Couple in their late 30's try to handle 3 day clubs + 3 nightclubs in 3 days

[Dyur21]

So I wanted to post a trip report that will hopefully help some other folks out planning their vegas trips as we just got back and this site and the members shared experience was a major part of making the trip unbelievable. I was asked to attend a conference in vegas for a few days and my wife joined me after the conclusion of the conference for Thursday - Sunday. We are in our late 30's but still like to party like we are 21. We have been to vegas several times and seemingly each time gets harder to top. Because we are a few years older and a few pounds heavier I was very concerned about a few topics that seem to come up an awful lot on these posts:

1) Are we too old for these day/night clubs? Will we feel like the old folks at the club?
2) how much does appearance matter at these clubs? Will we feel so subconscious that we do not have a good time?
3) Because there were only two of us what are we going to do about lines? How can they be avoided and can we get in with ease? What about getting drinks will that be a pain?
4) can we survive partying for 3 days straight at two clubs a day?

Thanks to this site and planning none of the above were a problem at all. We honestly had the greatest time in Vegas and I cannot imagine how it could have went any better. I hope if I provide some play by play details it can help someone else.

Here was the itinerary:

Wife's arrival 7:30pm Thursday
Our departure 2:30 Sunday

Thursday (night): drai's
Friday (day): marquee dayclub
Friday (night): marquee then chateau then back to marquee
Saturday (day): rehab
Saturday (night): tao then drai's after hours (sort of)
Sunday (day): liquid

I will add to this post over the next couple of days to try to provide some details about our experiences at these clubs, we covered a lot of ground in just a few days so any feedback on how I am posting this is appreciated.

[Dyur21]

Thursday (night)- drai's

So my wife gets into town around 7:30. She is exhausted and hungry. I am scared because I know we have planned a crazy itinerary and her mood is trending in a bad way for day 1. We stayed at the aria (more on this later).so we grab some quick food at the aria cafe (it was fine nothing special but she wanted something fast) and she gets cleaned up and is ready to go out. She is pretty fired up to go dancing but she is tired so we waste no time and head to drai's around 10:30.

I bought presale for drai's I want to say it was 30 for us in total. The line situation here has to be a complete mess when it is busy. Presale does not help you until you get through the initial line. Because it was a Thursday and so early it only took 15 minutes to get in BUT presale did us no good here. I hope they fix this in the future because we did like this place.

Inside drai's is pretty awesome. It reminded me of one of the club scenes from scareface, the view is awesome, the club is very well lit and is by far the best club we have been in from an ascetics standpoint, it is really impressive.

Because we were there so early it was empty, almost like a junior high dance. We grab drinks from the bar (this part I picked up on this site, BIG help) two drinks were 30, I give the bartender 50 and tell her to keep the change. We go up to the same bartender twenty minutes later (club is still slow) she now is chatting up my wife finding out what custom cocktail my wife wants, drinks cost 30 I give her 40. From that point forward we go to that bar every time, we never wait. Line 5 people deep I approach she raises 1 finger on one hand and two on the other over the crowd I tell her how many we need and boom she makes the drinks gives them to a busboy who walks them to us we get served everyone else waits, she is waiting on a huge group of girls, I approach she pauses their order to take mine. I never saw tips have this type of effect (this continues to happen again and again on this trip). Sidebar: I started paying attention to what everyone else was tipping in general on this trip most were not or if they were they were small 1-2 bucks, my conclusion is that if you tip moderate to well you get rock star service and the folks remember.

It is around 11:30 the club starts filling up, we are a little bummed the outside is closed. A bouncer sees us looking outside he comes over to us and asks us if we want to check it out even though it is closed, we say that would be great. He takes us outside and shows us around we hang my wife watches the bellagio fountains he and I talk nfl we finish our drinks and he takes us back in. Class move, great guy and stuff like that leaves such a great impression. The outside of this place is incredible I kind of wish we would have taken in the dayclub. It does not appear that there are many bad tables or couches outside for dayclub, really impressive!

We head back inside and the nightclub had filled up. The dance floor was big, my wife loved dancing there. They had great effects and lighting dj was great. The tables downstairs all appeared to be great all would have good traffic. The upstairs tables did not look like they would be very good, they have two gigantic tables on either side upstairs that have huge chandeliers above them; they looked way too far out of any action and wAy too bright almost like a private room in a nice restaurant. Restroom situation here was great no waiting for her or me.

