I have read on multiple sites and heard from general speak that Vegas is slowest on Thanksgiving and Xmas weekends and that most of the visitors consist of families. I just returned home from Vegas today and I can say I experienced just the opposite. Just a few cliff notes from the trip:

1.) Left Friday the day after Thanksgiving day from LA at around 10:30am. The drive took 6 hrs, so about 50% longer than what it usually takes for me. A 6-hr drive to Vegas is usually reserved for those once-in-a-GREAT while trips when I have no choice but to leave LA during afternoon rush hour on a Friday.
2.) Massive crowds everywhere in Vegas, mostly families with strollers and older groups/couples. For example at the Bellagio flower display area and around the general vicinity the traffic was similar to Disneyland on a holiday weekend, person-to-person. Just massive amounts of people everywhere. The pits weren't especially busy in the casinos I visited and this can probably be attributed to the tourist demographic over the weekend. Just a ton of people walking around, eating, etc. To offer some additional perspective I've been to Vegas over busy holiday weekends like Memorial Day, Labor Day, and over March Madness and I don't think I've ever seen Vegas more busy pure volume of people wise than this weekend.
3.) Left Vegas on Sunday morning around 8:30am. I thought I would get a bit of a head start on the rush out by leaving early but holy **** was I wrong. It took me 5 HOURS to get to Barstow, and from there another 3 hrs to get to LA. Cars bumper to bumper and the funny thing is no accidents. Just steady stop and go traffic almost the entire way, and as a result it was the most excruciating drive to Vegas I can ever remember experiencing.

In summary, nothing like what I expected. Am I naive to have thought what I thought or was this weekend an anomaly for Vegas?

thanksgiving is always busy here. anyone saying otherwise is giving out bad info.

xmas is always dead tho, that's true.

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I await with bated breath for your Christmas drive trip report.

Driving to or from LA--the most populous metro area in the country--Thanksgiving weekend is crazy busy no matter where you're going...why would you think Vegas would be an exception?

wOOt - I've spoke with my publisher and the Christmas report will be disseminated in two installments, with two equally-spaced trailer tidbits to introduce! More to come I promise.

Kitty Viola - I realize that now, why would this be any different? I guess I thought the low number of visitors from what I read previously would wash out with the normal holiday commute thus creating a normal scenario. Kinda like hedging out currency risk from long stock exposure to a foreign company by selling fx forward contracts.

No. 4days are always busy. The week before Xmas is the lightest week I've encountered in my couple dozen trips. Hotel deals are usually great at that time too. I'm a green chip player and I have almost the entirety of December comped at caesars properties.

Not by any common definition of metropolitan area.

We spend 17 hours in the car yesterday, busy day on the roads indeed..

Ill be doing an extended stay in Vegas in december; think I am averaging $18 a night at Harrahs (included taxes/resort fees).

The weeks of Thanksgiving, Christmas and NYE are always packed, more families because kids are on school break.

How are you getting free resort fees?

Yeah, Resort fees there are $20 a day I believe. There are two main towers at Harrahs - the Mardi Gras and Carnival tower. One of them is pretty crappy but I forget which one. Ask them to put you in the newer tower.

Especially when gas is 2.17 a gallon. If gas was 3.50 a gallon, there might be 30% less people on the highway to Vegas.

I didn't understand the comments about it not being busy on Thanksgiving either. I always expect Thanksgiving to be really busy in Vegas.

It's not busy post-Thanksgiving until Christmas.

Not in California, probably closer to $3.

FWIW I left from Vegas to L.A. at about 8am on Thanksgiving Day, and the traffic coming the other direction was already getting pretty busy. My direction was fine though.

I just 3.40. Since when can one get gas for under 3 dollars!?

I glanced at Bravo on Thanksgiving night and it was that rare (non-wsop) night where there were significantly more games running in all of Vegas than Commerce. I was surprised myself as I also thought Vegas would be fairly slow.

Try to make it to Vegas right on empty, and you can fill up for about $2 a gallon here.

2.09.9 in AZ.

During our thanksgiving road trip through 8 states in the Midwest and South, gas prices ranged from $1.73 in Memphis to $2.29 in western Georgia.

I couldn't find any correlation between gas prices and the cost of McDonalds iced coffees though.

NorCal (Sacramento) got it for $2.17 at Arco, where I live south of there its around $2.21 right now at Arco...shell, chevron and such is more obviously

Yeah, but you're out in the sticks. The discussion was about L.A. In the big city (bay area) it's also near 3 bucks is what I hear from people there.

The gas station next to my morning starbucks was charging 4.29 this morning.... and that's not reflective of today's spike in oil prices. It's a deal, they use to charge 5.49 for ages! (I don't fill up there...)

Funny story, I filled up when leaving this summer and my card got used for days at other gas stations around the city. Not sure what's worse, the fact that I had multiple charges of 120 bucks at Rebel stations or the fact Chase didn't flag any of the transactions as fraudulent. (They declined a charge at the Ross next to Encore, but no fraud alerts on that either)