Back from first-time trip to Vegas (NOT a report, yet)

VERY eye opening. I understand a lot better now, even though I was only there barely long enough to stand on the surface.

1) We had a great time.

2) We didn't have a bad meal.

3) We pretty much held our own... at least I did. Mrs Mosca plays slots, and, well, Vegas slots are different from the ones we're used to. Or they seem to be. More on that when I get to sit down and compose my thoughts better. With a starting roll of $2500, I was up as much as $1800, down as much as $1200, and finished at down $300. Mrs started with $500, lost $200 the first evening, $300 the next afternoon, and another $200 the next day. Yes, I know.

4) Among casino employees (dealers), we met some nice people, and some jerks. We played accordingly, staying with good vibes and leaving bad vibes behind (social vibes, not gaming vibes).

5) Jet lag. Wow. There's nothing like being completely awake, fed, and ready to play... at 6:30AM.

I'll put it all together and tell you about your place from an outsider's perspective this weekend, right now I have to figure out how everything here at work got so screwed up while I was gone, and then I have to fix it.

Congratulations on surviving your first trip to Sin City.

Did the town live up to it's nickname?

Quote: DJTeddyBear

Congratulations on surviving your first trip to Sin City.

Did the town live up to it's nickname?

We're laid back, regular people.

But I will state, unequivocally, that I've never before seen so many women, of all ages, of whom I idly thought, "Man, she could make a LOT of money doing porn."

That sounds like a "yes" to me!

Since you played slots, did you join the players' club(s), and play with your slot card(s) inserted? The action that you gave would be enough to get you free room offers in the future, at just about any casino except the super-megatoilets.

Oh, absolutely we got player cards.

If I hadn't had to sit next to her and play the slots, I would have probably won about $500. I estimate I lost close to a grand in the slots over 3 days. It might have been less, I wasn't tracking it; but it was absolutely a substantial amount, over $500.

We liked Vegas, a lot. We're already talking about "When we come back," that we have to take more days and plan to do more things, go more places. One of our party visited Hoover Dam. I was blown away by the pictures.

Quote: Mosca

Oh, absolutely we got player cards.

If I hadn't had to sit next to her and play the slots, I would have probably won about $500. I estimate I lost close to a grand in the slots over 3 days. It might have been less, I wasn't tracking it; but it was absolutely a substantial amount, over $500.

We liked Vegas, a lot. We're already talking about "When we come back," that we have to take more days and plan to do more things, go more places. One of our party visited Hoover Dam. I was blown away by the pictures.

You shoudl do the Dam and the Canyon, gets you away from the madness that is Vegas and both are awesome sights. The Canyon takes a while to get to (the skywalk is by all reports a bit lame, but the North Rim is amazing), but worth the petrol. Every single cent.

isn't it the South Rim that is supposed to be best?

Quote: Mosca

5) Jet lag. Wow. There's nothing like being completely awake, fed, and ready to play... at 6:30AM.

Its a 24 hour town. Sure the casinos vacuum the carpet at a slow time and will have fewer dealers on duty at 6:30am than late at night, but they are always open. Many restaurants do breakfast specials all day and night or they do some sort of steak special at any time. The restaurants know that tourists start out still being on their own time-zone clock and only adjust slowly. Many local businesses cater to casino personnel who just got off work and have what would be considered weird hours in other cities to be wanting a Karaoke Girl or wanting day care.

Since most of the action in a casino is from late afternoon to the wee hours of the morning, tourists eventually seem to adopt "local time" and I guess its wise to do so rather than be the sole player at some table game but the casinos will generally have at least one table of whatever you want open at 6:30am. You may get a trainee dealer on that shift and there might be only one craps table open but the casino will usually be ready to take your money at any time of the day or night.

I tend to be an early riser anyway and when one factors in the time zone stuff, its often 5:00am when I hit the tables and sometimes I've encountered the same players that were there at 10:00pm the previous night. For various business reasons many casinos end their business "day" at 4:00am or 5:00am. If the casinos have unusual hours, I don't bother with any jet lag remedies.

Quote: odiousgambit

isn't it the South Rim that is supposed to be best?

I've only been to the south side since I was visiting someone in Phoenix. Most reviews I've read and reviews from friends have said the North is at the very least equal if not better than the south. It is also a lot fewer people which may have had heavy influence on the reviews. My assumption so far is that more people visit from the south rather than coming from Vegas. Which makes the North side a lot farther away.

I doubt anyone would be dissapointed with either location though. I'll pick the 3-4 hour drive to the north side vs the 6+ I think to the south side from Vegas.

Quote: FleaStiff

I tend to be an early riser anyway and when one factors in the time zone stuff, its often 5:00am when I hit the tables and sometimes I've encountered the same players that were there at 10:00pm the previous night. For various business reasons many casinos end their business "day" at 4:00am or 5:00am. If the casinos have unusual hours, I don't bother with any jet lag remedies.

I made a bad choice on my recent visit and allowed myself to acclimate to Vegas time. And, I guess, Vegas schedules. By the end of my time in Vegas, I was waking at 10am and staying out until 2am PDT. It was very very hard to wake at 6am CDT and go to work on Monday...

Quote: soulhunt79

... I doubt anyone would be dissapointed with either location though. I'll pick the 3-4 hour drive to the north side vs the 6+ I think to the south side from Vegas.