One ridiculous thing did happen...so the day my wife left for vegas her eye doctor calls and tells her that she can pick up her new glasses, I beg her not to bring them. Her eyes were dry from the flight so she wears her "old" glasses to the club. So we are dancing and she decides she doesn't want to wear her glasses so I put them in my shirt pocket. There is a group next to us that are absolutely destroyed, one guy starts doing this high stepping dance thing and falls on his face, he can't get up so I lean down and help him; boom glasses meet floor, I don't know this until five minutes later when we retrieve a set of jacked up frames. This would have sucked if they were the new glasses but hey no bug deal we got over it and continued having a good time.

We hung out here until 3-3:30, it was crowded but not too crowded. Age was not an issue here at all, we felt very comfortable and at the same time it was by no means a old crowd. Overall this club was great and I would rate it as better than the others we went to. The view, general atmosphere and friendliness of the club staff all made this place the highest rated of our trip.

I will try to post my thoughts on marquee dayclub soon.

[Kinar100]

Terrific report!

I am hitting Drais up for the first time this weekend and hoping for a dance floor table.

Glad to hear that I should be looking forward to a good time.

[Dyur21]

Aftermath and recovery:

We were both pretty crushed after Drai's. One great thing about Aria is that we were able walk thru bellagio to the aria tram so we walked/rode back. Knowing my plans for the weekend I had a hangover prevention method that seemed to work perfectly. I took a magnesium vitamin (I read something online about the navy making sailors do this after returning from day passes when at port) and drank a bottle of coconut water each night, this worked perfectly I had no hangover any morning no headache no nausea. My wife did not take these steps on Thursday and was a mess Friday morning, she did my method the other days and she was fine as a result.

During this trip it seemed like we only would sleep in 3-4 hour increments so while we went to bed around 5:00 we were up at 8:00. My wife was a mess so we grabbed breakfast, hydrated and went back to sleep for a few hours. We wake back up at 11:30 my wife really wants to check out the day club, claims she does not want lunch and we get ready to go for round 2.

[Dyur21]

Friday (day): marquee day club

We get to mdc around 12:30. From aria it is a easy walk we went out back door down steps down street and into Cosmo via valet entrance (10 minute walk). I have presale tix they cost 30 total. Not much of a line so not much benefit from presale but there was a seperate line for presale; I am dumb because I did not catch how much they were charging at the door. Once you get in you go up an elevator and then outside. We rented a locker for $30, this was a nice option. You then have to walk up stairs to the actual dayclub, there are two lines here if you already have a band go on the side with no line because the other side is for anyone who has not paid and walked in from another entrance took me one trip to figure this out.

The place was not packed but was about 60% full when we walked in. Good vibe from the get go. Now I will say this crowd was young and initially I was concerned this was going to be a fail. Lots and lots of good looking people, I definitely hurt the ratio BUT we did not feel uncomfortable in any way once we got settled in. Everyone here was very cool, no dicks. Like many other people have posted appearance and age were not an issue in any way, really it was all about attitude; there was a guy in his late fifties with his Adult kids getting involved in the splashing craziness, high giving people am generally getting nuts it was pretty awesome.

I want to say drinks costed about 17 each, they were strong though. Tipped the same bartender every time and got hooked up every time with great attention. Around 1:30 i started thinking that we should hit pause, leave and grab lunch (no food = drunk problems). My wife did not want to leave the bartender said we could order food even if we did not have a couch or cabana so we grabbed some quick appetiZer which was perfect only took about 15 minutes, the logistics on this were that we left the bar swam for about 15 minutes and came back to find the bartender who then grabbed us the food which we just ate at the bar, all in all this worked pretty well.

As far as personal items we left our Flip flops and my shirt by one of the ladder entrances to the pool, this stuff was never disturbed and was not a problem at all.

The dj was Jordan v, never heard of him but I would say he was the best our trip, great mix of types of music even nice in some 90's alternative remix stuff I though he was real good.

Anyone checking this place out needs to realize the pool is small and things get nuts when the main act starts. By nuts I mean splashing water everywhere, inflatables flying every which way and the pool being packed; we thought this was incredibly fun and hilarious you just need to switch to shots instead of drinks at that point (the shots were huge).

