There are similar nearby properties that have microwaves and fridges, which knocks your food bill in half.

This has been a fun thread to read not only for the information but also because it seems to have attracted like-minded people

TREASURE ISLAND
I stay here every January during the NFL's off week (i.e. between conference championships an Super Bowl) because it's the host hotel for a horse racing tournament. Based on what I've seen of the rack rate here I don't love it for value, but it's fine as a place to stay. The rooms are always clean and the cafe is fine for breakfast. The casino, though, is just not fun. It has a decent happy hour vibe around the hotel bar but other than that I've just never been able to feel it there, and they'll be running $15 mins when places like V, Wynn, & Bellagio have plenty of $10 tables. It's bizarre.

Bottom line: Worth staying here if you get a great deal for access to other nearby places but definitely not a destination resort

ORLEANS
After 13 years of traveling to Vegas 2-3 times/year, stayed here (and off strip) for the first time last March and was thoroughly impressed. I guess the rooms have been redone recently, so if you were turned off before by the rooms then they're probably worth another look now. The casino is fun and cheap but it's the smokiest casino I've ever been in. The poker room was fine. The Orleans-style restaurant was fine for some oysters or gumbo or whatever but most of the other choices were meh.

Bottom line: If you're looking for a one-stop cheap place to gamble then this fits the bill. Easy enough to get to the strip too via shuttle or car. Personally, I couldn't see myself choosing this option if flying cross country if not for a work engagement here.

Quick hits (I haven't stayed at these properties in more than 2 years, so don't want to say too much but some general thoughts):

1. Flamingo. I cut my teeth on this joint in May 2001 and stayed there several times over the next five years before landing at Mandalay Bay (actually THE Hotel) for my bachelor party and then Venetian a couple times). Haven't been here since they've done the Go rooms, but the pool was always awesome, and I actually like the casino. Always decent traffic with $10 tables and the poker room is SUPER soft

2. THE Hotel/Mandalay Bay: Fun for a bachelor party but sounds like things have changed on that end of the strip. Luxor/Excal connection doesn't help Mandalay Bay is hip vibe I'm guessing. Still seems OK the few times I've been since, though.

3. Venetian: Really like the resort (including Palazzo in that) and the rooms are nice. Enjoy gambling here (poker or pit) but the hotel service isn't as top notch as I'd expect for the price point. Also, the $20 trick is 0/2 here! Do love me some Cut Steakhouse, though.

Ballys is awesome

Heading to Vegas for AVN's and wondering if anyone has recommendations for lodging that weekend. I'm going with four other friends and currently looking at Bally's, Flamingo, PHo, and Vdara. Any suggestions with Bally's being the cheapest and Vdara being slightly more than Pho? No comp'd rooms but discounted rates at all properties.

I like Bally's better than Flamingo. PHO and Vdara are solid just a matter of what you want to pay for and prefer.

Hey LVL I'm hoping to get some advice about a bachelor/bachelorrete party I'm helping plan and attending in early May. Thanks to all of the good advice received here I usually only stay at Aria, Cosmo, and PH but this is for a larger group and not everyone is interested in spending that kind of money. Also a majority of the attendees are in the "you don't spend any time in your room in vegas anyway" camp. Regardless of how I feel about that personally, this isn't for me and I'm going along with that with the group.

I don't have any experience with the rest of what is out there and am hoping you guys can lead me in the right direction. We basically wan't to stay within the boundaries of NYNY/MGM on the one side and Mirage/Venetian on the other. From what I can tell our options for the price range being looked at are Flamingo, Ballys, and Monte Carlo for the mid-lower level and then maybe Excalibur Linq Harrahs a bit lower.

We are basically intending for all the guys and all the girls to hit the strip separately on Friday and then everyone meet up and do a pool party for Saturday. So as I stated the accommodations aren't incredibly important but no body wants to stay in an actual dump. Is the Linq still as bad as the quad or has it improved? Any further suggestions based on all of that info? I'm leaning toward Flamingo personally as I like the old school vibe and I hear the pool is pretty fun but I just don't have enough experience with the rest of what is out there.