I, too, have only been to the south rim but hope someday to schedule one of my "Vegas" vacations to include the north rim and several of the parks in southern Utah.

As for the drive times, I guess it depends on just where you are headed. Google maps estimates the drive time from Las Vegas to the Grand Canyon Lodge on the north rim as 5 hours 8 minutes and from Las Vegas to the El Tovar Lodge in the Grand Canyon Village on the south rim as 5 hours 1 minute.

Quote: Doc

I, too, have only been to the south rim but hope someday to schedule one of my "Vegas" vacations to include the north rim and several of the parks in southern Utah.

As for the drive times, I guess it depends on just where you are headed. Google maps estimates the drive time from Las Vegas to the Grand Canyon Lodge on the north rim as 5 hours 8 minutes and from Las Vegas to the El Tovar Lodge in the Grand Canyon Village on the south rim as 5 hours 1 minute.

The North Rim also takes you through Zion National park, which was a nice warm up. The view at Bright Angel and the peak just north of it is fantastic. The south rim does have a better view into the gorge itself, but there we go. The North Rim also means you can take a route back via Bryce Canyon... which is very different, but also another natural wonder.

Quote: rdw4potus

By the end of my time in Vegas, I was waking at 10am and staying out until 2am PDT. It was very very hard to wake at 6am CDT and go to work on Monday...

Being jet-lagged when you get back home is one thing, but being jet-lagged your first night at the tables can be expensive. The dealer at the Venetian suggested I leave the table ... and got a tip for doing it.

Quote: soulhunt79

I've only been to the south side since I was visiting someone in Phoenix. Most reviews I've read and reviews from friends have said the North is at the very least equal if not better than the south. It is also a lot fewer people which may have had heavy influence on the reviews. My assumption so far is that more people visit from the south rather than coming from Vegas. Which makes the North side a lot farther away.

I doubt anyone would be dissapointed with either location though. I'll pick the 3-4 hour drive to the north side vs the 6+ I think to the south side from Vegas.

As a practical matter, both the North and the South Rim are 5 hours' driving time from Vegas. The North Rim is physically closer, but the roads to get there, after you turn off just north of St. George, are two-lane and windy. You can pretty much roar along US 93-I-40 to get to the Grand Canyon.

The two experiences are VERY different. The South Rim is more open, and offers more sweeping vistas. It's at about 6000 feet elevation, and the climate and vegetation are "high desert". The North Rim's topography is more serrated, which means that when you're at the North Rim's developed areas, you are still quite far from the brink of the main Canyon; there are a couple of drives out to observation points that take about an hour each way (very much worth it). The North Rim is at over 8000 feet elevation, and is covered by a thick pine forest; it gets heavy snow in the winter. Anytime from October on, the road in from Jacob Lake can close, and after a certain point, you can't get in to the North Rim at all.

As far as development, the South Rim has many more tourist facilities than the North Rim--and the whole "Arizona Strip" is a pretty isolated place. I believe I've read that less than 10% of Grand Canyon visitors go to the North Rim.

I actually prefer the North Rim, because I like the more intimate, less crowded feel of the place, and also because I've been to the South Rim so many times. And the drive to the North Rim beats the drive to the South Rim by a mile--there's gorgeous scenery all the way on the drive to the North, but nothing much other than sun-baked scrubland on the drive to the South. Another consideration is that on the drive to the North, you pass very close to Zion and Bryce Canyon, which are wonderful destinations in their own right. If I were going to take an excursion up to that country, I'd make a weekend out of it and stay in one of the small towns in the area like St. George or Panguitch.

All the above notwithstanding, if I had a friend who had never been to the Grand Canyon, I'd tell him to go the South Rim, because that experience is more what the "classic" idea of the Grand Canyon is supposed to be.

Looks like I had my directions mixed up. I didn't realize there was a north rim. When I looked into it last year I had 2 options, one was about twice as long.

My first option was the West rim which seems to be about 3hr drive. The other was the south rim which was the 5ish or so people have mentioned.


Not sure what the West rim is, but at the time even a 6 hr round trip was enough to sway me away from not going. Ended up with a hike out in Red Rocks and never regretted the choice. :)

If you don't want to drive to the Grand Canyon, bus and helicopter tours are available. For $280 a head, you get a four hour (pu from hotel, back to hotel) tour that includes setting down 4000 ft below the canyon rim and a light meal. Check out a vendor here.

I've been to both sides several times each and the only difference is that there's way too many people on the South Rim for my liking. I've hiked to Phantom Ranch and ridden a donkey down and up after spending a night and it's just as spectacular and awesome from the bottom as from either rim.

Quote: Mosca

We're already talking about "When we come back," .

That was my reaction and its most peoples reaction after the first trip to Vegas. However, last year an aquaintance of mine and his wife went there for the first time, for 3 days. They stayed at Treasure Island and played there and walked to 2 other casinos. They didn't see the sights, they did nothing but hang around those 3 casinos. When I asked if he was excited about going back, he gave a look like I'd lost my mind. "Why on earth would we go back" he says, "Once was enough. Next vacation we're going to Branson for the first time." Turns out they took $100 each to gamble with over 3 days and resent the hell out of Vegas that they lost it. They didn't have a good time, felt everything was too expensive, they went nowhere and did nothing except walk around. It takes all kinds....