Vegas Trip Information for anyone looking to go this year.

[wazz]

If anyone needs $ out here for uk bank transfer or stars I have like $20k I could stand to get rid of anytime between now and sunday @ spot, PM me.

[brookie]

can any one remember when virgin have there sale please

[outragous76]

can any one remember when virgin have there sale please

Usually every January

[Marky147]

can any one remember when virgin have there sale please

Usually every January

They got sneaky last year though, there was a sale in September for a few weeks, and then they had another in May.

[brookie]

this time it not for a flight to vegas but to florida

[Graham C]

I guess not many of you will stay at the Elara hotel but I thought I'd share my time there.   Elara is a Hilton hotel behind Planet Hollywood, I believe it's the old PH building and now it's a blue glass hotel  with a bit of red on top located halfway round the Miracle Mile shopping centre.

At first glance, the room is amazing.  Stepping though the front door brings you straight in to a kitchen/dining room area which is open plan with large sitting room space.  There's a big window blind that comes down that doubles as a projector screen.  My daughter loved watching the Disney Channel on a massive screen!  Off this room is a bedroom and a fairly large bathroom.  The bedroom has a hot tub in it.  It does look great and if it were my apartment (when I was younger) I'd have been over the moon with it however there were a few niggle points.

Firstly, the kitchen area.  We were only there for a couple of days and didn't self cater so it really didn't put us out, but there was only 1 dinner plate, 2 side plates, 2 large glass, 2 small glasses, 3 sets of cutlery no bottle opener.  We were also booked in as three people - two adults and a child but there was no bedding for the sofa bed - had to call down for this and it did come up fairly quickly.  There was only two "shower" size towels in the bathroom and there was no spare loo roll.   There's also 4 teles (plus the projector) in the place but only two controls - I'm not sure if this is relevent or not but I don't want to get billed for nicking the other two if there is supposed to be 4!  These were the small things, the two big things that bothered me were the hot tub not being clean - there were hairs in there - not pubic thankfully but still I would expect it to be clean.  The other thing  was the window sills were filthy and clearly hadn't been dusted in quite a while.  This extended to several other large surface areas.  Another annoying thing was that in the window sills (they were on the floor with full length windows) there was an air vent thing that couldn't be closed.  Up 11 floors and next to a road made for quite a bit of noise that I could have lived without.    View wasn't great either.  The hotel is at a right angle to the strip so I think you'd need to be high to get a fairly good view - we overlooked the car park but could see PH and the Eiffel Tower too - not a biggie and I suspect the other side would have been better (ask for an even number room).  

In fairness my issues would have all been solved with a quick call to housekeeping.  The towel issue resolved itself the next morning.  We came close on the loo roll issue though
 
Quick addition to the dustiness comment after reading some bits on Tripadvisor -  "When we arrived, our room seemed very dusty. We called housekeeping and they immediately sent someone to clean. After being there several nights, we noticed how difficult it was to keep the black surfaces totally dust free - not a reflection on housekeeping."

All in all it was lovely.  It's just when there's something wrong I then start thinking about the other little negatives about the place.   It was very comfy, every room was great.  The bed was very comfy and the sofabed seemed comfy too from my short sit on it. The shower was nice and spacious and the pool area was ideal for families.   Hot tub and projector screens were nice gimmicks but in truth we hardly used them and not sure I would spend enough time in the room to justify either.  I can't say I've ever been a hot tub man, maybe if we had a great view from it and it was outside but it was just a large bath in reality.

I'm reading back and it sounds like I'm being miserable about it, I'm not really.  Mrs S and our daughter really loved it but for me I'd rather have had an OK room at Cosmo, Bellagio or Caesars and have stayed where we needed to be (for this trip) rather than the suite here but that's not to say if I were travelling with my family again I wouldn't stay again and I'd certainly consider it, it's very family friendly and the staff were great too.    I'd give it 4 out of 5 stars.

[Marky147]

The 'Elara', is the old PH Towers building which was owned by Westgate and renamed when sold to Hilton in 2011. I believe it's quite similar to the MGM Signature, in that you're detached from the casino and avoid the ding ding when you leave the room, however, you're still only a short while away and have direct access to everything offered in the resorts.

I've not stayed there myself, but the people I've spoken to that have had good things to say. That said, there isn't really any excuse for the issues that cropped up with your room.

Sounds like you had a good trip anyway, and it's nice to get an up to date review of an unknown resort

[AndrewT]

If anyone's seen the documentary Queen of Versailles, it was the failure to sell that Westgate tower that sent the guy in that broke.

[Sweetman]

I guess not many of you will stay at the Elara hotel but I thought I'd share my time there.   Elara is a Hilton hotel behind Planet Hollywood, I believe it's the old PH building and now it's a blue glass hotel  with a bit of red on top located halfway round the Miracle Mile shopping centre.

At first glance, the room is amazing.  Stepping though the front door brings you straight in to a kitchen/dining room area which is open plan with large sitting room space.  There's a big window blind that comes down that doubles as a projector screen.  My daughter loved watching the Disney Channel on a massive screen!  Off this room is a bedroom and a fairly large bathroom.  The bedroom has a hot tub in it.  It does look great and if it were my apartment (when I was younger) I'd have been over the moon with it however there were a few niggle points.

