Observations & Conclusions!

I want to start this off by saying R.I.P Robin Williams. The world was shocked by his passing. It just amazes me how many people can be so depressed without anyone ever knowing, that is pretty sad :(. It is SOOOOOO easy to hide. My family has been rocked by suicide more than once so i do understand  it somewhat and addictions as well.

Now again, this was directly copied from the Las Vegas Message Board i wrote this for. I will be doing another post about some of the product differences, i need to find some pictures online. I would LOVE to show the differences, makes it much easier. I have been really busy lately though, both with work and personal life. My husband and i both bought new vehicles!!! I will write that up in another post yet. He hasn't shared his new truck with many people, i think it is still a dream for him. It is not my story to share so i have not posted it on fb but i can on here. I didn't quite think it was the right time for a new truck as the payments are not cheap and i am looking for another job for various reasons but i will explain all that in the post too. He drives my car mostly though, as it is real cheap on gas LOL.

Anyways, here ya go to wrap up the Vegas posts and get back to real life.

So as i stated before; we had a really small budget. I was NOT going to let that stop us from having fun. If you can't already tell we did a lot, and had a lot of fun. 

I went there with an open mind knowing i would/should see stuff outside my normal element. I would never scoff seeing a man dressed as a woman anyways but i LOVED that people felt they could be themselves. I saw a black man wearing a hot pink bra (not sure if he had a skirt or what) and the guy coming the opposite way scowled at him and i gave him a big smile. He was like i like you honey, you smile for me, you must like the boobs, yes that is it (word for word). I started laughing and kept walking. 

I expected to see stuff like that and it never bothers me in the least. I liked that gay men/women felt comfortable enough to show that they are gay, to hold their partners hand. That doesn't bother me at home either but just not something we see regularly. I don't mind if people are different in the least but most are afraid to show it. It appears that Vegas is a place where we are ALL just people! It seems to be a place where people are more tolerant because it is what they expect. Not sure why the rest of the world is not that way but anyways. 

I expected it to be bigger than it is, the resorts to be bigger than they are. MGM, Bellagio, CP are of course huge but the majority are not that big to me. Many people said MB is really big and the food court/shark reef is far. We stayed at a resort at Disneyworld where you needed a car to go to any other part of the resort it was that big. It was a couple miles long from the main building to the housing. I found MB to be fairly small. It was sooooooo easy to navigate as well. i really like the lay out. 

Many also stated that they didn't like MB because they want to be center strip. We bought bus passes so it was really, really easy to get anywhere including middle strip. We never had to sit on the bus very long other than we went downtown. I LOVED south strip. I don't think i would really want to stay middle strip. It is too bustling for me. I liked that i could go there, but leave again to my quiet place. I would not go North strip, just too far North.

People also said, do not waste time on the bus, take a cab, as time is money. I tell ya, the $36 i spent on the bus overall was the best investment we made for our trip. I liked that we could go 1 stop, or 10 stops. If you take sdx all the time is never validates either and you could use it more than one trip. Sure you have limited hours, but if you are cheap, it works. 

We did take a cab when switching hotels & back to the airport but i would not have wanted to take one all over. They get stuck in the traffic just as much as the bus but they also wrack up your money at the same time. To me money is much more important than time. I rarely feel like my time is so precious that the 10 minutes i spent on the bus was wasted. The worst of it was Friday afternoon. 4pm it was a gridlock on the strip. Other than that it never took too long to get anywhere. Friday and Sunday were extremely busy on the strip, way worse than fight night Saturday. MGM seemed dead when we went past and all the cops were at PHO and not MGM. 

I LOVED Fremont street under the canopy. I expected it to be dirty, full of vagrants from what we had read but it was AWESOME!!! I loved all the lights everywhere, the open casinos etc. I would not want to sleep there as i like my sleep and it was loud but i loved the atmosphere. My husband agreed that it was totally my scene. I expected to see hot waitresses and dealers all over the place in Vegas and that was not the case.......... at all. 

