The Wynn did return to 3/4/5 craps from 2x though so maybe there’s hope

But those eggs came from chickens that ate caviar, and were prepared in solid gold pans. Clearly.

Story for a different thread, but the price gouging at most of the strip places is ridiculous. Part of the reason I don't venture out to other casinos for food much- if I had to pay out of pocket I'd really be annoyed.

Unfortunately, with no alternatives at other high end places, you'll probably be forced into living with it or going somewhere like South Point. And you know your dad isn't leaving. It would be fun to see what South Point would do for you. Call a host and tell them you want to play there and will throw a half-million coin-in through their VP. They'll probably treat you like a king.

The way to do it is on your last Wynn trip, take all the freebies, RFB, limo, etc, and then play at South Point.

Luckily you can still scratch your vp itch at your local place. You can even enjoy Vegas by staying in rooms/suites that your dad gets. I'm sure he gets enough RFB to take care of your family too.

edit: Totally agree with you on Strip food prices. Most of my meals there are at off-Strip fast food or restaurants I don't have in my hometown.

Thanks for answering. That makes sense and sucks as the same time. Corporations everywhere that already have the money seem to need ALL the money. I hope it changes, good luck in your quest.

Corporate will ride it out for the short haul to see if this improves their bottom line. If it doesn’t they will revert back possibly but even then, they will skew edges further for themselves. (And why not?). You’re not going to be able to unionize the high limit players in any meaningful manner without risk of just getting outright banned.

Sad truth is that gambling revenue is making a much smaller component of their overall GL than it did 20 years or even 10 years ago. It’s about entertainment nowadays. Rising Resort fees is a clear indication of this at a cursory level.

I don’t work for Wynn, but let’s just say I’m pretty familiar with the corporate entities running some of the largest establishments in Vegas.

No doubt.

The sad truth is that almost nothing in Vegas has improved for the player over the last two decades. My wife and I basically don't go to vegas anymore because of what you are going through leon. We weren't high rollers but did have full RFB for a time at one property and were Diamond with TR for a long time. The free rooms, Diamond Lounge, comps kept us coming back and losing somewhere between 5-10k a year on average in vegas through March 2017 which was our last trip. Over time the comps got worse and worse and worse and the prices on the strip got worse and worse and worse and at some point virtually everything we once liked about the place is now gone.

Vegas has to be one of the worst values on earth if you are looking to spend $5-10k on a trip or a couple of trips. A couple can basically go anywhere in the world for 2 weeks on that budget (lots of places much longer) and it is a light years better and more fulfilling experience than going to Las Vegas.

When I was first going to Las Vegas in the early 2000s I used to tell people how CHEAP Las Vegas was. Imagine how laughable saying something like that would be now?

^^ same. I used to go 1-2 times/year, now it's once every 2-3 years. My go-to vacation has changed from Vegas to cruises, which I now do 1-2 of those every year.

Aren't gambling revenues down compared to the last few decades? They're trying to squeeze more revenue out of less people so prices go up (i.e. odds get worse).

I hear your grief loud and clear, but this statement is simply not true - unless 'anywhere in the world' excludes many or most of the large metropoles, which offer comparable types and levels of entertainment.

Try a $5k - $10k budget for 2 weeks for a couple in London, Paris, Singapore, Tokyo, Dubai, Sidney, Tel Aviv, New York City, you name it.

Not saying it can't be done, but your options for accommodation, dining, and entertainment will pale compared to Las Vegas.

In absolute terms, no.
As a percentage of total revenue, yes.

Source

$10k isn't a budget for 2 in those cities for two weeks? I have traveled all over the world and done most of those places for less.

Hotel $200/night*14=$2800
Airfare $600/person*2=$1200
Food/Alcohol/Entertainment $150/day/person = $4200

Thats a total of $8200 and is far from roughing it. Saying you can't do it for $10k is laughable. Also acting like the Las Vegas Strip is some kind of culinary mecca that you won't be able to find/afford for the same $$$ elsewhere is a very bizarre take. The vast majority of restaurants are simply chain outposts or essentially knockoffs of actual fine dining. Many of them are more expensive than their actual counterparts in the major cities.

Lastly you are using the most expensive places on earth to compare cost to Vegas. We just went to Portugal for 2 weeks and ate every meal out at some very nice restaurants and drank a ton and spent less than $5k total for 2 weeks there. Places like Croatia, Thailand, Portugal, etc. provide some insane travel destinations for a fraction of the cost of a long weekend in Vegas.

Where is this mythical $200/night hotel room in London, Paris, Singapore, Tokyo, Dubai, Tel Aviv or New York? And the flight to any of the international destinations above is much more than $600.

Bottom line is that in Vegas you will get more for your hotel buck than anywhere else, and less for your dining/entertainment buck. And less and less, as it goes.

I checked your work and you seem to be wrong. All of those places including Dubai have tons of availability on hotels.com around $200 (NYC is more in the $250 range). Not to mention airbnb which is usually cheaper.

London

https://www.hotels.com/search.do?res...m-0-children=0

NYC

https://www.hotels.com/search.do?res...m-0-children=0

Tel aviv

https://www.hotels.com/search.do?res...m-0-children=0

Singapore (mostly under $100)

https://www.hotels.com/search.do?res..._FROM_LANDMARK

Paris (mostly well under $200)

https://www.hotels.com/search.do?res...m-0-children=0

Dubai

https://www.hotels.com/search.do?res...m-0-children=0

Saying these places are well over $600 a night is idiotic and ignorant.

Also on flights I have flown from Dallas to Europe twice for under $400 in the last two years. I am flying to London for $500 from KC in May. If your dates are flexible at all you can easily find flights for under $600 at all but the most backwater airports.