Firstly, the kitchen area.  We were only there for a couple of days and didn't self cater so it really didn't put us out, but there was only 1 dinner plate, 2 side plates, 2 large glass, 2 small glasses, 3 sets of cutlery no bottle opener.  We were also booked in as three people - two adults and a child but there was no bedding for the sofa bed - had to call down for this and it did come up fairly quickly.  There was only two "shower" size towels in the bathroom and there was no spare loo roll.   There's also 4 teles (plus the projector) in the place but only two controls - I'm not sure if this is relevent or not but I don't want to get billed for nicking the other two if there is supposed to be 4!  These were the small things, the two big things that bothered me were the hot tub not being clean - there were hairs in there - not pubic thankfully but still I would expect it to be clean.  The other thing  was the window sills were filthy and clearly hadn't been dusted in quite a while.  This extended to several other large surface areas.  Another annoying thing was that in the window sills (they were on the floor with full length windows) there was an air vent thing that couldn't be closed.  Up 11 floors and next to a road made for quite a bit of noise that I could have lived without.    View wasn't great either.  The hotel is at a right angle to the strip so I think you'd need to be high to get a fairly good view - we overlooked the car park but could see PH and the Eiffel Tower too - not a biggie and I suspect the other side would have been better (ask for an even number room).  

In fairness my issues would have all been solved with a quick call to housekeeping.  The towel issue resolved itself the next morning.  We came close on the loo roll issue though
 
Quick addition to the dustiness comment after reading some bits on Tripadvisor -  "When we arrived, our room seemed very dusty. We called housekeeping and they immediately sent someone to clean. After being there several nights, we noticed how difficult it was to keep the black surfaces totally dust free - not a reflection on housekeeping."

All in all it was lovely.  It's just when there's something wrong I then start thinking about the other little negatives about the place.   It was very comfy, every room was great.  The bed was very comfy and the sofabed seemed comfy too from my short sit on it. The shower was nice and spacious and the pool area was ideal for families.   Hot tub and projector screens were nice gimmicks but in truth we hardly used them and not sure I would spend enough time in the room to justify either.  I can't say I've ever been a hot tub man, maybe if we had a great view from it and it was outside but it was just a large bath in reality.

I'm reading back and it sounds like I'm being miserable about it, I'm not really.  Mrs S and our daughter really loved it but for me I'd rather have had an OK room at Cosmo, Bellagio or Caesars and have stayed where we needed to be (for this trip) rather than the suite here but that's not to say if I were travelling with my family again I wouldn't stay again and I'd certainly consider it, it's very family friendly and the staff were great too.    I'd give it 4 out of 5 stars.

Thanks for the review Graham,

Could you tell me how long it took you to reach the strip from the room, and what the route is like please?

Also, tell me more about the pool if you can.

Have considered staying here before, but always been put off because its not "on the strip"

[Graham C]

I certainly wouldn't be worried about it being not on strip, it's so close you can't really tell, don't let it be an issue.   It's obviously a lot smaller than the casino hotels - there's no restaurants for example, but it doesn't take you 10 mins to get out of the place either.  It's the same as hotel lobbies over here, but there is a 24 hour Starbucks.  

If you imagine Miracle Mile as a clock, there's exits via a few shops to the strip at approx 10pm and 7pm, Elara is at approx 4pm.   It's not that big a shopping centre, I'd say it was a 2-3 min stroll from Elara's exit to the 10pm exit, it is really very close to the strip but not quite on it.  Exits take you directly on to the strip.  7pm exit is outside a steak place place with a bucking bronco inside (can't remember the name) and the 10pm exit takes you to where there's three small escalators going down the outside steps at a pedestrian crossing which if you cross you'd be on the corner of the Cosmopolitan with the Bellagio over the walkway to the right.  It only takes a short time (5 mins max) to get from the Elara to the Bellagio fountains.   If you want somewhere swanky for a period of time with a bit of self catering, it really is a great place to be.   If I wangle another trip to Vegas by myself I'd probably stay elsewhere purely because I'd like to see other hotels but I'd still stay central to the strip which only allows for a few hotels.  If I came back with the family and for more than two nights, I'd definitely be looking here again, I'd just call down to Housekeeping for my issues.  

Forgot to add - valet parking is $15 per day.  I'm not sure if that's good or not but personally expected it to be free with a tip to the valet so I opted to self park rather than spend $45 on parking.  We got them to take our bags up but still carried a few ourselves.  There's a walkway to the hotel on the third floor of the car park.  Spaces were full on 3rd so we parked on 4 but thought we had to walk through the shopping centre to get there which was a PITA with all our bags, you don't have to do that, just go to the corner of the 3rd floor and walk though.

Small tip if you are after snacks or drinks, there's a PH shop next to one of the PH exits/entrance from PH within the MM Shopping Centre (approx 9pm in my imaginary diagram), two bottles of water were $7, two cans of lager were $10. I bought the water because we were on our way out but wanted a couple of beers for back in the room one night and thought $10 was a bit steep for two tinnies so I went to a shop at the 7pm exit and bottles of water were 99c each and I got two tinnies for $5.   Worth spending the extra minute popping round the corner for supplies!

The pool area is lovely, but I've nothing to compare it too.  They  check your hotel key to make sure you are a guest and provide towels at the entrance.  You can't bring outside booze into the area but there is a bar.  There's loungers and chairs around it with shades and cabanas that you can hire out.   The pool is only 3ft (maybe 3.5ft) deep and has one 6" and a 9" deep section that would be lovely to sunbath in if you're not likely to be mistake for Shamu like me.  It was a lovely pool.

[mumblesrock]

did anyone come back from vegas winning???

[Tal]

did anyone come back from vegas winning???

 

[Marky147]

did anyone come back from vegas winning???

Ha, unfortunately not. However, I did come back with some great memories and met some great people  

[mumblesrock]

that clearly shows is not all about winning.... its a lot to do with the experience!!  almost like the Olympic moto - 'its not the winning, but the taking part that counts'!!!!

[celtic]

did anyone come back from vegas winning???

Ha, unfortunately not. However, I did come back with some great memories and met some great people  

He was talking about this year, not two years ago.