Palace Station

[teknohead]

Hey guys, I'm a clueless Aussie tourist looking for a little advice on a planned holiday/honeymoon this September.

My wife and I will be spending a month in the USA for our honeymoon, part of this trip includes 2 weeks in Vegas. (Originally planned for only 1 week & 1 week in NYC but since our budget is now only $15k we had to change).

Anyway, we have both agreed that we'd rather spend our money on doing things rather than paying for a fancy room. The photos of the King tower rooms in Palace Station look decent and the price is reasonable too. Given that we have a hire car for the trip too we didn't want to be on the strip because it'd be a pain getting to and from if traffic is as bad as I'm lead to believe.

The plan was to use the shuttle from Palace Station to the strip and back when we wanna do stuff on the strip.

My question is, are we really putting ourselves out by doing this? Everywhere I've read says that you should really be on the Strip if you want to enjoy your stay, but we are only gonna party hard a few nights, we want to be able to retreat somewhere nice & quiet if we need to.

Also advice on whether or not the hotel is any good would be appreciated. I don't want to stay somewhere if it's shit. Thanks

[Fall]

If you're staying in Vegas for a week (especially if it's a special occasion) then personally I would stay on the Strip, for the following reasons:


- You mentioned you wanted "doing things" as the priority. Well, the only thing you'll be doing downtown is gambling and drinking. Which is fine, however, since it's your honeymoon I'm assuming you'd like more to do than that.

- You don't seem too concerned about room quality, but you can find really great deals on rooms on the strip. Maybe not as super cheap as downtown, but the deals on strip rooms on sites such as 'smartervegas' and others get pretty close (shoot me your email and I'll send you their latest offer list).

- If you stayed on the strip, you could ditch the "hired car" entirely. You can walk pretty much everywhere and if you feel lazy, take a $10 cab ride. Plus there are shuttles to the downtown area. Also, I could write entire essays about all the shows on the strip, which really are a part of the Vegas experience.

Anyway, if you rarely get to Vegas, then stay on the Strip ... nothing in the States compares to it.

~evan

[Matt]

Staying on strip would save you a bunch of money in hire cars and taxis, and I'm quite sure you can get a reasonable room for similar money on strip.

[josemcorona]

Staying on strip would save you a bunch of money in hire cars and taxis, and I'm quite sure you can get a reasonable room for similar money on strip.

+1
all the money you are going to waste on renting a car and all the taxis (shuttles) will add up at the end of the trip. So might as well stay on the strip. Look into NYNY, Excalibur, Luxer, Monte Carlos, Harrahs, Ballys, Imperial Palace. You might get a good deal in any of these hotels, just sign up for their guestbook and you will start receiving offers quick.

[Nailer]

Look into Luxor... It was crazy cheap during May some of the rooms were 40 dollars a night

[smartone618]

Please don't stay at the Palace Station for your honeymoon. It's not downtown as a previous poster indicated, it's on Sahara on the west- side of the freeway (I-15). It's a big joint, with nothing in walking distance. It's a huge "locals" place and you can bet there'll be plenty of blue-hairs, walkers and oxygen tanks around.

I'm sure you could easily get similar priced rooms on the strip with just a bit of shopping around at the properties listed above and everything you'd ever want to do or see would be right in your lap.

I have a rental car for business purposes every month I visit Vegas and turn it in with like 30 miles after 3 days each time. I use it for a couple meetings, it's not worth it otherwise.

Hate to throw water of your plans, but you asked... whatever you do CONGRATULATIONS and I hope you have a blast!!!

[bobu]

Vegas rooms are very cheap, probably some of the best deals in the world. Don't stay at Palace station. Along with their nightly resort fee, and the fact you're kinda in the middle of nowhere, you won't get the full Las Vegas experience. If you're on a budget, learn to use Priceline or Hotwire and get yourself something decent on the strip.

[smartone618]

I should've preface my earlier remarks by saying, the Palace Station is not a dump. It's a decent lower to mid-level property in my opinion and the table-gaming will have lower buy-ins than on the strip and the paytables will probably be a little friendlier than on the strip as well... such is a good "locals" joint.

I just have to agree with those above... it's not the Vegas "experience" for most.