Thanks in advance for any insight!

Based on your lower price/decent (party) pool needs I would recommend the MGM (mid price range) on the one end and I agree with your choice of the Flamingo (lower price range) on the other end.

The Flamingo also offers lower and higher end rooms depending on everyone's budget.

Thank you for the reply. I wasn't 100% clear about the pool. We will be booking a pool party somewhere for Saturday but it doesn't have to be at the place we are staying. I just added I hear the pool is fun at Flamingo as more of a side benefit. Having a good pool is not an actual requisite of the hotel we choose.

MGM was definitely on my radar but the prices were extremely high for MGM based on my experience. More than Aria and same as Cosmo for the dates we are looking at. I'll have a look at the Flamingo's varying rooms and see if we can make that work.

Thank you again!

Flamingo is fairly crappy except they have the most comfortable beds in Las Vegas.

Though both are at the borders of your geographic constraints, Tropicana or Wynn would be my recommendations.

Of the others you mentioned then, Monte Carlo sounds the best. It's the newest and basically in City Center.

Well Wynn is way out of the price range we were looking at. What about Tropicana makes you recommend it? I have not heard good things about them, hate the AC location, and it is outside of where we want to be geographically, so a little more info as to why would be helpful. Thanks.

Thanks. That seems to be the consensus from people I have asked. Location is definitely the best of the ones I listed but I was under the impression it wasn't very nice otherwise. I'll look into it more. Thanks again.

Monte Carlo is fine, it's probably a nicer choice than Flamingo even. I'm not saying it's a nice place, just that it should be more acceptable than others.

Thanks, and yea that's what I'm expecting. I've never actually been in Monte Carlo but a few trips ago my buddy was staying there when we were at PH and I was pretty disappointed in our PH room. It wasn't horrible just not as nice as we are used to and our specific room looked like its seen some pretty hard parties in its day.

I had two buddies staying at Monte Carlo and they came to our room to hang out for a bit and both commented on how nice our room was. I formed what will likely be a pretty accurate opinion of MC then. But for the purposes of this trip, it seems like it will fit the bill well enough.

I'm looking at probably upgrading a bit to the Monaco Suite. Does anyone have any experience with this room? It appears to be laid out very similarly to the Fiore Suite at The Borgata in AC if anyone knows that. I like the Fiore quite a bit but if anyone has any info on the Monaco I'd be all ears.

Thanks again for the insight.

I think a lot of people become disappointed at Monte Carlo because the outside looks fairly opulent, and just the theme of the city of the uber rich, and then find out the rooms are very plain. They aren't as nice as PH rooms. The rooms are functional and all, just ... plain.

LTT777

To me the Monte Carlo is dreary. It's pool isn't really that good either.
It might (?) be a bit higher scale than the Flamingo but the Flamingo does have that old school feel you mentioned and a much more lively casino. The pool is also a fun party place. As I mentioned earlier they do have different levels of rooms which might work well for a larger group like yours.

For a low budget party-type trip including some pool time, I still think it's a good option. The location is also excellent. Like you said you can also pay and go to one of the high end Vegas party pools for a day.

Thank you that is good information for me as I've never been there. In all honesty I've given up my personal desire for a nice room and if the place as a whole looks nice but the rooms are plain but functional that sounds like it meets our needs pretty well. Looking at some pictures online it seems to match your description very well. Looks like a clean generic hotel room as opposed to a Vegas resort room.

Thank you this is also very valuable info for me as it matches my personal feelings about Flamingo. I honestly really like the place and I don't think we have ever wandered the strip with out at least stopping in there. It is the kind of place I've always had the desire to stay at at least once, but every time I'm booking the trip it gets edged out by one of the more popular places we like from experience or have been wanting to try. So this trip felt like a good opportunity to get my Flamingo fix out of the way.

