BIGGEST TRAP CATCHES THE MOST...............
 

......SUCKERS!

WHere you ask?

It has to be LAS WAGES, NEVADA!

There are only a few hotels, that don't give you the feeling of having your pockets picked, while they empty them!

It isn't such a bad place, if you have GOOD connections. For those that don't, you should see it at least once.

Every once in awhile, a special hotel opens like the Bellagio, and it is best to enjoy them early before they change hands.

There are some good show like the Cirque du Soleil- Mystere and the 'O' show. A few good places to eat your favorite foods, but be selective.

A good place to get crazy with your favorite partner for a weekend. Throw all caution to the wind! http://www.flyertalk.com/travel/fttr...orum/smile.gif

[This message has been edited by ROADRUNNER (edited 07-24-2001).]

Trap? I disagree. Las Vegas is very upfront and honest. Everyone knows the gambling odds. Don't let one's stupidity on the tables cloud the best travel value in the country.

Where else in the world can you stay in a Four Seasons Hotel for $119 a night? Or dine with Picasso's on the wall for $80 including wine? Las Vegas has more fine shopping than 5th Avenue and Rodeo Drive combined. It is THE restaurant capital of the world and has 12 National Parks within a 2 hour drive. Including the grandest one of them all---The Grand Canyon. I have seen Kid Creole and the Coconuts in a lounge and The Knack jamming on the lawn for free! No trap there.

Spend an evening stargazing on Lake Mead or an afternoon golfing at Lake Las Vegas (which will be nicest resort in the world) and you will feel differently.

Las Vegas truely has it all. It all comes with a very reasonable price tag. No "trap" here...

I strongly disagree to Las Vegas being labeled as "THE" restaurant capital of the world. Have you ever visited San Francisco, New York, Chicago or New Orleans? Perhaps LV does indeed have some wonderful restaurants, many outposts of their famous NY or SF originals.

PLEASE! Restaurant capitol of the world!

No one is looking for 'LAS VEGAS' style restaurants elsewhere! For example, New Orleans cooking in major city.

Yes I like dining at the Belleagio, but few other places for something outstanding. There are GOOD places to eat, but few fantastic ones!

Don't be a bully. Those cities you mentioned are 100 times the size of Las Vegas. That said, Las Vegas competes nicely. I also think restaurants in those cities are more of a "trap" once you factor parking, tipping the maiter d' and overpriced drinks into the equation. Aureole will cost you 40% more in New York than Las Vegas with one exception. The head chefs and top wait staff all moved to Las Vegas three years ago to design their dream restaurant. I think you will get a better experience with a cheaper price at the Aureole in Las Vegas.

More James Beard award winners cook in Las Vegas than any other city in the world. The Belagio Hotel alone hosts 6 James Beard award winners. The Picasso is the countries number one restaurant and rests close to Le Cirque and Aqua. Walk across the street to The Palm, Spago's and Chinois. Emril has a couple of restaurants in Las Vegas. I can keep going but there is already a board dedicated to dining.

This board is about "traps". Perhaps, you won't get your type of food in Las Vegas, but it is world class and reasonably priced. Perhaps, you won't get the best river rafting, but rafting the Colorado through the Grand Canyon is spectacular and reasonably priced. Perhaps, you won't golf on the best courses, but there are plenty to chose from. Perhaps, you won't get the best hotel, but you will get a great hotel at a bargain price.

I just don't see the "trap".

I would have to agree with Fetchem.
I have been in Vegas for a whole month on business and I have had great experience..I don't know about the resturant capital of the world...every city brags about being the resturant capital of the world....for example...Houston has it's own promotion saying that it has the most resturant pere sq ft in the nation, than...Dallas says the MetroPlex has more resturants than anywhere else...so it is hard to say whom...

yes..Vegas is no trap

------------------
Al

I don't think so. You must be counting NM's, NRA's and NHS's.

Boy, I didn't expect my comments to be so controversial. The point of my post was: the only tourist trap in Las Vegas is the Mercedes sitting on top of the quarter slots. Once you leave the tables, everything is quite honest and upfront. You know what you are getting before you go in. And it is quite reasonably priced. There is no "trap".

Don't forget the buffets. For the price of McDonalds in your big cities you get a 45 course meal. I know you are going to razz me on that one.

