Got a great flight deal for our anniversary trip! Now which hotel to choose?!

Sorry for the long post but I'm pumped we were able to book this trip!

BACKGROUND
My wife and I got married out in Red Rock Canyon last year on Labor Day and spent a week at Caesars for our honeymoon. For our first anniversary, we were thinking about going back out to Vegas on the same long weekend to celebrate, but flight and hotel prices thwarted those plans...until yesterday!

FLIGHT DEAL
Long story short, I was able to take advantage of Southwest's new flight sale, plus a Rapid Rewards bonus points sale they already had going (combined with our current points), AND found some credit card reward dollars I had forgotten about. I wound up booking nonstop, roundtrip flights the days and times we wanted for $131 each - normally over $300 each!

We'll be arriving at night on Wednesday August 28th and leaving Tuesday night September 3rd.

HOTEL DEALS
Now that the flights are squared away, we need to decide on a hotel. I've stayed previously at Sahara, TI, Excalibur, IP, Mirage, and Caesars. She's stayed at Mirage and Caesars (both with me on our last two trips).

Since this is a budget-oriented trip and I've always focused my low roller play at MGM properties, I originally thought my one weeknight comp offer at Excalibur was our only realistic option. But when I was shopping for flights yesterday and I logged into Total Rewards, I found out they were offering us four weeknights comped at any of their budget hotels and good rates the non-comped nights! We must have played at Caesars properties more than I thought on the wedding/honeymoon...

FACTORS
- Price (important)
- Pool (important)
- Somewhere neither of us have stayed (preferable)
- Location (less important as long as it's on the Strip)
- I'll also note we'll be booking the lowest level room at any hotel and just shooting for an upgrade when we get there, though it's not a big deal if we don't get one since we're not in the room too much.

HOTEL OPTIONS
- The Quad Deluxe Room: Our best deal dollar-wise at $169.76 for the whole trip (including taxes/fees) but terrible pool and I've stayed there before when it was IP. Not much of an option as far as I'm concerned but definitely cheap.

- Bally's South Tower Classic Room: Our first real option but a big jump to $349 total. Don't know much about Bally's and have only been in the casino a time or two. Long walk to the Strip, don't know anything about the pool. Never really attracted me as I've always enjoyed Vegas for the themed properties, but I like trying new places.

- Harrah's Deluxe Room: Basically the same price as Bally's at $368.71 total. I enjoy their cheap gambling and they have my favorite table game at $5 mins (Texas Hold Em Bonus). Obviously older and nothing special based on what I've seen of the building and casino but I've never seen the pool or rooms. At the same time, cheap is good and this is a "budget" trip.

- Flamingo Fab Deluxe Room: The most expensive hotel that's offering comps at $415.30. Getting pricier than I had hoped but I know the pool is supposed to be good and the rooms are somewhat recently renovated, both motivating factors. Pretty prime location, too, but the feel of the hotel itself is pretty Golden Girls, which always kept me away in the past.

- Paris Luxury Room: A big jump and pretty much out of the range I would consider price-wise at $536.71 since they won't comp any nights for me. Figured I'd list it for comparison, though. We actually had our wedding reception here in a private room at Mon Ami Gabi, so the temptation to spend the extra and make this trip a little more "special" is strong. Really not sure it's worth the extra money it will take away from our spending/playing cash, though.

- Planet Hollywood is even more expensive than Paris, as well, so that's out.

Anyways, I just wanted to share the excitement since I didn't think this trip was gonna happen, but thoughts and input on the hotel options are appreciated!

 

Congrats on the trip & happy anniversary!! Since price is a factor....definately Bally's. It is pretty easy to get an upgraded nice room in the N Tower - especially if you were already offered 4 comped nites. The rooms are big and nice. We really like their pool....good drink service / not a party environment - can actually relax because the music is not overly loud / seldom many kids, if any / their pool is one of few with a deep end and it is easly to get a lounger. Food options are great with Paris being connected and only a very short walk to PH & the MM Shops. Good luck.

 

Any chance of changing your trip to not fall across that 1st weekend in September? Rates are pretty expensive that fri, sat, and Sunday.

 

I think Bally's is your best option, given the price and need for a pool. Granted, Bally's pool is old-school concrete but it is huge and loungers are always available. I pluged your dates into a hotel aggrigator and noticed Golden Nugget came in at $511. You might be able to do better than that by checking direct at the site. Just a thought.

 

Another vote for Bally's.

 

I haven't stayed in most of those, but I'd probably go with Bally's. I think it's in the best location. I haven't heard anything negative about either.

But clearly I'd pick Paris, I love it there, best restaurants, and all the shopping next door at PH.

Any shot you could split up the hotels? Or are your free nights sandwiched?

 

I agree with the above post. Try to split your stay from "free" to paying....You are going for 6 nights and already invested 130 x 2 (260$) so if you spend 150 $ a night (eeeghaddds!!!!) for two nights or so you have spent less than 100 $ per night on airfare and hotel....Also, since you took SWA you might click on their link at the bottom of your confirmation and check out their prices for the nights you are not comped....

Dude, it's your anniversary. Spend some coin and stay within a reasonable budget....don't get home after nickel and diming it wishing you had gone another way......and if you wife says (and means) it is ok to look at the $'s first and not the accommodations / amenities on this annual date, KEEP HER.....haha....have a great trip.....but most of all have a good time for both of you....

