VegasChatter

Tags: Snapshot / Imperial Palace / Driving / Limos / → All Tags

Shocker of the Week: Imperial Palace Has a Limo

Do our eyes deceive us? We were driving down Industrial Road the other day, round the back of Caesars, when we noticed the limo in front had this license plate. That looks strangely like it belongs to Imperial Palace, but surely IP can’t have a limo. Can it?

Oh yes it can. It turned left in front of us, and we were so shocked, we had to take a picture.

more ›

Tags: Survival Strategies / Tips / Parking / Driving / Valets / MGM Grand / Events / → All Tags

A Trip to NY Is Your Best Bet to Avoid The MGM Grand Traffic

In our ongoing effort to bring you the latest in what’s happening around Las Vegas we do a lot of driving. Which means we do a lot of parking. We dread heading to some casino garages more than others since most aren't empty with a bottle waiting.

Valet is always an option, of course, but some valets are always so busy you can expect a hefty wait, and many always claim to be full on weekends (Caesars and Mandalay Place seem to be permanently full on weekends, and the Palms had run out of space by the time we arrived on Saturday). Which means you're left with self park.

more ›

Tags: Driving / Road Trips / Survival Strategies / → All Tags

Where Not To Speed On Your Road Trip From LA

No speed checks here guv’nor

With planes being annoying about bag allowances, ticket prices and people trying to open doors mid-flight at the moment, driving to Vegas seems like a no-brainer. And seeing as it’s only 275 miles from LA, doing that route seems even no-brainier. Driving through the desert, on the freeway – what’s not to love? The pesky police and their pesky speed traps, that’s what.

We just got back last night from a mini road trip to LA and one thing we noticed (apart from the gas stations in Victorville not taking credit cards and people in Barstow being a bit odd) was that, every time we’ve done this drive (admittedly, only four times, but four out of four aint bad), the police speed checks seem to be in the same places.

more ›

Tags: Aria / CityCenter / Monte Carlo / Valets / Parking / Driving / → All Tags

Is Monte Carlo The Solution to Aria's Valet Blues?

So far we haven’t been a big fan of the valet situation at Aria but we’ve given them a couple passes as they sort out the kinks. The self-park garage is a whole ‘nother story as it’s harder to locate and navigate than a Courtney Love interview. Whether you’ve given up on parking at Aria altogether or just don’t want the valet lifting that El DeBarge cassette buried under the passenger seat, what are your options?

more ›

Tags: Snapshot / Palazzo / Valets / Driving / Parking / → All Tags

With Seats Like This, You'll Wish The Palazzo Valets Took Longer

As your grandmother would say, something good always comes out of something bad. So although we had a stinky time with old Courtney Love at Tao on Saturday, we can’t dislike that night, because we made a glorious discovery in the valet area of the Palazzo.

Glorious? Why yes! No chocolate, no kittens, no sexy men unfortunately, but there was this – a lovely (faux?) leather chaise longue to perch on while we waited for out car to be delivered. Bellissimo!

more ›

Tags: Tweet of the Weekend / Twitter / Survival Strategies / Driving / Parking / → All Tags

Tweet of the Weekend: When People Make It Hard For Themselves

Many people got trashed in Vegas this weekend, and lots of them told the world about it. So, every Monday we’re bringing you our favourite tweet of the weekend. And don’t forget to follow us at @vegaschatter.

As you’d know if you’d been following our Twitter feed on Saturday night, we decided to stump up the readies to spend a night with Mariah Carey. We weren’t disappointed by the concert, or the drunkest girl ever who, on leaving the Colosseum, fell down the stairs, broke her glass, belched loudly and then announced to the staircase “that’s what happens when you’re drunk”.

Personally, we weren’t disappointed by the journey out, either, since we’d parked at the Mirage and walked over to the Colosseum. But by the looks of Twitter, not everyone was as savvy as us. Take @itsAlexScott, for example:

more ›

Tags: Snapshot / Hoover Dam / Video / Do Not Do / Road Trips / Driving / Survival Strategies / → All Tags

This is Why You Shouldn’t Drive to Vegas Via the Hoover Dam on a Weekend

Don’t get us wrong. We love crossing the Hoover Dam and all. It’s beautiful, spectacular, a testament to man’s ingenuity etc etc (plus we always think of the scene at the beginning of Goldeneye, and we love a good Bond film). As the guy beside us in the video here puts it so eloquently, it’s an “intense dam”. But much as we love it, we wouldn’t want to queue for hours to get over it.

more ›

Tags: Snapshot / Driving / WTF / Taxis / Cabs / → All Tags

How To Drive Well On the Strip: Just Back Off The Tires In Front

Vegas driving: dontcha just love it? Freeways with about eight different lanes marked on top of each other, cars stopping randomly on the Strip to catch the Bellagio fountains, and, um, taxis that think that being able to see their tires is a mark of good driving.