The hottest girl at this place (well except my wife ) hung out by us much of the day, initially when we talked to her she seemed very innocent and shy. The day progresses and the waitresses throw those penguins our way some random guy grabs the penguin and this girl goes crazy, she starts screaming I want that penguin, she proceeds to mount the penguin in a bear hug while screaming I want this penguin in and effort to grab the penguin off the guy but the dude would not let go; seeing this she decides the best course of action is to hold him under until the water until he let go. It was hysterical seeing the transformation, she got her bird and away she went to be with her new friend, the penguin.

Things started to die down around 5:00 so we headed out stopped by secret pizza, this place was freaking awesome make sure you check it out, it is easy to find but there is no sign.

We went back to our room and did my hangover prevention steps took a 2 hour nap and woke up for dinner at Javier's at 9:00. We had no hangover and were refreshed from the nap. One thing I did not mention was that I insisted that both of us drink a glass of water after every two drinks, I think that this and the coconut water magnesium cocktail saved us because we drank a good bit. Javier's was good, move atmosphere, unique take on Mexican food.

I will take on the marquee nightclub round next when I hAve the chance to post again, hope I am not giving too much useless info but hope some of this helps some of you out.

[BBB]

Awesome TR so far! Love all the details!

[Brooklyn Marc]

Very Kewl keep it coming.

[*ho_train*]

Nope, not useless at all. I find it all very informative, and it's always nice to hear someone else's perspective and how they did Vegas. Keep it going! Can't wait to read the rest!

[Vegasnoob2014]

Respect for helping the dude up off the dance floor.

[dnix]

good work

[griffon909]

Great TR so far my friend ! We were a small group of 6 last month in vegas so could afford bottle service, but I'm back alone with wife next October and your tips are useful so far ! Hope we'll be able to meet people once we get there.

[Dyur21]

Friday (night) - Marquee (visit 1)

So we walk to marquee through crystals. This is insanely convenient and air conditioned. It took less than 10 minutes. The only downside is that you have to walk thru the Harmon hotel which they clearly have signs on (that you walk past) informing you the building is condemned, not to be a snob but this is a bad look for city center, from mdc you can see into the buildings interior as they have removed the walls. Probably nothing they can do about it but it is strange never the less. We took this route back from mdc in the afternoon and some guy was on the bridge playing some sublime song, I was drunk I gave him a couple of wet bucks and mumbled that I wished it were fourty ounce to freedom, now approximately 6 hours later the dude is either still there or back, we hit the bridge the guy sees me I say nothing because I was worried I may have been a drunk a-hole before. He stops playing rhcp californication and bam starts playing 40oz to freedom right before we pass him I stop give him a few bucks and a high five, my wife is a combination of horrified and amused.

Now I know my choice to hit marquee twice in one day was curious but I wanted to check it out because it was near our hotel and I feared that we would tap out on going out Saturday so if we were going to hit this place it had to be Friday.

The ec twins were the dj's, no idea who they are but there was quite a line when we got there at 11:30. My wife was alarmed, she like me can't do the lines.

Sidebar: in 2005 we made our first trip vegas and after several days of the trip sucking we went to rain. At that point rain had to be the tier 1, there was really nothing else. We waited 2 freaking hours to get in mainly because she really really wanted to go. It was a great time and launched adventures like this one BUT I swore at that point we would not do lines in vegas again.

So back to marquee, the line is pretty big but I have presale that cost $50 total. There are no apparent signs for a presale line so I go straight to the hosts. The host tells me that we need to go wait in a different line upstairs, he then looks down and says you know what just come with me, let's us walk in with some folks who had a table. So on the one hand I did not really see what the presale line was like but on the order hand I can say that it worked perfectly and we did not wait in line for one second.

We head up the elevator into marquee, we walk around and check things out. The boom box room is closed so we do not see what it is like. The library is really just a long bar with some tables overlooking the bar, in my opinion a table in the library would suck. The actual dance club is pretty impressive and large, the floor was packed when we walked in so we headed outside where they had a dj on the dayclub stage, sort of a Lalapollusa set up with two stages facing each other on opposite ends of the property with people partying in the middle.

The crowd was somewhat older compared to the mdc one, So we felt comfortable.

