Originally Posted by
Pyeinthesky
Sounds nice, is that lounge open to non-residents?
Yes, Mix is open for anyone to go up for a drink, or just take in the view. It's half restaurant (Alain Ducasse's Las Vegas room), and half lounge. If you want to go up after 9:30p, as Prospero said, it can be a bit more difficult - you don't need a table reservation, but you may be waiting for a while to get upstairs, and you'll be standing or at the bar - all tables are reserved for bottle service. They build a rather lengthy line at night, esp on the weekend or during busy convention/event nights in Vegas. The easy way to get around the line late in the evening is to make a dinner reservation and then move over to the lounge after dinner.
Prospero, glad you got a decent room at the Strat - most of them aren't, so you did well.
There are about 4 levels to the hotels in LV, and once staying in the top level properties like theHotel you really can see the difference. (It generally works out to theHotel, Venetian, Bellagio, Wynn, 4Seas, Mandalay, Caesar's new tower and Hard Rock at the top tier, then Palms (off strip), Mirage, Treasure Island, Paris, MGM, New York New York, the rest of Caesars, Monte Carlo, Aladdin/Planet Hollywood at second tier, then Luxor, Bally's and Excalibur, followed by the rest on the north strip, including Strat.) Of the inexpensive rooms - comparatively, you can get a great deal a lot of the time at Monte Carlo and Aladdin, and sometimes at Mandalay in the standard tower. The best rates for Vegas are actually the hotel websites - they keep their lowest promos for their own e-mail lists - they don't sell e-mails, and they blast out about once every few months with dates they want to fill. (Edit: I should qualify that - if the city is near sold out, you may find a cheaper rate at the consolidator sites like priceline, etc - but in general, I'd always try the hotels direct first - and if one is bad, the one next door may be completely empty and dirt cheap - check around.) If you found the Strat at £50, the city must have been nearly sold out - that's their top end pricing. The dust is just one of those vegas facts of life - it's been worse with the construction, but I've seen it at random, esp during the winter/spring.
Originally Posted by
flyclub
On the subject of construction, the new Venetian tower I can see towering above outside the window is truly a feat of engineering.
The Palazzo is going to be quite nice when it's done. ^ One of the common complaints of the latest mega resorts is they're too sprawling, and since Sands had to squeeze this on a smaller piece of property, it's an experiment in ultra compact resort building. I agree, it's quite impressive.
(Now returning to the topic at hand...sorry!)