Las Vegas

The biggest part of Venetian/Palazzo for me is the size of the basic room. You can fit a lot of people in there and it's friggin amazing spot to pre-game so it's my go to choice when going with groups

That said, the Cosmo rooms with balcony with fountain view is also friggin unbelievable. Taken last summer:

My cousin is in Vegas and just posted pretty much that exact picture from their room. That's pretty badass; I fucking love that stupid little fountain show.

I stayed at the Aria a few weeks ago and their rooms are the best I've seen. Everything in the room controllable from a remote, curtains open and everything in the room comes on automatically when you open the door. It's a pretty great initial impression you get. Rooms are huge and everything in them is pretty nice.

Yup, the hotel rooms themselves were nothing special, but not like Stratosphere terrible either. Rollercoaster is cool but expensive. Location on the strip isn't bad either.

Rollercoaster isn't worth the money.

It's a decent coaster. Pretty sure you can buy an all day pass for $20, which is a pretty good deal if your staying there and like coasters (or if you have kids) since there seems to usually be very little wait time.

So probably heading to Vegas in March for the pizza convention, I've become a little tired of the strip, any advice/tips for staying downtown? How much is your typical cab trip from downtown to the strip? (Will have events on the strip I need to attend)

Why would you go to Vegas an not stay on the strip?

If you're looking for a different type of housing, I suggest VRBO.

Because the strip kinda sucks and I heard that downtown is becoming more awesome?

I'll check out VRBO

Downtown is fun for one evening of your trip, and that's about it. It's just old, smokey casinos and really cheap food for the most part. The Freemont street light show is interesting to see once, but staying down there for your entire trip would suck IMHO.

It's not a far cab ride from the strip, when I was there a couple years ago I want to say it was maybe $20(including tip) to take a cab down there from the middle of the strip(Caesars area)

the downtown is getting hipster'd up, there are a ton of little tech startups now and all the associated hipster doofus shit that comes along with it, like art stores, weird chi yoga infusion lifestyle centers, coffee shops, vegan restaurants etc etc. the owner of zappos has poured millions and millions into building up downtown vegas into a little san fran, austin, san diego, etc and its definitely getting closer (but still quite a ways). the grand is a new hotel there that is quite nice, and all the other hotels are pouring tons of money into remodeling and shit. it still feels a bit skeevy compared to the strip though.

that said the convention center will be a bitch to shlep to EVERY day, yeah maybe the taxi is only $20 but you will spend a ton of time in shitty traffic and sitting around waiting the last 2 blocks to get past the hordes of people walking in and out of the center. I suggest staying at the las vegas hilton (sorry just LVH now), its about 2 blocks from the convention center (and on the monorail) and after spending 6 hours on your feet walking around a convention center its really nice not having to waste 30-60 mins getting back to your hotel, plus you can monorail to the strip hotels easy. the rooms are ok, pretty old but I guess they are remodeling.

if you go downtown go to pizza rock, new place that is hands down the best pizza in vegas and most of the country

I appreciate the feedback. I think I'm going to end up on the strip because it looks like I'll have events/meetings on the strip pretty much every day I am there so forking out an extra $40 a day in cab fares doesn't make it worth it.

Even if you have to go to the convention center everyday I highly recommend you dont stay at the LVH. Horrible rooms, overpriced and just dirty. Better off staying at a Marriott or something similar.

Yeah, being close to the convention center isn't that big of deal for me. I generally only hit up the actual convention at the convention center for one day, and even then I spend most my time at the craft beer pavilion. It's the peripheral stuff that goes on during the convention dates that bring me down there.

opiate82_sl said:

It's the peripheral stuff that goes on during the convention dates that bring me down there.

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Dude you can bang hookers anywhere

Closest I usually get to the hookers is collecting a ton of "Girls to your room in 20 minutes" cards from the flicker-card guys then slipping them all into a buddies suit-case for his wife to find when he gets home.

opiate82_sl said:

Closest I usually get to the hookers is collecting a ton of "Girls to your room in 20 minutes" cards from the flicker-card guys then slipping them all into a buddies suit-case for his wife to find when he gets home.

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+1 to you good sir