$300 will get you a Marriott in Manhattan or San Francisco. But it will get you the 3 nights at the Four Seasons, Belagio, Rio or Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. I received a postcard for the Lake Las Vegas Hyatt for $99/night including $25pp in food. That works out to $49 a night. You take Manhattan and give me Lake Las Vegas for a week!

As far as the National Parks, here we go:

1) Lake Mead National Recreation Area
2) Grand Canyon National Park
3) Tolyabe National Forest
4) Virgin River Recreation Area
4) Humbolt National Forest
5) Great Basin National Park
6) Dixie National Forest
7) Zion National Park
8) Cedar Breaks National Monument(3 hours)
9) Fishlake National Forest (4 hours)
10)Bryce Canyon National Park (4 hours)
11)Kolob Canyons National Reserve
12)Mohave National Preserve
13)Joshua Tree National Park (3 hours)
14)Fort Mohave Indian Reservation
15)Rainbow Canyon National Preserve
16)Sunrise Mountain National Area(by Lake Las Vegas)

not included, but pretty darn nice:
Red Rock Canyon
Valley of Fire
Death Valley
Colorado River
Lake Mohave
Lake Havasu(London Bridge for you city types)
Mount Charleston
Brianhead Ski Area(3 hours)

Sorry, these recreation areas do not have McDonalds. You will have to bring your Big Mac with you from NYC...

Ummm, Dallas? More restaurants per capita than anywhere in the US....it's no wonder I seldom eat at home.



[This message has been edited by aamilesslave (edited 07-29-2001).]

fetchem, I didn't mean to stir things up, but in fact your list does make my point. National Parks are just that. They are not NRAs (National Recreation Areas), National Forests, Preserves or Reservations. Perhaps I am nitpicking, but the National Parks are a distinct entity, and generally regarded as the jewels of the National Park System. The NPS themselves admit that 'The numerous designations within the National Park System sometime confuse visitors.' The nomenclature is nicely laid out in Designation of National Park System Units.

My wife used to live in Las Vegas so we go there occasionally. We both think that there is no THERE there, i.e., it is not a real city because its only reason for being is tourism from gamblers. Take the tourists away and there would be no city. So to me it is a tourist trap -- and since Las Vegas is a big city that is growing bigger at the highest rate in the nation, it is a big tourist trap.

Yes, I've been to (and eaten at, natch) SF, NY, Chitown, and the Big Easy. Of those four, NO was the best hands down. But you know what else? Even that didn't compare to the best meal I've ever had...in Las Vegas. Twas about 3 years ago at the Paris Eiffel Tower Restaurant. Two words: "Dover Sole." Absolute perfection. Pricey, but worth it (about $50/entree as I recall). Of course, nothing else in Vegas compared to it. We ate at Le Cirque at the Bellagio the next night and were disappointed (although to be fair, perhaps it was merely a letdown in comparison the the previous night's fare). Take it for what it's worth...

Just to stir things up a bit more....
I agree wtih Fetchem in that vegas is upfront about the gambling. We all know that it pays for most things in town. That having been said, I enjoy going there every year to do the grand canyon, hoover ****, the rollercoasters, the neon, the whole tacky enchilada. I have had some good meals there, however, it is NOT the restaurant capital of the world. As a new yorker, I can have many foods delievered 24 hours a day. Can walk a couple blocks and find some restaurant that's open. We do have pricey places, but we also have every cuisine covered from cheap to snobishly expensive.

If you were to choose one very good dining experience daily, you would have eaten in the same San Francisco restaurant five times before you finished the first round in Las Vegas.

I agree that 'Lost Wages' is a big trap. I was there for a few days at the end of a southwest trip to see national parks and I am glad I got to see it, but am in no hurry to return.

First of all, the restaurants are nothing special. I heard all these storys of great buffets of excellent food at cheap prices. Wrong. Not only did I get food poisoning from one, but the food was no better than Ponderosa at triple the price and you had to walk 20 minutes past 500 slot machines just to see the menu. On the other hand, the steakhouse in the Luxor was great, but at $30+ per place, it should be. It was no better than a comparable (price-wise) places in New York, SF or whereever. Think about it - there is really no such thing as Vegas food, they cannot even produce their own water out there in the desert, they have to ship everything in, including the people to cook it.