[teknohead]

Thanks for the advice guys, I really appreciate it. Just to clarify, when I say we are on a budget I don't mean we are paupers. The budget of $15k only has to pay for food & drink, vegas accomodation and any activities we want to do. We've already paid our flights, LA accomodation, San Diego Accomodation and travel insurance. We're in the US from September 27th to October 23rd.

At the Palace Station I managed to get the luxury king tower room with strip views for $558 (via priceline, $823 with taxes and resort fees) for 14 days . I had planned to try the $20 sandwich on check in too, I might get the petite suite if I'm lucky! If we can get something similar on the strip that'd be great, as I said I hate spending money on accomodation, I'd rather spending on doing stuff around vegas. We're going to do skydiving, visit the gun store and shoot all the WW2 guns, go to the raceway and do laps in the lamborghini or ferarri, see heaps of shows and get wasted a few days.

As far as the hire car is concerned we have the car (Dodge Challenger SRT8) from October 1st til October 23rd (day we fly home) with pickup and dropoff being at LAX. It's only costing $2295 for the rental period which is less than $100 a day giving us the freedom to explore when we're tired of the lights & sounds of the city. Both of us REALLY want to drive a Dodge Challenger so it's more important for us to have the car even if we don't use it much while in Vegas. We'll still have plenty of use for it for the LA & San Diego portions of the trip. We look at hiring a car in LA with dropoff in vegas, then hiring again in vegas with dropoff in LA and the difference in cost was under $1000. Given the freedom it will give us $1000 is a small price to pay.

So taking everyones advice on board here it seems I'm best to look at a property like the Luxor. Do all strip casinos have parking & valets?

In any case I think we're both more excited about our honeymoon than the wedding itself lol. Oh and the best part is my birthday will be on our second day in Vegas (oct 6th) too, strip clubs here we come!!

[smartone618]

Yes... they all have free parking and valet attendants. I'm impressed... you two have got a lot of cool stuff on your plate to do other than the normal... pool, clubbin', gamblin' and sleep.

[teknohead]

Pools aren't much interest to us, we have one at home. The idea was though to do as many cool things in Vegas as we can that we can't do at home.

Definitley keen on some clubbing and drinking for a few nights though, I'm still trying to get my head around bottle service though as we don't have anything like that here at Melbourne clubs (at least to my knowledge!).

If we wanted to go to a club and get shitfaced with say, a bottle of vodka and a bottle of jaegermeister, do they give us free stuff to mix it with if we pay like $200 a bottle? Or do they only do the bottle service for groups?

I can polish off a bottle of jaeger on my own but I think my missus would struggle with a bottle of vodka lol.

[Fall]

Most bottle service comes with mixers, however on a personal level I don't think I would spend the money on bottle service for just myself and my girl -- you already have the girl, so just go hang out on the dance floor ; )

Of course, if the money really doesn't matter to you and you just want a nice seat at the best clubs, then by all means do it.

*Keep in mind you're paying 400 bucks for a $30 bottle of vodka*

For a couple, pre-party in the casino or in your room, get to the club early and get your hand stamped, buy a couple drinks at the club, save a few hundred bucks imho.

[JDM]

I stayed at Palace Station when I needed a cheap room about a decade ago and had fun gambling, but that is it. There are tons of cheap options on the strip (Bills comes to mind) that are in a lot better locations fo doing stuff.

[jasonkevin]

As far as the hire car is concerned we have the car (Dodge Challenger SRT8) from October 1st til October 23rd (day we fly home) with pickup and dropoff being at LAX. It's only costing $2295 for the rental period which is less than $100 a day giving us the freedom to explore !

Yikes.
Next time check out: http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/trav...ussion/971697/

I usually don't spend more then $30 a day for a car when I'm in the states. Plus most major credit cards will cover the insurance.

But have a good trip!

[teknohead]

Thanks for the tip jasonkevin, but we have our hearts set on the Dodge Challenger. I spent ages looking and the price we got is the best I could find.

Also thanks heaps for the advice guys, we have decided on getting a 5* on the strip using priceline. We are going to try for the Venetian or the Palazzo for the 14 nights and give them a $50 sandwich