Surely if you can’t see their rear tires, that’d be because you’re pretty much touching bumpers with him? So yeah, we were aware that that would be unsafe. But we'd hope for a little more with 'safe' driving.

(And yes, we’re mainly bitter because we failed our Nevada relocation driving test yesterday. Possibly because we were staying too far back from the car in front.)

Tags: Cashing Out / CityCenter / Traffic / Driving / → All Tags

CityCenter To Close Down Part of The Strip For the Next Ten Days

If you thought the traffic on the Strip was bad because of the CityCenter construction, it's about to get a bit worse for the next week or so.

The Southbound side of Las Vegas Boulevard at Harmon is now closed. Cars are being merged into the Northbound lanes. Ugh. This is supposed to last until November 27th. Drivers are urged to avoid the area and if you need some tips for driving around the Strip, check out our suggestions here.

But you know what would make this closure more bearable? The Stripper Mobile! Bring it back! Bring it back! Bring it back!

Here's what else is on in Vegas:
· The latest on the Fontaine-bust [AP]
· Vegas casinos get duped...by Canadians!! [Reuters]
· Was the Mirage trying to party like it's 1969? [@SinCityAdvisor]
· Hit Up Blush for the annual Toy Drive. The toys are for needy children. Not you and your bi-curious spouse. [@Blush_Nightclub]

Tags: Driving / Road Trips / Survival Strategies / → All Tags

Things To Know Before You Road Trip It To Vegas

With the latest round of cuts from US Airways on flights to and from Vegas, as well as escalating fare prices from other airlines and ridiculous checked baggage fees (except from Southwest), we can't blame you if you're thinking about road-trippin' it for your next trip to Vegas.

We did the Las Vegas-Los Angeles a few times this summer and we've got a few tips to share with you. While some of these are route specific (sorry, no Hoover Dam stops here), we think you can apply some of these tips regardless of your starting point.

While we were happy to save on airfare (weekend tickets to Vegas were around $150 round-trip; gas was about $75 total), we just happened to choose the worst times to leave Los Angeles on the way out there and to leave Las Vegas coming home.

We left on Thursday at 4:25pm from Santa Monica which is prime traffic time in L.A. but we couldn't skip out of work any earlier. This was also the day that Michael Jackson died and everyone was flooding the Westside to camp out at the UCLA Medical Center. So try to avoid departing on a day that a major pop icon dies in Los Angeles. For instance, when Britney kicks the can in Malibu, put off your trip for another few hours or possibly a day, if her death was "too soon."

more ›

Tags: Survival Strategies / Transportation / Driving / → All Tags

How to Get Around The Strip By Car

If you’re visiting Vegas and have a car, you need to know that there’s virtually no reason whatsoever why you should ever need to drive on Las Vegas Boulevard. It’s likely to be jam packed any night of the week – on weekends, it’s sure to be – and there are a few parallel roads that will get you where you need to go in a fraction of the time it’ll take you to travel the four miles of the Strip itself.

Just print out a map of the Strip and orient yourself to these three routes: Industrial Road, Koval Lane and Paradise Road. That first one runs more or less parallel to the Strip on the west side (the same side as the Mirage, Caesars, Bellagio and Mandalay Bay), and the second two run roughly parallel to the Strip on the east side (that’d be the same side as MGM Grand, Venetian and Wynn).

Koval Lane should be your route of choice if you’re traveling anywhere from the Venetian at the north end to Mandalay Bay at the south. Note that once it crosses Tropicana Avenue heading south, it makes a dramatic curve to the right and turns into Hacienda Avenue before dumping you off right between Mandalay Bay and the Luxor, where you have your pick of either the Mandalay Place parking valet area to the right (good choice and never a wait for your car) or THEhotel/Mandalay Bay hotel valets and parking garage on your left.

more ›