Vegas & The Aftermath - Diary

[tikay]

I always recommend the Gold Coast as the best place if you want to spend less than £100 a night. You can easily walk to the Amazon Room, (probably quicker than to walk to a room in The Rio), the rooms are clean and large, just not super-modern.

 The downsides are the pool is tiny. That probably doesn't bother you and it actually means that nobody goes there so you can be one of three people around it.

 The gymn is less well stocked than most places (maybe not a factor).

 The walls are quite thin and there are lots of families with kids about. This is the main thing. People are often running around the hallways screaming and laughing, their kids can be noisy too. I think you wake up at 5am so it probably wouldn't be an issue for you.

 I stayed there the whole summer the year Joe Hachem won, (first year at The Rio). Andy Black made the final. Myself, Andy and Berry Johnson were there throughout and we often would share the slow old lift down for the noon start.

 There was an accordion convention staying there. The whole place was full for a week with people practising on their instrument.

Thanks Neil.

Tiny pool? Not bothered.

Gym? Not bothered.

Kids running around everywhere? Not bothered.

I just use the Room to sleep & shower, nothing else.

I go to Vegas to play poker & report on poker, thats it, so I'm out of the room 18 hours a day, & I do all my eating on the run, I never have meals, just proper American burgers, pizzas, giant sticky buns & lattes & all that stuff. Love it.

[Tal]

Talking yourself into it, tikay

[Marky147]

I found Palms Place for around £300 over the last week in June and first week in July Tikay. I'm  on iPad atm, but will hunt it all out again when I'm at my PC shortly.

Not only cheaper than both of those, but a really nice place and a nice bimble from the WSOP Neil said.

[tikay]

I found Palms Place for around £300 over the last week in June and first week in July Tikay. I'm  on iPad atm, but will hunt it all out again when I'm at my PC shortly.

Not only cheaper than both of those, but a really nice place and a nice bimble from the WSOP Neil said.

Thanks Marky.

To be honest, Neil worried me when he wrote it was


a brisk 20 minute walk from the Rio

He's having a laugh. WALK? Me? In Vegas? For 20 minutes?

I'm even worried about the walk from The Gold Coast to The Rio.

[Doobs]

I found Palms Place for around £300 over the last week in June and first week in July Tikay. I'm  on iPad atm, but will hunt it all out again when I'm at my PC shortly.

Not only cheaper than both of those, but a really nice place and a nice bimble from the WSOP Neil said.

Thanks Marky.

To be honest, Neil worried me when he wrote it was


a brisk 20 minute walk from the Rio

He's having a laugh. WALK? Me? In Vegas? For 20 minutes?

I'm even worried about the walk from The Gold Coast to The Rio.

To be fair that put me off.  I walk around for 20minutes in Vegas in June and I feel absolutely terrible. 

I walked back to the Wynn from Caesars last year at like 2am in the morning.  I still felt like I'd been running in a sauna when I got back. 

Sure I could handle the heat a lot better when I was younger, think it is entirely down to lack of fitness.

[Tal]

I love going out for a walk there, even in June. Granted, I take about twice as many clothes as a normal person and have day and evening wear, but as long as you can find strategic places along the way that will sell your own height in beverage (I used to rely on Burger King in O'Shea's), it's doable.

[Marky147]

I found Palms Place for around £300 over the last week in June and first week in July Tikay. I'm  on iPad atm, but will hunt it all out again when I'm at my PC shortly.

Not only cheaper than both of those, but a really nice place and a nice bimble from the WSOP Neil said.

Thanks Marky.

To be honest, Neil worried me when he wrote it was


a brisk 20 minute walk from the Rio

He's having a laugh. WALK? Me? In Vegas? For 20 minutes?

I'm even worried about the walk from The Gold Coast to The Rio.

To be fair that put me off.  I walk around for 20minutes in Vegas in June and I feel absolutely terrible.  

I walked back to the Wynn from Caesars last year at like 2am in the morning.  I still felt like I'd been running in a sauna when I got back.  

Sure I could handle the heat a lot better when I was younger, think it is entirely down to lack of fitness.

