shill city..

 

I thought it was just me thinking that it seemed pretty biased this year, more than years past. I think you guys are right, its become an insider thing of one clique versus a honest assessment on all things Vegas. Kind of sad...but maybe that leaves an opening in the market for a new player to come in and start over and be fair.

 

I guess it's not that easy. the editors picks are nowhere near as crazy as the user voting. I guess any type of polling like this is only as good as the people voting.

 

Eh, its just a poll, and polls always skew to the opinion of the people that fill them out... for this year the only ones really doing strong promotion of The Trippies was Five Hundy by Midnight and their Facebook group, so it only makes sense that the results skew in favor of what they like and promote.

Kind of like how last year somebody asked: why doesn't VMB ever get consideration for Best Community? Checking the last few months you can see that nobody mentioned The Trippies were open for nominations or when voting started so even though this is a pretty good board with lots of active members its not going to win unless somebody campaigns for it.

Or years ago when Las Vegas Advisor used to promote The Trippies and campaign for it, with the thousands of active members they had back then they were sweeping everything and all the reader results were skewed towards "Steve Wynn is god" and "Imperial Palace sucks"

As it is now, I think not that many people really care about The Trippies that much and their nomination and voting windows are pretty small so its easy to have one group heavily influence the results.

 

The voting system didn't have a "None of the Above" option and only allowed you to leave a couple of categories un-voted for, so you sometimes had to submit a vote on a category that you didn't have an firm opinion of (eg. I have no view on pools, spas or poker rooms as I have not used those services).

Also, The D hosted the 2013 VIMFP event so I expect a good number of VT contributors had a positive experience of the hotel this year rather than just voting for it because the show hosts are friendly with Derek Stevens.

 

Even if you dont shop there for my money Crystal is by far the best looking , most awesome mall in Vegas i love going there ( yes i do buy stuff)

 

Yeah that's sort of the point of them.

Agreed though that those results are just laughable. The D won pretty much every category and the first comment there is basically a guy professing his love for the managers there by name. The results are clearly a concerted effort by one group.

Its a crappy poll too because it doesn't even give the results of the total number of votes or anything like that. It makes a big difference in how easily the results are manipulated if you have a few hundred or a few thousand or tens of thousands.

I had no big desire to see the D before this poll and after seeing it I have even less desire. Any casino whose fans need to bomb a poll on some obscure site is probably pretty lame.

 

No doubt. And the Five Hundy crowd are big proponents of downtown, so that helps explain the downtown skewing of votes

 

Yeah I was just looking them over and it was heavily slanted towards downtown. The D was overwhelmingly mentioned and the continuous write up by the editors on Andiamo was very gracious.

Has anyone here eaten there and can confirm the massive amount of love shown?

 

Though I've yet to dine at Andiamo, I've heard very positive reviews from A LOT of people, some here on the board and others who are locals.

 

This is why hipsters (and ballot box stuffers) can't have nice things. Also, see Chicago, home of hipsters and ballot box stuffers.

Best Reader Choices
Biggest Pet Peeve - Street Hustlers Move bitch, get out the way....
Worst Off Strip Casino - Rio Symbolizes the Loveman/CET era and how low a property can go with a rotting head at the top.
Worst Steakhouse - Outback. "C'mon why are you going to a chain steakhouse when in Vegas!" Indeed.
Worst Cocktail - Anything in a Guitar Shaped Cup Don't be a Stu.
Most Improved - The D Have to agree, many great changes at The D. However.....

Worst Reader Choices
Best Rooms - The D. Rooms which go for $25 most weeknights are not within the Top 25 in Vegas.
Service - The D. Four Seasons, Mandarin Oriental, Wynn. Move over.
Best Dining - The D. Um, no.
Video Poker - The D. Four 1 line coin-in 10/7 quarter DB machines doesn't get The D into the top 30 in Vegas Video Poker.
Best Blackjack - The D. There are several better casinos downtown and dozens more on the Strip and throughout the Vegas Valley.

Best Editor Selections
Best News of the Year Resorts World. It's about time for a comeback on the North Strip.
Worst Future Project: Bally's Grand Bazaar. From the folks who ruined the Rio.....
Worst Blackjack - The Cosmopolitan "6:5 DD, 8 Deck CSM. C'mon."
Best Dining - MGM Grand Plenty of great options (beyond the buffet) at any price level.
Worst Room - The Quad Hello, exactly!
Worst Strip Hotel - The Flamingo Sewage, 3 hour check in lines, dirty rooms, blinding pink neon light, no more poker room free-rolls, no more reason to enter The Flamingo.

Worst Editor Selections
Worst Video Poker - Any MGM Casino Really? MGM casinos offer the following at $1 or less: Ace's & Eights (Circus Circus 100.24% $0.50); 9/6 Bonus Deluxe (Circus Circus 99.64% $0.25), with playable 9/6 JOB at $1/$2 at several properties. You know which company has far worse offerings - Caesars Entertainment.
Worst Value - The Cosmopolitan Cough Caesars Palace Cough
Best Downtown - Golden Gate Sorry, but your rooms are still tiny, your shrimp cocktails are hidden in (the closed down by food inspectors) DuPars. Golden Nugget is the best overall offering. I'd pick The D over Golden Gate.

 

I like the d as much as the next guy but lets be real here. best hotel, best rooms and best dining? Thats a bit of a stretch.

 

UH, What the hell is a trippie ?

 

Apparently, irrelevant.

You basically just poked someone that's saying the same thing. Notice the "eh?"

 

that's it in a nutshell.

 

The D votes are quite ridiculous.

However, I spoke to Stevens last winter about bikini-wearing ladies dancing in the freezing cold and...this december they were "sexy" without being bare out there. I smiled.