With that said what allowed Monte Carlo to overtake Flamingo was the rooms offered on travel sites. I don't degen much at all and thus don't get good deals on rooms when dealing with the casinos directly so I have always just booked through expedia and the like. When using those sites, Monte Carlo offers upgraded rooms that are large. The Monaco Suite is 700 sq feet while all of the available upgrades at the Flamingo (via travel sites) were more luxurious rather than larger as every available option was the standard 350 sq feet.

Do you know if Flamingo has larger suites available that just aren't on expedia? If so I'll happily call them and if I can get a comparable size at a comparable price to the Monaco I'll have a much harder decision where I would likely state my case to the groom for Flamingo but ultimately leave the decision up to him.

Thanks again to both of you. This has been very helpful thus far!

Monte Carlo has no wifi in the rooms, so that's another thing to consider if that's important to you.

Yes, Flamingo has larger suites. Every hotel does and they've got pictures of them online and everything. I would encourage you to use the hotel's own sites- you're rarely or never going to get a better deal on a third-party site, and there are drawbacks to booking indirectly.

Not really a deal breaker for me as I spend most waking moments on the internet in my real life so I generally like to unplug from that in Vegas. But thank you for the heads up. I'll run it by the rest and see if it is important to them.

Good to know, thanks. I assumed they did, but during my search every other hotel I looked at offered them on expedia where Flamingo had a larger number of upgraded choices than nearly all of the other hotels, but not one was larger than 350 sqft where all of the others had larger offerings listed. Knowing it is one of the older hotels there I figured it was worth asking. I am however very excited to learn they have pictures online and everything I do concede it was a bit silly and should have gone to the site first to confirm. My apologies.

I heeded your advice and checked out the prices booking the flight and hotel separately and through the hotel directly despite it never proving to be less expensive in my entire history of booking vegas trips. Remember I have basically zero gambling history with any casino company. Anyway through expedia flight + monaco suite is 1617.58 for Thurs-Mon for my girlfriend and I and through the individual companies the same flight and suite were 1948.36.

As you may or may not be able to tell via my questions here I am pretty diligent with my research for this kind of thing. I have had others tell me the exact same as you, but it simply has never worked out that way for me and I stopped trying after 10+ failed attempts.

I think you only win when you book a package deal if there are at least two in your party.
If you are traveling singly then booking separately is usually best.

really tired and having rough day so hoping you guys will do the legwork for me


any recent stays or reports for the strat?

That would make a lot of sense as I'm always booking for two. Thanks.

I never stayed but we took a walk down there from mid strip (more like a trek than a walk) to do the actual stratosphere stuff in February and I was taken aback by how dreary it was there. Everything was old or run down, including the people (not to offend any elderly here ). On top of the walk being longer than I could have imagined it was downright unsafe in spots.

The only reason I could see staying there is the price but I feel you wouldn't net any savings as you would be cabbing everywhere. The general inconvenience of the location would be pretty large too assuming you wanted to spend your time where the action is.

Personally I would try The Linq or TI or whatever the cheapest place in that area is sight unseen based on the location alone. Although I don't have experience with those other places I don't see how they could be any worse.

I can't really speak for package deals, I was mostly talking about apples-to-apples hotel rates.

Want to make sure (but given your diligence, I would guess you did factor this)- in your price comparisons are you including resort fees, tax, etc.?

Yea that is a fair point that I obviously missed and that makes a lot of sense. As I've always had to fly in and always paid less packaging them I spoke like that was the complete norm when it clearly isn't.

And yea I do take the fees and resort fees into account. Expedia always adds everything but the resort fees into the total and I do in fact check how that works with any other method of searching I'm using to make sure it is apples to apples.

After checking out the larger room options at Flamingo I think I'm going to stick with MC as the only comparable sized rooms at flamingo we considerably more expensive. I really wanted to have a similar size and price option at Flamingo and have a really easy decision on my hands but such is life. It isn't my party so just kind of have to roll with it.

Thanks again for all the input and help everyone.

There are many posts in this thread the strat. Almost all of them are negative.
Nothing has changed.

It is a complete dump in a terrible location.

My advice. Don't stay there!