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TR: 12/13-12/19 Bellagio, MB, THEhotel, Venetian

Discussion in 'Vegas Trip Reports' started by ez369, Dec 24, 2008.

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  1. ez369

    ez369 High-Roller

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    My Trip Report

    It's been a few days since I got back so I've recovered and am ready to do a short lil write up This was to have been a 4 night trip but turned into 6 nights b/c of the "snowstorm" that closed LAS on the 17th!

    Getting there: Took a late morning flight out and never realized how boring early travelers were compared to nite flights. I've always taken night flights out to Vegas with livelier passengers. Anyways, didn't bother me much as I was drinking in the president's club getting things started the right way! Our flight was on time and we had one awesome driver from Presidential Limo. He was one cool cat! No problems at all with taking pictures of our group, letting us take our time at the liquor store, and even drove up the strip to get to the Bellagio instead of just cutting over off of Flamingo like he could. We tipped him well for anticipating our needs and keeping us happy!

    Bellagio: Had our first 2 nights booked in a basic deluxe room at the Bellagio. I was able to swing an upgrade into a tower deluxe king! one of my friends got no upgrade and the other got upgraded into a high floor lakeview room. I definetly enjoyed the two sets of windows in our room as well as the upgraded bath area with the whirlpool tub and a window next to it facing the Augustus Tower at Caesar's. The dual sinks were nice as well as having a separate room for the toilet. It was nice to see an IHOME IPOD dock in the room since the regular rooms still have the old cd player. Everything worked fine in the room and was in good order. It's a shame because the entire time we were there we didnt even see the fountain show! I barely even remembering walking through the winter conservatory at night since we were always so drunk. I will say that I was dissapointed overall with the Bellagio. Definetly did not live up to my expectations and probably felt more like a 4 star property and not a 5 star property. There was nothing wrong with our room and we received nightly turndown service. But the service there just didnt seem as personalized as at Venetian for example. On top of it, the place was always dirty! Everytime I got into the elevator there would be something there (empty drink glass, beer bottle, cigarette butt, paper, etc). This is something that simply should not exist on a 5 star property. Our room was always cleaned though but I started to wonder how "clean" it was when one night I noticed a thick layer of dust on the nightstand next to our bed. I guess it also didn't help that the end of our hallway smelled like I was in Amsterdam or in a Harold and Kumar movie cuz it reeked of pot! Not that I have a problem with the odor, but heck, i'm staying on a nonsmoking floor at the Bellagio, not a smoking floor at Bally's. One of our friend's nonsmoking rooms smelled like smoke and he had a problem with windnoise coming up from the sliding vent by the window that was appearently broken and maintenance came up and put some duct tape to resolve it.. classy! lol I did like how the elevators were always quick, we were in elevator banks for floors 12-20. I don't remember doing any gaming at the B and I went to one of my favorite restaurants Fix. Service was fantastic and I let them know we were on a time crunch to get to our table reservation at LAX and they had no problem working within our time constraints. One of our friends went to breakfast at the buffet at the B and wasn't really impressed. I've always thought their buffet to be somewhat overrated so I made no attempt to meet up with them. I'm glad I did finally stay at the Bellagio though because other than location, there'd be no reason for me to want to stay there. Nothing about the service or property "wowed" me or any of my friends, we'd stay at Venetian over B in a heartbeat.

    Mandalay Bay: For nights 3 and 4 we moved over to Mandalay Bay. It was great lemme tell ya, felt like home! I really like the large openess of MB and the lack of congestion from international visitors everywhere walking in every direction as was evidenced at the Bellagio. Anyhow, I had a Vista Suite reserved and there was some difficulty in coming up with a room at around 1pm so they upgraded me into a Media Suite! My other friend also had a Vista Suite res and they had trouble coming up with his and I had mentioned something about an islander suite.. and surprise, he gets upgraded into a penthouse islander suite! My other friend just had a plain 550 res and they gave him a free up to a stripview room. The media suite was really fun with the 65" plasma in the media room and comfortable chairs. Great place to chill! Oversized tub and a nice dual headed steamshower. We ordered room service one night and it was great! Nice thing about Media suites are they are very close to the elevators. Speaking of elevators, they were working fast for once since thats the one thing I do bitch about at MB. It was evident not many people were staying so that kept the elevators moving quick. Our friends Islander suite was awesome. It was on the 62nd floor fairly close to the elevators and the view was to excellent. His room was under the Foundation Room so you can get an idea of what kind of view it was. High ceilings, comfortable couches and a really nice master. Had a chandelier over the bed as well as a separate sitting area facing the windows and an elliptical machine. The bath area was kickass! 8 person whirlpool tub with different colored rings that glow around the jets when on as well as a double headed steamshower.