Palms Place is across the road from The Rio, so it's literally another 5 minutes walk, you can get from Palms Place - Palms wihout going outside and we all know that it's no short bimble from entrance to WSOP area once inside. For £300 you're saving a fair bit and could just spend an extra $15 a day in cabs*

*What I would do before it was a requirement

I would be taking Palms Place over Gold Coast at the same price without a thought, even if it meant being 5 minutes further from The Rio. You also have no ding ding everytime you go downstairs and it's almost like being detached from Vegas.

[tikay]

I found Palms Place for around £300 over the last week in June and first week in July Tikay. I'm  on iPad atm, but will hunt it all out again when I'm at my PC shortly.

Not only cheaper than both of those, but a really nice place and a nice bimble from the WSOP Neil said.

Thanks Marky.

To be honest, Neil worried me when he wrote it was


a brisk 20 minute walk from the Rio

He's having a laugh. WALK? Me? In Vegas? For 20 minutes?

I'm even worried about the walk from The Gold Coast to The Rio.

To be fair that put me off.  I walk around for 20minutes in Vegas in June and I feel absolutely terrible.  

I walked back to the Wynn from Caesars last year at like 2am in the morning.  I still felt like I'd been running in a sauna when I got back.  

Sure I could handle the heat a lot better when I was younger, think it is entirely down to lack of fitness.

Palms Place is across the road from The Rio, so it's literally another 5 minutes walk, you can get from Palms Place - Palms wihout going outside and we all know that it's no short bimble from entrance to WSOP area once inside. For £300 you're saving a fair bit and could just spend an extra $15 a day in cabs*

*What I would do before it was a requirement

I would be taking Palms Place over Gold Coast at the same price without a thought, even if it meant being 5 minutes further from The Rio. You also have no ding ding everytime you go downstairs and it's almost like being detached from Vegas.

Oh jeez, that ding ding ding of fruity's!

[Simon Galloway]

For an affluent person adverse to walking that needs to be very adjacent to the Amazon Room all day... I'd say book The Rio.

For an affluent person that particularly wants to stay in Hotel Y, I'd say book Hotel Y.

For a price-sensitive person that doesn't mind a walk, I'd say have an open mind on where to stay and let the bargains steer you.

A lot of the time, imho, people just tend to mangle it and get the worst of all categories.  They decide they are budget-conscious and will stay in Hotel X BEFORE snooping around.  And ofc Hotel X is bookable via many different ways, at many different rates for the same dates. Usually what happens is they end up making a decision based on budget to stay in Hotel X when Hotel W would have ticked more boxes for them and have been cheaper.

For locality, Rio, Gold Coast, (Palms, Palms Place just about) include in searches.
For cheap, add Harrahs/Quad etc on top of the above searches and use their complimentary shuttle.
For luxury, you may as well still have value, add 5* properties in searches.
For no ding ding, exclusively search on hotels without casinos.  Vdara, Palms Place, Trump (gulp) etc.
For personal favs, obv add personal favs to the searches.

There's never a right or wrong as to which hotels people prefer.  A lot of the time, people inadvertently choose to pay more money to stay at a hotel they didn't much like than they would have paid at a hotel that they preferred, just through incomplete awareness of facilities and pricing.

Just purely going on the info provided in the last few pages, it sounds like booking the Rio makes most sense.  However, even if you decide to go and want to stay at the Rio, it doesn't mean that the prices you quoted can't be beaten....

On these Vegas Hotel topics, my pet peeve is people who recommend the hotel that they like (and not a hotel that best fits the needs of the enquirer.) I personally wouldn't stay at The Rio, it doesn't meet my needs.  But I have stayed there before and I could certainly recommend it to anyone that didn't mind being off strip, was playing poker in The Rio most days and wasn't too bothered about other hotel facilities such as dining/pool/spa etc.

[Tal]

How about a train station?



http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chhatrapati_Shivaji_Terminus#section_1

[Tal]

Click to see full-size image.

Victoria Station in Mumbai. British design. Indian hands.

[TightEnd]

I thought this was an amazing picture today

Says a lot, on a lot of different levels, about the press, the fall of one man etc etc

Click to see full-size image.

[AndrewT]

I assume that was Tikay's attempt at a wide-angle shot.

[kinboshi]

I assume that was Tikay's attempt at a wide-angle shot.

[Doobs]

I thought this was an amazing picture today

Says a lot, on a lot of different levels, about the press, the fall of one man etc etc

Click to see full-size image.

Spectacular own goal by Vicky Pryce