Many places had OLD waitresses, really old, with their boobs pushed up in uniform. GG had the best looking ones from all the places we hit and they would still only rate about 7/10. I expected to see hot chicks everywhere (on the street, at the pool etc) and the reality is that most were just average, and that is ok. It was much less intimidating than if there were 11/10's all over. Of course you had your hotties too, but more a mixture of people than i had expected. I can't do heels and get real envious of those who can, but i laugh when i see half of them carrying them at the end of the night. I know we didn't visit any of the really upscale places but even the Venetian had average folk. 

I thought the porn slappers would be annoying, but they really didn't bother me (who pays them anyways???) If prostitution is illegal i am not sure how solicitation is legal under different pretenses. The characters did not bother me either. I didn't try to get my picture taken anyways, i am not one to go gaga over celebs so fake ones just don't do it for me. The ones peddling cds i found to be the worst though. You can't go 1/100th of a mile without seeing a character/porn slapper/cd pusher/"musician" etc. We saw one guy who had a mike and speaker out there pretending he was singing. Not many caught it but my husband caught the difference between him & the soundtrack. He was just covering the words like i used to do in 7th grade, trying to pass it off as the singer. 

I also expected very large crowds, the only places i found it bad was around MGM and downtown. Everywhere else i found it normal to moderate. I lived in Calgary when i was in my teens and went to stampede, now those are crowds lol. 

My perception due to this board was very different from the reality, or at least what we experienced. That is a good thing. I expected it to be much worse in many aspects so i had pleasant surprises. 

I am not going to make this a Canadian/American thing by any means but after my 4th trip to a major city in the USA i still do not like some of the food/drinks. I couldn't find one bag of chips at the whole foods i would like. I do not eat tons of junk food but wanted 1 bag that would last me the duration of our stay. At the hotel chips were $7 and i did not want to pay that. The only thing i found that we have up here is Doritos. You all have some weird stuff down there. I am sure many think that way when they come to Canada too. Biscuits and white gravy are not a thing here, we use brown gravy, it has flavor. Sweet tea is gross, i prefer brisk iced tea. Real ice tea is too rank for me. Alcohol that is sold in grocery stores is malt based. If you like coolers come across the border and have a real one that is made with vodka or rum. I also tried krispie kremes (though not dunkin donuts) and i didn't like them. For 0.75 i can get a good donut at the grocery store if i want them or $1 at timmies gets me a baked one (vs fried). $1.30 for a very small, not very tasty donut was not worth it We have starbucks too, but $4 for a normal coffee is crazy. My husband loves his coffee in the morning. He couldn't wait to have a timmies coffee when we got home (for $2, 20 oz). 

I loved the open containers. I think if more cities took this on there would be less problems with drinking. We rarely came across someone that was too drunk. Most were just enjoying the beer. That doesn't mean you don't get the ones that take it too far but you get those anyways so that won't make a difference. I don't drink much/or often but when i do i hold my own really well. Sometimes it's just nice to walk around with that drink and enjoy the weather. Here i do that with slurpees. Your icees do not even compare. The first time i went to 7-11 and got a "slurpee" in florida i thought i been ripped off. It was SOOOOO different than the ones at home. Ours have actual ice, i can't even describe the difference. It was just weird to me lol. I thought ours were expensive at $2 but got one at walgreens one night when i was very thirsty and a small one was more than that. I guess they do if your in a pinch. 

We never made it in the door of CP or Bellagio, just too big, i couldn't do it. I thought we would have hit those for sure. I also wanted to see MGM and Flamingo. Maybe if we would have been on the side at MGM where the check in desk is it would have been different but walked in the casino, saw how large it was and walked right back out. Flamingo looks dingy from strip side so i didn't even want to go there. It probably looks different once you get past that but it made me not even want to bother. I liked the look/feel of Tropicana. That is where i wanted to stay instead of GC. I did like the GC too though, especially the quiet pool. I did NOT like the MC, for many reasons, i would not stay there again. 