    We dined at Bayside buffet twice for lunch and was not dissapointed at all. We went to Mamma Mia and everyone enjoyed the show. Spent a lot of time on the slots there and drink service was good. Now it was Wednesday, the day the snow came in and we got snowed in! Got stuck on the plane at the gate for a few hours before they closed down the airport. With the number of flights SWA flies out of LAS it was a mess getting our baggage, we had to wait about 4 hours to get our luggage due to the closure. I've gotten so used to the newer D gates that I will do my best to stick with Continental and not fly SWA in or out of LAS in the future.. anyhow half my party made it out of LAS and half were stuck due to the weather so we called and booked rooms at out favorite place, THEhotel.

    THEhotel: We had made a one night res for a regular suite at THEhotel.. we had an awesome front desk employee and started talking about some of the larger suites.. and he offers me an upgrade into a penthouse T suite for $100 extra! Score! 62nd floor.. our room was right under the lounge area of where Mix is so we had a great stripview. The T suite was really nice and was around 2k sqft. The only larger suites there are their 2 presidential suites. Had a walk-in office area and had electric drapes. Had about 5 wall mounted touchpads throughout the suite that controlled the a/v system for different zones. Had a dining table, LIVE plants, etc,etc. Probably my favorite master bedroom is here with the separate sitting area and it's own plasma, and then a separate plasma for the bed. Then the shutters that open into the jacuzzi tub, a regular sized steamshower, and a bidet along with the toilet. I was really surprised to find that there was no tv in the bathroom area. Not that it matters, but when the regular rooms have it, it's a little odd that the penthouse bathroom doesn't. The bath products are the same upgraded bath products in the larger suites used at Mandalay Bay. Although they were nice, i was bummed not to have the oatmeal soap! Ordered room service and it was great once again! We didnt want to use the dining table so the waiter set everything up for us on the coffee table in the living room and we were comfortable. I tried to arrange for a flight out in the morning but no go, so i was stuck one more night! I decided to move northstrip for the final nite

    Venetian: For our last nite we booked a regular luxury suite at The Venetian. I made use of the AMEX booking code and got a stripview room on the 33rd floor with $50 in room credit and late 4pm checkout. I really liked the 33rd floor rooms because of the arched window treatment. Everything worked fine in the room and we had turndown service. Ate at my favorite lil pizza place on the casino floor food court. We also ate at Dos Camino's in Palazzo (great guacamole, chips, and green salsa!), and at Table 10 in Palazzo.

    Nightclubs For clubs we did table service at LAX and Bank. LAX is one of my new favorite spots now, we had a table right on the dance floor directly across from the dj booth/stage. I never thought I would like LAX but the bouncers around our table were great and we never had a problem getting on and off the dancefloor and unwanted clubbers in our area. LAX definetly wouldnt have been as much fun though if we did not have a table and I wasn't with my group of friends. I wanted to see what all the hype was about and hit up Bank on sun nite. The doorguys there suck and don't seem to know what's going on. Our table overlooked the dance floor and was in a good location. They pack that place in like sardines though, even behind the roped off "vip/table areas" its packed in and people spill over everywhere. Service at Bank paled in comparison to LAX. We had a really good host at Bank though and the only reason I'd ever go back to Bank is b/c of the relationship we've built with our VIP host there. I really miss it being Light though. We also did quick stops at the Palms and rolled through Ghostbar, Moon, and Playboy club. Went to Foundation Room at MB on monday night b/c I've always wanted to go. It's small and cozy but pretty boring. The place was packed but it felt like a boring gentleman's cocktail party and they were letting all kinds of people in, at that point I knew it was time to hightail out of there. They have a really good view though of the strip! We went over to the Eyecandy lounge and chilled. Then moved onto Cathouse at Luxor. Place was packed with locals. It's a nice spot, only downside was the floors were really sticky from people spilling drinks throughout the night. Went to Pure on tues night with DJ AM spinning that nite and the place was packed. We originally were going to get a table there but ended up swapping and getting the table at LAX on sat nite instead. Main floor was packed so spent a lil time upstairs on the terrace and down in the red room.