It was interesting to see the architecture, but it was one big tacky tourist trap designed to extract money from the droves of tourists led in with delusions of grandeur. Think about it - us visitors work for a living while these casino owners just build more and more casinos every year! Obviously the odds are in their favor, unless of course, you can count cards in blackjack and disguise it so that they do not throw you out. Unless you mindlessly hand away your money, they kick you out if you use any skill against them.

We go to Vegas twice a year every year for the last 29 years. I must admit I have become disappointed with the city. It used to be that they took your money in the casino and everything else was cheap. It was run by organized crime and it was run well. No foul-mouthed people at the tables and decent behavior expected and achieved. Now the big corporations own everything, they don't care about crime or class, just come spend the bucks. So you have drunks falling all over you, shows that are outrageously priced, full price hotels and meals that are not outstanding, and crime is no longer organized, nor is the city as crime free as it used to be. While I still go, I have to say I don't choose to go as often and don't feel like a got a bargain as in the old days. I am a grandmother, and I love my granchildren, but don't go to Vegas to see millions of kids on loud roller coasters. When I'm playing, I don't want to hear screaming babies. So, all in all, it is my opinion that Las Vegas has become more of a tourist trap than it used to be, albeit some things are still a bargain.

U.S. Cities with the top restaurants, per capita:

A bit outdated, 1984, but my book rates Las Vegas at #4 out of 329 cities. Reno was #1, followed by Seaside, CA; Rochester, HH;

#5, Glens Falls, NY; #6 - SF

I know Las Vegas currently has 2, Mobil 5-star restaurants. I would not be suprised if Las Vegas is now #1 rated per capita.

Much of Vegas has been bulldozed and rebuilt since 1984.

JP

I think its hillarious that you guys talk about cities with the "best restaurants in the world" but yet limit your suggestions to cities in the US only. Do you really mean the "world" or do you mean "USA"?

Im not a US basher I have spent some great time in the US, I lived in NY for a while and loved it (it has some very, very good restaurants).

But I have travelled the world and I'm really sorry to point this out but in terms of "best restaurants in world" there is some quite stiff competition out there in London, Milan, Paris, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore, Venice, Rome, Florence, Sydney, Nice. etc. etc.

I suspect that the real "Best Restaurants of the world" list would be rather lacking in establishments from the USA.



[This message has been edited by Rhys UK (edited 09-23-2003).]

I have to agree with marysunshine, LV is not what it used to be.

I went there several times in the mid-80s as a grad student purely because it was a cheap get-away. Granted, my tastes were simpler then, but I did stary at Caesar's (then one of the top hotels) and ate at several restaurants and buffets at prices I could afford as a grad student (e.g., VERY CHEAP).

I have now been back twice in the past 2 years, and while there are some cheap deals for top hotels, they are pretty restricted. Any decent or high-end restaurant is no different in price from NY, SF, DC, etc. and the quality is just as variable. And the 'super cheap buffet' -- where have they gone? Not sure I would eat at them, but the buffets I saw were by no mean a bargain.

All said, I don't think LV is a trap. Anyone who goes for gambling should know they can't beat the house, and if they don't it is their fault. The rest of city is gaudy, tacky -- a lot of fun once or twice, but it does not inspire me to keep going back.

As for the restaurant list <from 1984> -- that was the Jurassic Period compared to now. You cannot take those data seriously. I can just as easily say St. Louis was the 4th largest city in population -- in 1920. Doesn't really hold for now.

And I do agree that the title of 'best restaurant city in the world' gets thrown around so much it means nothing. Does it mean
-- 'most # per sq ft? (hah! a laugh -- a town 2x2 blocks with 4 dines would rank high)
-- 'most # per capita'? (so a town can have a lot of fast-food, low-cost chains, and crappy diners and rank high?)

And if we are talking about 'the world' I would agree that foreign, esp European countries would rise to the top. I have never had a bad meal in Italy, from the toniest Milan restaurant to the mommma-and-poppa tavolocaldi in Florence.

How right you are. Don't forget Atlanta, one can eat to death there...

Interesting viewpoints of Fetchem and Raffy. Apparently their world of dining is the US only. These blokes must live on BigMacs and Whoppers when being over in Europe.

Shoot! It's painfully obvious nunna y'all ever been to Krebs, Oklahoma! Talk about yer great eatin' ... 'specially iffen ya like Eye-talian or, o'course, a decent steak.