People said excal is a dump, i found it ok, but way way too many kids. I would stay there if i needed something cheap though. MB i would definitely stay again, but it is showing age like many say. I loved it, and it is place i would take my mother. NYNY i thought i would love and i do, but again, lots of kids. I did NOT like the feel of the luxor, it made me feel really claustrophobic and i couldn't wait to get out of there. V/P feels luxurious, way out of my league. Harrah's/quad seems ok, but too smoky for me. I liked the look of the mirage, but their casino is also very smoky compared to others. It also felt like a place more suited for 20 year olds. 

Bally's/paris seem like a favorite here but i did not like Bally's either. I never entered Paris so i can't say about over there. Wynn/Encore we never stepped foot in and i doubt ever would, unless we had lots of money. I think the same with Cosmo. I would stay at Aria through myvegas but we did not go there. 

Vegas can be done on the cheap WITHOUT having to run all over using coupons. With my limited food options most places are just a waste of money for me and their are plenty of cheaper options. We didn't step foot in McDonald's other than to use the bathroom. Groupon & restaurant.com can have real good specials. We have 3 credit card #s (one is joint, but diff #s) so i used 3 email addys so we could get more than 1 of each, and send gift also so their are ways to make it work. 

I would never step foot in Diablo's again or Toby Keith. TK because of the bad service and Diablo's for the reasons i mentioned in a previous post. I would also take the bus again in a heartbeat. Not sure why many more do not. Well worth the money. I did our suitcases in a way to minimize so taking the 109 to the SSTT to get the 15 day pass was not a big deal. If you do get a pass, just remember, if you are Canadian you can't use your bank card for it. It didn't really take much longer than a cab would (guess it depends where you going). We did take cab on the way back though because we had more luggage, which i expected and planned for. 

Vegas has something for everyone. I would go back again in a heartbeat. My husband, not so much. I totally love the atmosphere and vibe and i thrived on it. He is much more relaxed and would have preferred a beach setting going to bed early every night. 2-3 am is no biggie for me, i am the night owl. He didn't complain too much, but at the end told me if i wanted to go back i would have to go with someone else lol. Fine by me, i would take my mom. **Update, he told me just a couple weeks ago that he actually had a lot of fun (i did know that, he is just stubborn and harder to admit things lol), we got along great and left all  home stuff at home, and that he would go back again if we did it for cheap like the first time but i want him to have this beach vacation. I did explain the differences between Vegas and a beach is for a person like myself who can not sit still, but i will do it for him, it finally seemed to click for him though lol.**

I was aware of my surroundings at all times but i can see how easy it is to have all the issues we hear of. Drinking lets your guard down and people would trust more than if they were sober. I also noticed a difference between cabbies with people who were drunk. Here at home if you gave one $40 for a $26 fare they would hand you all the change or ask how much change you want. There he just took it all, got out of the cab to open the door (probably to see if he could get away with taking the full 14$ difference). People when drinking are just much more vulnerable all around. That is part of the reason i rarely get drunk, i don't like to not have full control. I am very friendly and love everyone so that has got me in trouble when i was younger. 

I also expected a lot of walking. With my health issues i did not find it too terrible, but i would have if i didn't have the bus pass. That also gave me 5 minutes to sit (most times there was a seat). 

People here keep talking about playing for drinks. We played at a few different places and the only one that seemed to have actual drink service was MSS. MB had only a couple servers for the whole place at the busy times so even though we both were playing a minimum 20 at a time we only saw a server once out of the 3-4 times we were down in the casino. There was one place (i don't remember where) that the waitress was practically running throughout the place. She was yelling drinks, but didn't give anyone a chance to order. We laughed every time we saw her, not sure why she wouldn't want the tips? She never had a drink on her tray, just a bottle or 2 of water. Couldn't get a drink from her if we wanted to. 

I am sure there is more, and if i think of anything else i will add it. I hope no one takes offense to any of the things i said either. This is my perceptions only (again, this is the footnotes i had on the original post, not something i added). I loved vegas and i want to go back for sure, but it won't happen for a while.