    Misc: Took a 20 min drive out to Red Rock Casino and I really liked the casino there, would definetly want to come back for a visit. Spent quite a bit of time at Wynn on the slots while on the trip. The south strip properties seemed like a ghost town compared to north strip properties. The exception was TI seemed pretty slow. Mirage had a fair amount of activity and as usual: Bellagio, Venetian, Palazzo, and Wynn were all busy considering time of year and day of week we were there. Went to Freemont one night and had a good time making the rounds through Golden Nugget, 4 Queens, etc.. Since we were there later in the evening we saw a special at Tony Roma's for steak and lobster for $12 and decided to get that. While the lobster and the side was fine, the steak just outright sucked. It was some thin, dried up overcooked flank with nonexistant flavor. If you see that special definetly skip it! Way too many cabs in Vegas these days. On a tues nite, our cabbie had been staged for about 2 hours before he drove us from MB to Caesar's. One night as we were leaving Luxor we were just tired as hell and didnt even want to walk or take the tram to MB so we get a cab.. and the cab was pissed when we told him we wanted to go to MB! He made a big deal about it and i told him if he wanted us to leave his cab and he said yes.. So god knows how much longer he waited for a drop. Someone in area was wondering what had happened and turns out he had his own service and it was a Hummer and he was more then happy to take us. He didn't "charge" us, we merely tipped him $20 and he was plenty happy. Heck, he even drove us around the block a few times on the strip before dropping us off at MB. We got his card since he also does airport transfers. 7 days in vegas, I've never been there that long on one trip, but we had a blast. Time to start planning the next trip! :)
     
  2. ez369

    ez369 High-Roller

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    some pictures:

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    View from our bathtub at Bellagio

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    Mandalay Penthouse living room

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    Mandalay Penthouse jacuzzi/spa in bathroom

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    part of living area in Media Suite

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    media room

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    THEhotel T Suite

    [​IMG]
    master sitting room facing jacuzzi tub.
     
  3. DBear

    DBear VIP Bear

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    Awesome pics...sounds like you live large!
     
  4. DonD

    DonD VIP Whale

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    Nice :nworthy:
     
  5. Betty Boop

    Betty Boop Tourist

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    great trip report and pics! thanks for sharing!:peace:
     
  6. Bottom9th

    Bottom9th Tourist

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    Thanks for the TR and pics!
     
  7. gmoney590

    gmoney590 VIP Whale

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    Great report and pics. Sorry to hear that the B and sunk down to the level of the IP. When you got upgraded to a Media Suite was that because they couldn't find your original reservations or that all the Vista Suites were occupied?
     
  8. Souette

    Souette Tourist

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    Upgrades!

    Man! That was some kinda upgrade!! Don't you just love living "over the top" when visiting Vegas.
    Glad the majority of the trip was excellent.
     
  9. ez369

    ez369 High-Roller

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    lol.. both my friend and I had vista suite reservations and they had our reservation. The problem MB ran into was they had several floors closed off, and I think some of the floors closed affected their vista suite availability. They did have one available but it'd be a few hours for it to be ready (it was around 1:30-2pm when checking in) and I think the front desk guy wanted to get us accomodated asap instead of paging us when our room was ready, hence the upgrades.

    Yeah, thats one thing I like to splurge on when in Vegas is the accomodations. :)
     
  10. gotavegasjones

    gotavegasjones VIP Whale

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    Thanks for posting.
     
  11. blackjacknut

    blackjacknut VIP Whale

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    Nice TR...thanks for posting.

    :beer:
     
  12. milkshake

    milkshake Low-Roller

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    Thanks for posting the TR.
     
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