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Looking at going to Vegas early April. Celebrating me and wife turning 50. Loads of questions, we have teenage(16) son take him and a mate, or let him party at home? Cheapest way?

send him to camp.

16YO to come along...or to stay at home.....

How is that even a choice? Hell, I'd tie him to a tree and leave him behind like an unwanted puppy after Christmas if that was the only choice..definitely wouldn't take him along.

Although there are fun things for kids to do in Vegas, 16 is such an awkward age where he will feel like he should be allowed to gamble, party, drink etc that he would be a bit of a third wheel and probably not enjoy it. Let him trash the house instead.

There is a LOT to do in Vegas even for a 16 yo. Depends on it he is a good lad or not. If you don't have to worry about him too much bring him along and set him free all day.

redsimon4

Leave him at home.  Use the saving on his (and mates) flights and hotel to bump up your own flight and hotel.  Fly direct, stay in a nice hotel, do some fun things.

When you get home, you can sort out all the damage with your home insurance company.

Was gonna fyp till the last line.
16 is pretty awkward. We took an 18 year old who really enjoyed it but he obv looked a lot older and could pass for 21.
Depending on how streetwise/ sensible/ trustworthy your son is then I would leave the choice down to him.

Vegas doesn't seem a good odea for a 16yr old to me, you would have him with tou at night due to the curfew on unaccompanied minors and this would restrict what you could do

When you're 16, parents going away on holiday is pretty awesome news

I never went pre-21 but at 16 I think you're paying many times the price to do the same things and more in Europe. I mean the casinos are cool and the shows etc but I'm sure he'd understand that he'd enjoy it that much more at 21.

Interesting piece on Vegas here

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-14747046

Ok he stays at home sorted. Looking at prices on Virgin full package roughly around £1200 for 7 days, how much would i get it for if i booked own flights and hotel myself?

That's a loaded question and a half.

Depends where you're flying from, what hotels you would like to stay in, and what dates exact in April as your dates might clash with the Easter weekend...

Loaded question? Early April so not Easter and hopefully Manchester. Just been looking at flights around the £550 mark.

We are off the Vegas in November (rather than April) and got Virgin direct flights from gatwick and 7 nights at The Flamingo all for £499 each.

The secret is to check the virgin atlantic website for when the cheap flights are and then look at expedia, last minute and ebookers for a holiday package with the same flights.

Package charges per person, booking yourself charges per room.  Scott's tip is fine and well worth a look too ofc but:

£1200x2 = £2400 package

£550x2 flights leaves you £1300 (~$2k) to book a room.  You would have to give exact dates to drill into it further, but you can pretty much stay in any 5* you like for that.

Easter Sunday is the 8th April next year (my birthday lol, hence why I asked!) so I'll have a look. Definitely second what Simon said but on that note, I was under the impression that Expedia's packages were plane costs x2 plus room...

They are, its not necessarily cheaper booking the hotel direct from my experience. I sometimes do it that way though, so if I see a better hotel deal closer the time I can change my booking without penalty. If someone just prefers to have all all booked and paid for upfront nothing wrong with doing it via ebookers/expedia.

Virgin's packages are ridic expensive, like most package deals. As others have said, just go on expedia/ebookers. Play around with the dates as a couple of days either way can make a lot of difference

Expedia looks the cheapest, range between £850- £1250 busy trawling through them now.

I'm out there with 3 mates for 40th birthday end of March next year (4 nights, 28th - 1April). We got £560 return with Virgin, but prices were rising when we booked a couple of months ago.

Looking at hotels now, Mirage has got some good prices in an offer at the mo. Double queen rooms for $560 for 4 nights (Thurs-Sun), which I think is pretty good for them. That's booked direct. One of our party is mates with a manager at BA Holidays, and he can't even match that price! Not actually been to Mirage, but assume it's pretty reasonable, by reputation. And it's an excellent location for mid-strip stuff. Seriously considering booking that now.

When I looked at package deals they definitely seemed to be overcharging for the rooms. Separate booking of flights and hotels much cheaper.

The Mirage is pretty decent, bedrooms recently remodelled, bathrooms a bit on the small side, but a very decent 4* and an easy stroll into Venetian.  Worth the $20 trick at checkin and asking for a Tower Deluxe.  (Same room, but bigger bathroom and private lifts.  Unlikely to get offered a Tower suite for a weekend stay, but if the checkin clerk is playing ball and you have made it very clear you are going to "look after them" it is well worth extra grease imo.

Decent casual food options, not so keen on the higher end options there.

I can get $523.60 as the "quoted price"

However, then there is tax of $72.44 and a resort fee of ($22.40*4 tax included)

Drill down into your quote to see what hidden extras there are for comparison, and if your $560 hasn't included all the extras either, you are welcome to have the promo code for $523.

Going back to the issue of the 16yo, if he doesn't look 21 then you're going to have problems as, legally, he's not allowed to loiter in the casino areas and will be asked to move by security whenever they see him.

We encountered problems a few years ago at a family wedding when we were simply waiting for a private dining room to be opened up for the reception.  The obvious minors in the group were asked to move away from the area even when it was explained that the room was booked and we were simply waiting to be let into it.

It'll be more hassle than it's worth to take him along, IMO.

Thanks Simon. Same code - 523.60 got changed into 560 in my head. Knew about resort fee, didn't realise tax was on top, so thanks for pointing that out.

I remember going to Vegas for the first time on a family holiday when I was 15 or so. Did it for 2-3 days as part of a fly-drive. This would be back in 1989. Even then I remembered getting moved along when my Dad stuck a couple of $ in a slot while queueing for a buffet.

Remember Circus Circus back then was pretty fun at that age though. Was quite new at the time. Not been back to it since. Whole floor of arcade games and sideshows and stuff, as I recall.

Urrghh just trawled through Expedia looking at hotel prices and reviews to discover none of them are direct flight prices. Some flights are as long as 20 hrs with connections at Chicago. Bagoshite.

travel agents come up with a deal, New york New york 1st week in April direct flight from Manchester for a £1000 thoughts please.

Just compare it with prices on ebookers and expedia on the same dates mate.

Is that for 2 people or per person? If per person it's not the best deal in the world TBH. Depending on hotel you can get a similar/better deal on expedia etc.

per person been looking on expedia they all appear to be stop off flights for same money. Really mixed reviews of hotel on tripadvisor.

Don't know what days you're flying with this but that's smack bang on Easter weekend.

2 companies fly direct from Manchester: Virgin and Thomas Cook.

Virgin is universally recognised as the better flight for, well, everything. However, for your dates (first week in April-ish) Virgin want £760pp for a flight. Thomas Cook want £600pp. If you were to go down the flight/hotel separate booking I would hold off on booking the hotel as no offers have come out yet.

I'll let you do the research on whether to take the TC flight.

Booking separate can give you more money to play with. For this example, you would theoretically have £800 for the hotel for the week and you could prob get the Venetian for that price.

MrsB and myself are going first week of May (or the 2nd week, can't remember) and only pay approx 2100 total..would think you can get a slightly better deal than 1k each for April mate.

schools are off for easter the week we are looking at.

Ah, well change the date you're going then :)

can't mate some bloody teachers are coming with us.

Brag: Going to Vegas

Variance: Expensive

Beat: Going with teachers

:)

vegas is a big place i'm hoping to lose them