Las Vegas postcript

This is mostly a bitch session...

Our short "Christmas in Vegas" stay in the MGM Grand turned out to be a bad one. On the bright side, there were no knock-down drag-out fights among the family members and no one lost their shirts at gambling. Also, no one got arrested or caught a sexually-transmitted disease. We did all come away poorer, however. And slightly under the weather.

What the hell happened to Vegas? I remember when you could catch a cheap hotel room and save some money on the buffets in the casinos, but now, woah. You might be able to still find a relatively inexpensive hotel room, if you look long enough, but catching a cheap meal? Forget it.

There must be about 30 restaurants inside the MGM Grand. At the most expensive, the estimate was $325/person. Just to eat? Jay-sus. Stepping down from there, in price, were several restaurants in the $100/person range. Then a few from $70-$100. A few more from $40-$70. Their buffet was marketed at $20/person for dinner, but when we got there, it was $28/person. And the food was pretty lousy. This buffet was just cheesy. All these people appear rather desperate in search of food. It's a teeming mass of people all vying for the same tasteless food. Strange. And no one had a "good" meal.

The MGM Grand is at the intersection of The Strip and Tropicana. The hotel complex is vast. It's a veritable city in a city in there. We stayed in their "Signature Suites" which are three tall towers behind the main MGM building. Behind, as in wayyyyy behind. It was a major hike just to get to the casino from our suite. At least they had the good sense to put in people-movers to help you get back and forth faster. The first time we walked to the casino from the suite, I thought, how stupid to install people-movers here. But after the second or third trip, I was glad they were there. Someone was, at least, thinking.

These suites are available for sale, from $300,000 up to $1.5 million. We were in a Penthouse Suite which would probably go for close to a million. Nice view from up there, but not worth it. One thing I have to give them credit for - there was lots of instant, very hot water for showers. They advertised a charge of $13.99/per for Internet access, but fortunately they also offer a $15/day "Resort Fee" which includes unlimited wireless access.

Room service, however, was a joke. Horribly overpriced, and then they tack on $10 extra in delivery fees and charges just for the helluvit.

Even the breakfast items! $7 for a bagel? $7 for a muffin top (just the TOP of a muffin, not the actual muffin, mind you). Is it really necessary to charge $7 for one of those little boxes of cereal that you can get for .50 in the grocery store? $3.50 for a cup of coffee? Well, at least they filled it a couple of times without charging another $3.50. Who pays these prices? I guess that if everyone does, just once, they'll make money at it.

Our last night there we tried one of the mid-range restaurants for about $150 for four of us. And every one of us complained of indigestion after the meal. Good service but lousy food. I don't understand why you should have to pay upwards of $100/person just to have a decent meal. I guess I'm just old and out of touch. Of course, I am just guessing that it would be decent. Every meal we had there was unsatisfying or caused someone to feel rather ill.

The best meals we had were lunches, where my wife made a few ham-and-cheese sandwiches with food that we had purchased at a CVS and Walgreens drug store on the Strip.

Oh, and walking on the Strip. No thanks. One, it takes forever just to get OUT of the casino to get to the Strip. They do it that way intentionally, so you have to go through the casino to get out of the hotel. And then, the sidewalk on Tropicana is closed, yadda yadda, you have to go all the way back around and exit way over there.

Two, when you are finally on the Strip you get accosted by hucksters every 10 feet or so. "Free dinner and a show!" "Trip to Grand Canyon!" "The hottest girls on the Strip!" Yeah, right. While my wife was inside Walgreens and I waited outside with some food already purchased from CVS, one scruffy-looking bastard approaches me, sticks a flyer in my hand, leans in and whispers, "Got the tightest pussy on the Strip." Yeah, well, no thanks. How in the hell can you prove that, anyway? Do you have regimented Keigel exercises or something?

Most of the hawkers on the Strip look like they're ex-crack addicts or otherwise down on their luck. What a job, accosting strangers all day long, trying to sell them something. It reminded me of walking in Montego Bay in Jamaica. Non-stop aggressive hawkers. At least here in Vegas, they didn't follow you down the street. Thank the Lord for small favors.

The Monorail is pretty cool, and could be accessed right from inside the MGM, but it doesn't go very far. Houston could have done something like this instead of that tinker-toy train that passenger cars keep slamming into, but, nooooo.

And the shows! Why must every show be $80/person or more? Am I just cheap? The best tickets for $150 or $200? For a two-hour show? WTF?! Both of the Cirque shows we wanted to see were sold out, which is for the best I guess. There was an amazing number of Asians in Vegas this trip. I guess they have to spend all those dollars they're getting from us somehow. Makes me wonder about Macao. Why come to Vegas when they have a lot of options over there?

Perhaps my distaste is colored somewhat by the fact that I ended up losing money at the tables this trip. Winning would have probably put a nicer light on things. This is the first time I've left Vegas with less money than I arrived. I went against my better instincts a couple of times when the family asked me to play craps with my nephew. The table didn't feel right, and sure enough, we lost a lot on that evening. Blackjack was also not good for me this trip. Everything was just lose lose lose.

The food was overpriced and lousy. Couldn't get into the shows we wanted to see. And all that family around to complicate things. All in all, this was not a good trip.

The Asians can have Vegas. They may be the only ones that can afford it. Next time we want to go gambling, it will be just the quick jaunt into Louisiana. Or Mississippi.