I am a former local(moved away from Las Vegas, not by choice) and I go back to Las Vegas at least twice a year, for Labor Day week for the first week of College Football and for March Madness. Stayed for a week, Sunday-Sunday.
Transportation Flew in on Delta Airlines, and rented a car. I strongly recommend renting a car if you fly in. Las Vegas is bigger than you think, and cab rides/Ubers can rack up quickly. A car is great for convienience. It's better to have a car and not need it, than to need a car and not have one. Makes it easier to get around to places and expand your options of things to do. I did a lot of driving and only had to get gas once, which was $23 to fill up the tank. I paid $110 for the Rent Car for the Week, so I think $135 is a great price to have a car at your disposal to use for an entire week.
Hotel I stayed at the Palms Place. When I was a local, the Palms was my favorite casino to hang out at. It's off the strip and away from the hustle and bustle and traffic, yet close enough to still feel a part of the action. They have a good, clean casino, a younger clientelle, a great sportsbook, and a pool that has the perfect ratio of quality to crowd. It's a big clean pool, but its not busy and crowded with dozens of kids running around like you find at the strip pools. This pool does get crowded on Fridays for Ditch Fridays, so I went to the Palms Place pool that day.
Palms Place is a great hotel for the price. It's a 4.5 star hotel according to the website I booked it on, Hotwire. You can get this hotel for cheap on Hotwire. It's the only 4.5 star hotel listed in the "West of Strip" zone, so its not difficult to get this one at a discount in the Hotwire Hot Rate section. When all was said and done, after taxes and resort fee, I spent about $700 for the 7 nights, so roughly $100 a night. That's not bad at all, especially for a holiday weekend. My room was on the 23rd floor with great panoramic views of the entire strip, from downtown to Stratosphere to Mandalay Bay. It's a large studio/condo style room with 2 flat screen TVs, a kitchenette, and a jacuzzi tub amongst other things.
Please realize resort fees are a thing and no, you can not negotiate your way out of them(unless you do some heavy gambling I am assuming). Both when I was checking in and checking out there was someone bitching about the resort fee to the front desk agent and trying to get it waived as if they didn't know about them. Every hotel in Las Vegas has them, deal with it or don't stay in a Las Vegas hotel.
Pic of hotel room:
http://i.imgur.com/UGwF9Rf.jpg Pic of the view from hotel room, day:
http://i.imgur.com/hp7AKvD.jpg Pic of view from hotel room, night:
http://i.imgur.com/VOeLZoV.jpg Pic of Palms Pool, Monday:
http://i.imgur.com/otSaorR.jpg Food As a former local, I pretty much stuck to my go-to local spots when I lived there. There is no need to spend a fortune on food while you are here, you can find good eats for cheap. Most places on and around the strip are tourist traps. I spent no more than $100 on food when I was here.
Sunday I went to a place I loved when I lived here, a burger place called Original Tommy's. They serve burgers, with chili. It's a concept that works very well. I think this place is only in Nevada and Southern California. But it was the first place I went. I ordered a double cheeseburger and chili cheese fries. Cost about $10. Pic:
http://i.imgur.com/tbDUyru.jpg Monday I went to the Studio B Buffet at The M. I am not a big fan of buffets. I feel like if I am going to eat a lot of food, I'd rather eat a lot of one genre of food item that is above average, than a lot of mass produced average food. I went anyway since I still had a complimentary buffet from my last visit. This is still one of the better buffets in Las Vegas, and I'd say the best bang for your buck. It was $24.99 for dinner the night I went. The carved tri tip roast was really good. The other food I ate was average at best, but its buffet food. Still a lot better than places like Golden Corral. But the real highlight of this place is the dessert bar. One of the better buffet dessert bars in Las Vegas. Really good Gelato, and every dessert you can think of. I'd say its worth it for the desserts alone. Pic:
http://i.imgur.com/ZDtw8I4.jpg Tuesday I went to a local pizza place called Napoli. This place has great NY style pizza. What is great about this place is they have a special, which is a 16 inch one topping for $8.99 for pickup. That's a great deal. I bought a 6oz cup of their house made ranch dressing for a dollar so all together it was $11. You can also get free garlic balls if you text a number on the menu. Great value. Pic:
http://i.imgur.com/vt6iVCh.jpg Wednesday I went to a place that everyone should be familiar with, In N Out Burger. This place is on the west coast and in Texas only. It doesn't exist where I live, so I make sure to hit up this place each time I go. I ordered a 3x3 animal style, a double double animal style and animal fries. $13 total. Before you call me a pig, realize when I was here I only ate once a day to keep my calories down. It was good, as usual. Pic:
http://i.imgur.com/SWO2eII.jpg Thursday and Saturday I went to perhaps my overall favorite place to eat in Las Vegas. I love it so much I went twice. It's a hole in the wall wing place on Sunset Blvd called The Chicken Shack. They have the best wings and the best fries. I don't know how they do it but it can not be replicated anywhere. The wings are big and juicy, instead of small and slimy like the ones you get at places like Buffalo Wild Wings. They are also breaded and fried, something you don't see often with wings. The fries are close to shoestring size, but they taste so good. I don't know if its the seasoning, or the batter, or what, but the fries are heavenly.