 

Even after checking out all the sites, Bally's still isn't enticing me as much as Flamingo. I actually like the location of Flamingo a little better (not that it's a huge difference) because I like to go to Casino Royale for the 9/6 VP, walk around Caesars and Forum Shops, Venetian, etc more than I like heading South from Bally's (unless I'm going all the way to MGM/Excal/NYNY corner). Also, being in our 20's still, we enjoy a bit of the party vibe / day club scene. If all we wanna do is sit in a lounger on a large concrete pool all day, we could do that at our apartment complex here at home (and we do sometimes). That's my fault for not mentioning this previously, though, so I understand your point. For me, part of the excitement of Vegas is being around a lot of people, big crowds, music, and all that young person nonsense that older people hate so much. :evillaugh

As far as downtown goes, we enjoy going downtown for a night on our trip but we're definitely more into the Strip vibe most of the time. We like to spend our afternoons and nights walking up and down the Strip after lounging by the pool, seeing the cliche/tourist stuff, trying out all of the food options, etc. I know this is an exaggeration but I feel like you spend one night downtown and you've seen most of what it has to offer, plus it's just a cheap bus ride away whichever night we feel like going. We're not "gamble 24/7" people so the better pay tables and stuff don't necessarily entice us as much as some people (I'd prefer them, but they're not a deciding factor). Perhaps a few years down the road we'll give downtown a shot for a full trip.

We actually had two reasons for choosing that weekend. One is because it's our anniversary weekend so we'll be able to spend our actual anniversary (Sept 1st) out at Red Rock Canyon where we got married - she really liked that idea. The second is because the holiday weekend gave us an extra day off from work that we'll both get paid for, plus my wife had trouble taking off any more days. If we did another weekend it would cost me an extra vacation day I don't actually have, cost her a non-paid day off, plus the trip would have to be a day shorter on top of that since she couldn't take off any more days. Otherwise I'd be right there with your line of thinking to save some more cash.

Surprisingly when my wife checked out all of the hotels I listed last night, she decided she'd rather go with Flamingo than Paris. Shocker to me but for the price difference I'm good with it.

We thought about splitting up the trip between hotels but the comp nights are weeknights, so we'd actually have to move twice to take full advantage, and even once on a trip that lasts less than a week is a turn off to me. Like I said, we don't spend a ton of time in the room so the only real motivation for switching would be new pools/location to try out or if there was a really significant cost savings. We haven't ruled it out yet but I haven't had time to research all the options we'd have. Nothing I've seen so far seems worth the hassle.

I also checked out the SWA deals from our confirmation but just the weekend nights at any of the hotels would cost us the same amount as the entire trip. So far it's looking like we'll book Flamingo if it's a refundable deposit just to make sure we have a decent rate locked in somewhere we'd want to stay, then keep brainstorming and reading reviews.

Thanks for all the input! Keep it coming!

 

Well, my wife and I talked it over last night, looked at all of the options, and decided that we really want to use this trip to see how "budget" oriented we can make it, almost make a game out of it. Neither of us have ever changed hotels partway through a trip, so we figured why not give it a shot this time since it will save us a lot of money? If we don't like it, we just won't do it next time!

So anyways, we found our best deal was to actually swap hotels twice. We wanted to try out both Flamingo and Excalibur because we got good offers from both, so we're going to start out at Flamingo for Wednesday and Thursday nights, move to Excalibur on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights, then back to Flamingo again on Monday and Tuesday nights.

- All four nights at Flamingo are comped and they even offered us the "FAB Deluxe Luxury with Strip View" instead of the regular FAB Deluxe.

- Friday and Sunday nights at Excalibur are comped (Friday from my wife's MyVegas points and Sunday from my MLife offer, so the only night of the whole trip that's not comped is Saturday night).

We also still have Monday/Tuesday booked at Excalibur for $21 a night just in case we change our minds on switching twice between now and the trip. Assuming we stick with the second swap back to Flamingo, TOTAL cost for all seven nights with all taxes and resort fees included is $234.08. Seems like a pretty good deal to me considering all of the "hidden" costs (ie resort fees and taxes) are figured in.

Any thoughts? Basically, we think we're gonna like Flamingo pool but the free weekend nights at Excalibur were a big savings over just staying at Flamingo the whole time. She's also never stayed at Excalibur, so I figured it would be good to check out on this kind of trip since they tend to send me offers more than anywhere else (until recently when I started getting TR offers).

 

Not to piss on anyones Cheerios, but someone recently told me after a ton of trips to Vegas, the Flamingo was the worst place they had ever stayed. Personally I don't know because I have never stayed there, but maybe someone can back up why I was told that.

 

Honestly, I've heard nightmare stories and reviews from just about every hotel on and off the Strip, so I take everything I hear with a grain of salt (both good and bad). I have been to Vegas a number of times now and will continue to go regularly for the rest of my life (pending some unforeseen circumstance). I'm at the point where I'm just trying out a new hotel every time I go so I can get my own personal experience with each. That's just my take on it. I've had a good experience at every hotel I've stayed at on the Strip from IP all the way up to Octavian Tower at Caesars.

The offers we got this time were solid for super low rollers like us and made the trip possible to begin with, so for the price we're paying I don't expect five star rooms, amenities, or service. I keep things in perspective. Hell, I've stayed at IP before and found it to be perfectly acceptable for the type of trip I was on and the price, and I really can't imagine Flamingo being a downgrade. Guess we'll find out, though!