You can rent a whole apartment in London through airbnb for under £100 - just look around postcode E3 3-- loads of new apartments on the cheap. It's under 20 minutes to Bank station on the DLR - public transport is great, not an issue.

Vegas can be a relatively affordable (but not cheap) really fun trip if making modest, but entertaining choices. Can easily get 4 nights of resort fee only rooms at the less fancy places on strip ($160 total), $300 or less plane tickets from most places.

I personally really enjoy walking the strip (visit when weather not horrific) to the various properties and probably put in 5+ miles a day like I would if touring DC or something.

Breakfast get pastry for a few dollars from the bouchon bakery stand, 1 meal a day at fast casual or fast food options, happy hour somewhere then dinner at something decent but not extravagant like Momofuku, Jaleo, Wicked Spoon, etc. Drink most your alcohol at the craps table.

Obviously not incredibly cheap, but can be a really fun long weekend with friends without completely breaking the bank. Personally I wouldn’t see need to ever spend more than 4 nights unless doing Grand Canyon so keeping trip on short side limits overall expense.

Whoa.

And here I thought I was engaging in a respectful exchange of facts & opinions with an adult.

You are now officially on my ignore list.

You are posting a bunch of complete nonsense that anyone who has google can easily disprove. I'm sorry I hurt your feelings but post better. What you posted was objectively ignorant and laughable.

To be clear I am not saying you are ignorant but there seems to be this general trend in the US to think traveling abroad is horrifically expensive (it isn't) and generally overstate the value of travel in the US. That viewpoint is why so many people NEVER leave the US. That viewpoint is what is ignorant and it robs people of a richer life.

If you really think that's what travel to those places cost look at the links i posted. Or do your own research on it.

We are a family of 4 (two small kids) and 3 weeks in Sydney totalled €9000.

Flight for 4 people: €4000

3 weeks at a beach house in Manly: €2000

3 weeks eating out, entries, etc: €3000

Total: €9000 - $10 200.

Obviously we have different expenses and everything, but flat out saying that $10k is not enough for two weeks is absurd.

And to compare it with Vegas is also weird. Yes you are getting discounts and comps and free rooms, but are they really free when the casino actually expects you to lose a certain amount of money? I mean, if the room is free and you lose $500 a day, how free is the room really?

That’s what I thought would be the best case result, sounds like good negotiating on your part.

Maybe it’s not horrifically expensive to travel abroad, but if I compare the $9k I paid just for flights for 3 trips to Europe for our family of 3 last year to going to Vegas which costs around $500 round trip for the 3 of us per trip, that’s a difference of $2500/trip on average.

Somehow this discussion went off track. Let this be my attempt to straighten it up, or my last words in this thread.

The point of departure was a comparison of the cost, for a couple, to enjoy a couple of trips to Las Vegas, staying at a 4 or 5 star resort (Aria, Vdara, Wynncore, Venetian, Caesars, etc), feasting on better or fine dining, and gambling daily for the sake of entertainment. A total between $5k and $10k was mentioned.

It was asserted, that in fact better value could be achieved on the same budget anywhere in the world for two weeks.

Few would dispute, that replacing the Strips resorts' geographically central, luxurious, spacious, well maintained full service hotel experience with a lower grade decentralized hotel/guest house or with AirBnB is way cheaper. You can do that in LV as well, and you will save a bundle.

Likewise, rather than eating at same Strips' high(er) end dining outlets (which, btw, still are competitive to same name chef's restaurants in other metropoles), enjoying memorable meals at small pittoresque local eateries will save you some money.

And clearly, spending your awake hours on the beach, in museums, or exploring beautiful outdoor locales and vistas rather than gambling (funny enough you can do both in LV), will have a major positive impact on your travel budget.

The only problem is, that in this context, you are comparing apples to inner tubes. Of course you can have a nice budget vacation with your children many places in the world. But that is not what this discussion is about.

When you consider comparable classes of central urban accommodation, dining, and gambling entertainment, I stand by my understanding, that Las Vegas, resort-, parking fees and general price gouging included, is still better value than most other comparable places in the world.

A. The $600 figure was about flights, not hotels. Reading comprehension. Yes you can get to London from LAX for $600 (sometimes, and sometimes not) and every other international city will be more than that.

B. It's what you can get in Vegas for $200 vs what that comparable hotel in another city costs. I don't care if the ****ing Marriott in NYC is $200, I care about what the comparable hotel to Wynn/Venetian/Bellagio/Aria costs, since those are the ones I'm paying $200 for in Vegas. And AirBNB is totally irrelevant to the discussion.

Again, you are missing the point. Hotels are cheap in Vegas as they expect you to spend much much more gambling and in restaurants/shops/spa or whatever service they offer.

Yes a similar caliber hotel in Europe is probably more pricey but that’s because they don’t expect you to spend anything else at their place except for your room.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Key here is the word "expect." You don't have to - you can totally go to LV, stay at a nice hotel, eat a bunch of modestly priced meals, play poker (if you're reasonably skilled), shop at the normal priced mall, and get really good bang on your vacation buck.

Some people have bad impulse control, so having all of the expensive stuff nearby is a real detriment, but if are the more disciplined sort, LV is great because you don't have to rent a car to get to a bunch of different options. I've been to Vegas 4 or 5 times in the last 5 years (mostly with my wife) and we average like $40 per trip in transportation costs. In Scottsdale, it's easily 2-3x of that, plus the sheer time you spend driving and picking up/dropping off a rental car. The sheer density of everything in LV is a really useful vacation feature, and it's not really replicated anywhere else in the US - maybe NYC, but I intentionally stay aware from there.