It's a hole in the wall place thats small and always busy, not much seating. I went on Thursday around 2:30pm or so and the line was nearly out the door. I ordered the #1 Combo which is 6 wings(which are so big its like 12 wings anywhere else), fries and a drink for $9. Pic:
http://i.imgur.com/mjmdY6j.jpg Friday I went to a place I haven't been to before but heard good things. It is a place called Skinnyfats that is off I-15 between Mandalay Bay and South Point. It has two menus - a "healthy" menu which is food that would be considered healthy, and a "happy" menu which is food that tastes good but probably isn't healthy. Me being on vacation, I went with the happy side. Got the Patty Melt with Truffle Fries and the "Buff Chix", which is fried buffalo chicken tenders on top of truffle fries in a bowl topped with ranch dressing. The patty melt was probably the best patty melt I have ever had. It was great. The buffalo chicken tenders were average. I wasn't a big fan of the buffalo sauce they used. I am a sucker for anything buffalo, so this style of buffalo sauce was different. The truffle fries were average, I've had better.
Overall it was worth it for the patty melt alone. Their soda is really good too. It's house made sweetened with cane sugar. I got black cherry cola and it was excellent. Overall cost me $25. The place was very "hipster" in my opinion. The clientelle coming in was young, and if I had to describe them, I would say "Bernie Sanders supporters". Younger, millenial, hipster-ish, dyed hair, thick frame glasses, etc. I felt out of place with my button down pressed shirt and blue jeans. Almost everyone ahead of me and behind me in line, as well as those eating next to me, seemed to be eating off the healthy side of the menu. I am guessing that is the main draw of this place. Pic:
http://i.imgur.com/G55y3Vt.jpg Activities I am a big sports fan so my week revolved around the sports books mainly. I spent a lot of time watching for college football line moves, and traveling to the certain book that was dealing the line I was looking for. Made wagers at 11 different books. Which was a pain on Saturday Night when I had to go to all those casinos to cash my winning tickets. I made a bet at Treasure Island(because they were the only book dealing a certain line), and I didn't mind if it didn't win because that meant I would have to navigate my way through the strip traffic and parking garage mess to cash it. The ticket won and I had to go to Treasure Island at midnight on Saturday to cash it. With the strip and parking garage traffic, took me a good 45 minutes. Now you know why locals avoid the strip when possible.
As far as watching sports there is no better place to do it than Westgate. This is my first time there since it got renovated and they did a good job. You should easily find a seat at this book during the week, but be careful on College Football Saturdays, NFL Sundays and March Madness. You have to show up early if you don't want to stand. On Saturday I got there at 7:45am, an hour 15 minutes before the 9am kickoffs and the place was already 75% full. If you want to bet, get your bets in the night before. The betting window lines were 75 people deep about 30 minutes before the 9am kickoffs.
Westgate Book, Thursday:
http://i.imgur.com/1KA5ffL.jpg South Point Book, Friday:
http://i.imgur.com/xLwArwL.jpg Westgate Book, Saturday around 9am:
http://i.imgur.com/sjDpouv.jpg I went downtown on Tuesday Night. If you haven't been downtown, I strongly recommend going to check it out at least once just to do it. It's different. If you have been, I only recommend going downtown if you are going with a purpose, i.e. to gamble, drink, watch the free concerts and street acts, do the zipline, etc. Unfortunately, I just went downtown just to go, and so I felt like it was a waste of time since I didn't do anything other than just walk around a bit and see what was new. It was my first time going downtown in 4 years, but it was mostly the same.
Pic of Downtown:
http://i.imgur.com/NQN4CQO.jpg On Wednesday Night I went bowling. Surprisingly this was one of the highlights of my trip. I went to the Red Rock Lanes at around 11am and bowled until it closed and had an absolute blast. On Sunday-Thursday After 11am, the games are only $1.50. So I must have bowled at least 10 games. 3 hours of fun for less than $20. South Point also has a bowling alley, and $1 per game bowling from 12am-8am Su-Th. So if you like bowling, there are good values to be had in the after hours.
