Las Vegas, Ameripass stop 8

Las Vegas has some of the hottest girls you will ever see, but beware as prostitution is rampant. Sin City has every form of sin available--if you have the money. If you don't, you'll feel like the bums we met out on the street, but you'll still be able to enjoy the lavish buffets for under /person (sometimes).

Quick Tips:

Don't waste your time gambling. Enjoy the pool during the day. Stay ON The Strip and not at some cheap motel right off of it--the social atmosphere and feeling of the hotels on The Strip are worth every penny. Be smart. Don't pay /night at the fancy Strip hotels. Stay at the Excalibur or Sahara for under (seasonal)

Best Way To Get Around:

Walking. Stay on The Strip and just walk from the top to bottom. Occasionally take a cab when you're drunk at the south end and have to get back north to the Sahara.

Yesterday our bus pulled into Vegas at 4:30 am after a fairly uneventful bus ride in which I got about 4 hours of sleep. So as zombies, we attempted to walk south from GH to the Royal Casino/Hotel. We walked about halfway down Las Vegas Blvd. and gave up so we jumped on a bus down to Convention Center Blvd and to our $76/night hotel. (We would have spent less if it was a week night.) We checked into the hotel, which is really nice with a king sized bed, full size sofa, pullout, armchair, regular sized fridge and a big TV. We went swimming and tanning from about 2-3:30 and were the only ones out there. We then came back to the Royal where we got changed and hit up the pool to enjoy the perfect weather. I could definitely deal with 80-110 degrees year-round. Right now, I’m sitting by the pool just taking in some nice rays.

We went right to the Sahara and checked in right away. We got up to our room by about 11:30 and unloaded our packs. The room was fairly old and needed renovation, but the resort was very nice and much more “Vegas” than the Royal—definitely worth the $34/night that we paid. We headed right out to the pool which was much larger and more crowded than at the Royal. Immediately, some woman with two really hot daughters stopped me when she saw my Villanova shirt so she could tell me that her son went there for a year before transferring back to California because of the distance. She kept talking to me for about 5 minutes until her daughter yelled at her to leave me alone. We went right in the pool and talked to the girls for a little and found out they were from Point Loma, San Diego, about a block from the hostel we stayed at. We then made our way to the steps where we sat and basked half in the water as two girls on their rafts kept drifting into us and we kept pushing them back out (about 4 times in a row.) Eventually they jumped off and started chatting with us about rock music and partying, etc. We chatted for about 45 minutes and they got up to go shower. They were going to the Luxor and NY, NY, so we agreed to meet up in their room (1574) at 3:45. We showered and picked them up and walked out to catch the trolley in front of Sahara.

We ended up going to Treasure Island’s champagne brunch for $12/person. This may have been the best buffet I’ve ever been to. It started off with every breakfast food and a ton of fruit. Then it offered prime rib, boiled shrimp, fried seafood and a ton of various lunch foods as well as a small selection of Chinese food. The dessert tray had some tasty looking treats including amazing caramelized flan. You could choose from any beverage you wanted and you even got complimentary champagne. We ate until we were sick then won and lost a bit in Wheel of Fortune slots with our new MGM Club cards.

We ate at Harrah’s Fresh Market Square Buffet around 7:30 PM. The food was delicious—especially the Alaskan Snow Crab legs which we both filled up on. After dinner we picked up our tickets for the 11 PM Skintight and started our walk back to the Royal. By the Venetian, I was already feeling sick from what I ate. To avoid graphic details, I’ll just say that I didn’t leave our hotel room from 8:30-11 PM. Aaron wasn’t 100% either, so we concluded that it was the snow crabs. I called and filed a report with Harrah’s security. After the show, we made our way back to the buffet where I professionally convinced the manager to refund our bill from last night since I had been so sick. After about 5 minutes, he reluctantly agreed.

The most appealing thing for dinner was Barbary Coast’s $10.95 prime rib with clam chowder and fries. I would definitely recommend this to anyone. It had a San Francisco theme with sourdough bread and miniature pitchers of soda for each person. The prime rib was extremely tender and juicy.

We ate at the $6.99 Sahara brunch buffet which was mediocre except for the apple cobbler, which was amazing. I thought the rest of the food was on the level of the Old Country Buffet, which is fine if you're not in Vegas, but hey, YOU'RE IN VEGAS!! There are the most amazing buffets that you can ever dream about here and you're trying to save $4 so that you can eat crap instead of a luxurious meal? Think about the logic there...that's just over 5 pulls of a slot machine. Spend the extra $4 to eat somewhere better.

Eventually we felt good enough to venture to NY, NY to go to Coyote Ugly. It was an interesting experience since it was as crowded as Brownies or Erin’s (Main Line, PA), but with 70% guys. However, it was nice to see hot girls in short skirts dancing on the bar.

We had to pay a $10 cover, but since Aaron had a cut-off shirt on, the bouncer cut us a deal by letting him buy a $20 shirt and letting us both in for free. It was worth it just to see the incredibly hot bartenders, who probably get hit on more than any of the girls in there.

