Hotels

Las Vegas's downtown still has the same low rent gaming that made the town famous generations ago. It's two miles North of the strip, and it can be as much fun as the mega-resorts to the South. If you're staying downtown and have a car, the El Cortez has nice rooms on the hotel's East end, great prices, and good room availability when rooms are hard to find. It also has good dining options for both price and quality. However it's a couple blocks too far from the main downtown casino area to walk, considering the neighborhood. If you're staying downtown without a car you might want to call a number of places to check on prices and availability. After giving them your dates it's always a good idea to ask what specials they are running. Another thing to ask about is the room. Since the whole town is in a continual state of renovation, ask if your room will be in the new tower, or has been recently renovated. The Plaza at the end of the Fremont Street strip has good rooms at good prices, with the South tower most convienient if you'll have a car.

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Some other places downtown you might want to check out are, Main Street Station, Fremont, Las Vegas Club and Golden Nugget. If you are gambling downtown in the evening be sure to step outside on the hour (Remember I told you to bring a watch.) to see the Fremont Street Experience, an animated overhead sign with a musical soundtrack. The music and sound system are outstanding. It's cute, it's fun, it's free, and there are at least five different hourly shows, each lasting around 5 minutes. For late night dining downtown I'd suggest the Las Vegas Club. And for a Shrimp Coctail the 99 cent offering at the Golden Gate is the best. If you are a Texas Hold-em poker player, Binion's Horseshoe, where they used to host the World Series Of Poker, offers a lot of tournaments for small buy-ins, and plenty of lively cash games too. At least once an hour they hold a one table tournament where 10 players put up 65 bucks and the winner gets $550. The west wall of their poker roon has photos of the WSOP winners. Across the street at the Golden Nugget they have a nice assortment of cash games and various daily tornaments. Also downtown, the Plaza holds frequent poker tournaments with small buy-ins and spreads a variety of cash games. On Thursday nights, the Mirage on the strip has a $200 tournament. The Bellagio has daily mid-priced tournaments, with satellites at 9 AM. If you stop by the Nugget or Horseshoe poker rooms you'll find some cool poker magazines for free, including Card Player, always a good read for poker enthusiasts.

If you'll be on the strip without a car, you should shoot for the middle of the strip. This leaves you with way too many reasonable choices, so let's make it simple. Upscale, try Caesar's Palace. Downscale, cross the street to Imperial Palace. (whose auto collection is a freebie worth taking advantage of) The strip is about 3 miles long, so being in the middle makes it easy to tour the strip on foot. If you're in town for anything at the Convention Center, the closest hotel is the Las Vegas Hilton, followed by the Riviera across the street. Both are good hotels with reasonable prices. That general area is toward the North end of the strip. The Riviera is on the strip, the Convention Center and Hilton are on Paradise Road, one block East. The cheapest accomodations in that part of the strip would be Westward Ho. Part of the slots area at the Las Vegas Hilton is sci-fi themed in connection with their Star Trek ride. It's a must-see, that shows a lot of thought went into every detail, including the best restrooms in Las Vegas! In May of '98 the Hilton was actually fined several hundred thousand dollars by the Nevada Gaming Commission because of children playing the machines in the SpaceQuest area adjacent to the Star Trek ride.

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It's a shame, because some of the machines are activated by placing your hand through a set of sensors, and parents were letting the kids activate the machines without actually touching them, but the NGC took a dim view. The Hilton has sinced added security in the area, and added signs. Please don't let your kids play the machines at the Hilton, or anywhere else. If you're looking for lodging at the South end of the strip, the choices are less than ideal, as those hotels tend to be too big, or too noisy, or even too far South. The Tropicana, or Luxor, or even the boring, generic looking Monte Carlo might be worth a try, although I think I'd opt for avoiding a stay at that end of the strip. Excalibur would be an acceptable choice if you're bringing kids. Interestingly, all the casinos on the west side of the strip from Treasure Island to Mandalay Bay are owned by MGM, except for Caesar's Palace