Pic of Bowling Alley:
http://i.imgur.com/fa2mGrl.jpg DRINKING & GAMBLING I didn't do any gambling apart from wagering on sports. I am a professional mathmetician, so I know how the deck is stacked against you on slot machines and table games. I prefer to put my mathematical ability into finding an edge betting on sports. Which I did well. Ended up winning about 10 units betting on college football when all is said and done. This is why renting a car helps, you can more easily travel across the different books to get the best lines.
I only drank once. Bought a bottle of Malibu and drank way too much of it. Since I was pouring it in my hotel room in the dark, I had no idea how much I was using. Ended up blacking out and spent all Wednesday hungover. It sucked. I swore off drinking the rest of the trip after that, it was miserable.
ADVICE The biggest piece of advice I can give if you are traveling to Las Vegas is to rent a car and then the first place you go should be to Wal Mart or a grocery store and to buy gallon jugs of water. It's hot and you can get thirsty quickly. It's always good to have water on hand(unless you like drinking out of the tap).
If you want to walk the strip I recommend getting up early and doing it in the morning before it gets too hot. This way you can get around without the crowds and the clickers. You won't get the nighttime views and vibes but its easier to get around. The clickers are really annoying and its not just silent Mexicans clicking anymore. I was briefly on the strip Tuesday Night to go from Flamingo to the Linq. The short trek I made from the Linq to the Flamingo I encountered non-hispanic clickers and strip club promoters that were all up in my face and one of them screamed at me and called me a fag when I said I was not interested in the strip club he was aggressively promoting. I never recall them being so aggressive. I think strip clubs are trash that are run by trash and cater to trash, so its no surprise they have trash promoting them.
It seems like there are more panhandlers in Las Vegas since when I lived there, which is weird because I was in Las Vegas during the recession. They are everywhere and its annoying.
Avoid MGM Properties. I ended up doing so this trip to protest their charging for parking. I think its bullshit. Don't reward them. Which is a shame because I have a soft spot for Luxor and go there each time I am in Las Vegas to pay tribute to the first Las Vegas hotel I ever stayed at, back when Luxor was in its prime and one of the better strip properties.
CONCLUSION Overall it was a great trip. Las Vegas is still my favorite place. I never wanted to move away, and will move back when I get the chance.
Sunset view on Treasure Island hotel and casino resort on the strip in Las Vegas, Nevada. Las Vegas, USA, November 2013: sunset view on Treasure Island hotel and The Treasure Island Resort is a luxury hotel, located on the center of the Vegas "Strip", next to its sister-resort, The Mirage. This beautiful resort offers the highest standards of Las Vegas luxury combined with a fun, whimsical Pirate theme. A map showing casinos and other gaming facilities located near Treasure Island, located in Las Vegas at 3300 Las Vegas Boulevard South, in Nevada, United States. View deals for TI - Treasure Island Hotel and Casino, including fully refundable rates with free cancellation. Guests enjoy the locale. Fashion Show Mall is minutes away. WiFi and parking are free, and this resort also features 10 restaurants. With a stay at TI - Treasure Island Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas (Las Vegas Strip), you'll be within a 15-minute walk of Fashion Show Mall and Sands Expo Convention Center. This 4-star resort is 1.4 mi (2.3 km) from Las Vegas Convention Center and 2.8 mi (4.5 km) from Thomas and Mack Center. Las Vegas - Treasure Island Hotel and Casino Las Vegas, Nevada, USA - July 4, 2012: Outdoor pirate show at Treasure Island Casino on the famous Strip. Opened in 1993, the hotel has 2,884 rooms and the casino 95,000 square feet of gaming. Treasure Island Las Vegas stock pictures, royalty-free photos & images A top city to visit for my husband and I, is the ever fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada. We try to go twice per year and stay at a different casino resort ea ch time. Although I have many tips to share regarding planning a Las Vegas Vacation, what to expect when traveling to Las Vegas, and cheap travel tips for Las Vegas, this specific post is my review of “Treasure Island Casino and Resort” on ... Make your Las Vegas Strip hotel reservation at TI - Treasure Island Hotel and Casino. Check room rates, hotel packages, booking deals and promotion codes. Treasure Island was the original home of the Cirque du Soleil in Las Vegas, which opened in 1993, and their Mystere show still plays here. The Features of Treasure Island. The hotel here is an impressive one, with a total of 2,884 rooms and suites. Both are reasonably priced, with a 400 square foot Deluxe Room starting at only $59 a night. With all new rooms and suites, Treasure Island is your ultimate Las Vegas destination. We have affordable rooms to luxurious penthouse suites with panoramic views of the Las Vegas Strip.