We had a few expensive drinks: I had a $5 beer which I really held and nursed all night, while Aaron had 2 SoCo shots for $15. He had previously had a 5th of Smirnoff at the hotel.

We barely made it to Harrah’s in time for Skintight, but we were seated just in time. The show was mostly girls dancing and stripping down to just their thongs and traditional showgirl headpieces. The lead was Shannon O’Keefe from Playboy. We both enjoyed the show which was different than anything we’d ever seen before.

We passed all the famous casinos: The Venetian, Caesar’s, Bally’s, etc. Along the way, we stopped in the Aladdin and walked around their ritzy mall where they had a simulated storm complete with rain, thunder and lightning. We also did a preview screening of an episode of Whoopi which I tore apart due to its distasteful and risky comments about Arabs.

Next stop was the Venetian which was very impressive with Gondolas and its canal setup. They also had a mall inside with canals and Gondola rides. In the Venetian, we were both walking out of the bathroom before dinner when some guy told us he had to shake our hands since he never met anyone from Jersey before. We also met another man from Mt. Laurel there, too. We quickly got bored and headed back north.

On the way we got trapped in Caesar’s which, like all the other casinos, is set up to trap you and hide the exits. After 20 minutes, we found the unmarked exit and had to walk up a side street to find the Strip.

After dinner, we walked north to an outside courtyard (I think near Harrah’s) and paid our $5 cover to join an outdoor party with "married, drunk 28 yr-olds" as Aaron put it, $5 beers, and an American Indian karaoke singer who ranged from Eminem to disco. It was relaxing and interesting so we stayed about an hour before heading back to sleep.

I was surprised with how cool the dry heat felt to us. It was at least in the 90’s, but only felt like 85. Nighttime was amazing and warm. The best part was that we were probably sweating but didn’t even feel disgusting at all since it all evaporated right away.

At one point we took a trolley to the southern end of the strip with a few girls we met at our pool. The trolley took an hour and 15 minutes to get to Mandalay Bay, so we should’ve taken the bus. MB was way too ritzy for us with all the snobs, so we went next door to the Luxor, which was amazing with the Sphinx and Pyramid setup. Inside, the rooms were staggered up the grade of the pyramid. We ate at a horrible Mexican restaurant and chatted a bit more until 7 when we had to split up for our 7:30 shows. We were really enjoying our new friends' company so we exchanged cell numbers so we could meet up afterwards.

Later, we met the girls at NY, NY for a little more Wheel of Fortune—a waste of time and more money. We stopped in the Harley Davidson shop so Erin could find her fiancée a shirt while Suzy tried on cowboy hats, and Aaron and I relaxed on the leather sofas.

We then walked down to the Bellagio which was the classiest casino we’ve been to. We watched the water show out front with all the lights at night.

All the clubs we were searching for had snobbish dress codes, so we ended up just walking back to Harrah’s where we sat and watched dueling pianos until midnight. Our "dates" insisted on paying for a cab back since we had given them a few ones for the trolley earlier. We got back to the Sahara, exchanged email addresses and went off to bed. When we woke up at 11, we saw them at the pool from our window, so we stopped by to say goodbye after checking out from the hotel.

We made it down to The Boardwalk on the right side where we had a $6.95 breakfast buffet, which consisted of the obvious breakfast foods. We then made it down to the bar for 99c Piña Coladas and Daiquiris. The bartender, Anthony, was really cool and gave us some double shot coladas at no extra charge. Our tab was only about $8.50 for about 8 or 9 drinks. Anthony, a LV native, wasn’t even shocked that we were drinking at 7 am, but he was humored by our tales of the road.

About 15 minutes after we got there, two girls from Wisconsin, Erica and Nicole, came up to the bar to drink away their morning, too. They were staying at the NY, NY on their parents comps (rich girls) and got up at 7 to go swimming, only to find that their hotel's pool opens at 10. They were definitely a bit snobby and had the most annoying accents. Aaron passed out on the bar and one of them made a comment about how crabby he was. He was in Paul Smisek "I hate people" mode and told her he was suffering from heroin withdraw. She was a really dumb blonde and didn’t get the joke. Fortunately they were into the bartender and wanted him to get them drunk so they could get cheap tattoos later. They seemed to me like "Snobs Gone Wild."

We left at about 10 and started making our way back to the hotel.

It was 6am when we got off our bus and we were immediately greeted with a bunch of stranded loners as soon as we reached the north end’s trashy pseudo-strip. It seemed like a collection of very outdated and cheap casinos and motels. Two tripped out weirdos approached us and asked if we wanted to shower at their room at the Golden Nugget. I don’t even think they were gay—-just tripped on acid I suppose. We made our way out of there and made a point not to return as long as we were in Vegas. Don't waste your time...just stick to The Strip

My favorite observation about LV was its obsession with sex. Every corner has 3 or 4 newspaper machines full of call girl ads and cards. As you walk down the street, Hispanic guys click the cards together and try to hand them out. I’ve been collecting these cards which consist of a picture (naked, but some censored) on the front and a name, number and message on the back. I’ve been collecting them like baseball cards, so far. When I get a chance, I'll scan some and put a few (censored) ones up here.