So far as having no table I did not think this place was that bad for GA, not as good a setup as drais but not bad at all. We did get yelled at by bouncers a lot when we were in the real nightclub part if we stopped in a walkway or got "too close" to table service (a little more on this later) but all in all it was good. Outside between the couches were what appeared to be storage bins for the dayclub, They have these storage bins that people can sit on, bouncers did not care. We sat on these for a while after getting drinks and I can see how if you had a small group and did not have a table you could more or less base camp at these and because they were on the dance floor you end up with a seat on the dance floor for girls to rest, some girls were dancing on them too. In essence this could be a cheapo way to have some real estate.

When we walked outside I headed directly to the bar behind the dj, I order a goose and pineapple for my wife and patron and soda for me, the bartender was clearly new and was oddly nervous he starts a new bottle of patron and puts the wrong type of top on it and thus pours me a glass 99% full of patron. He starts apologizing saying he made it too strong and is ready to throw it out I am like no no no, this is fine. He then tells us he was not charging us, I say that is not fair pay him an give him a $10 tip, the rest of the night I am drinking the same proportion of patron to soda (99-1), this was great. Did not have to wait for a drink ever because this guy remembered me throughout the night.

Music outside was a pretty good mix, inside seemed good but you could not see at all, very dark and the lights that were moving would actually blind you while you were walking, weird effect.

We drank a lot outside my wife was dancing, things were good but you could feel it was getting gradually very very packed. Around 1:00 she wanted to check out the inside because it seemed like the main act had went on it was absolutely packed everywhere you went the bouncers told you to move, finally we get told go near the back where you are allowed to dance/stand so that is where we went, we find a place near the side and a busboy goes rushing into a table service area near us and in the process knocks over the velvet rope and the stands. Now no one is hurt or even touched but he looks like a tool because he actually fell. His boss comes over and the busboy blames the incident on my wife. Now at this point she is cartoon level drunk she actually starts to apologize. We were ten feet away from this so I am now convinced that we are going to get tossed out because the busboy who did do it is really chirping to his boss and my wife; she is a mess. I go over to the boss and explain that she had nothing to do with it, he says it's no big deal and he is not sure why the busboy even cares cause no one and nothing was harmed. I grab my wife and tell her we should go back outside for a while. We head back towards the outside Dance floor, it's about 1:15 and things outside are now packed, we are both pretty drunk and my wife wants to dance. It was so crowded outside that you could not even walk that isle by the bungalows. I ask a bouncer if we can do re-entry if we leave, he says yes so we take an intermission from Marquee.

My only real complaint about marquee is that you have to walk down 5 flights of grate type steel stairs when you leave, it sucks and every woman was struggling. Fortunatley my wife was prepared, she had flats away we went to find a new place to check out.

Next up our trip to chateau, yes I think everyone who comes to this site knows how this part goes.

[Brooklyn Marc]

Nice, really can't stress enough how important it it to TIP well in Vegas (or really anywhere in the world), it's not a mystery, it's literally one of the first things I do at any bar and it has the ability to change your entire night for the better. Great TR so far.

[Dyur21]

Friday (night) - Chateau

So we leave Marquee and need to decide where to go.

sidebar: In 2012 I purchased something called the V card with a groupon for 100 for two of them. It included free passes to every day and nightclub (other than the Wynn properties) in vegas. Last time in town it saved me lots of money not necessarily lots of time.

Standing in front of the Cosmo I know that our options are the bank, haze an chateau. Chateau was closest so it won. After a 5 minute walk we are there.

We head into Paris and the Chateau line is right in front of us. There is no line I use the free passes and we enter a completely empty club, very strange. A bouncer walks us to an elevator and we go up. It is about 1:45.

When the elevator opens I am struck my two things:

1) this place has a nice view of everything.

2) there is a giagantic fan like you see at football games in early fall along with one of those big misting machines you see at football games. There is also a lady wiping the floor with towels, weird but I figure it all out later.

The place is not empty but not crowded either. It is a cluster of tables surrounded by white sheets that are supposed to serve as walls. The sheet walls ruin the major asset of this place, the view. Way too much clutter and way to many tables, it is like a maze. Because it is a maze of white sheets you really do not see the view and if you have a table you have no benefit of hanging with those next to you.

We walk thru the maze looking for the bar and we see several more of the football field fans all on full blast.

We find the bar, there are only two and they are next to each other. My wife was on the preverbial drinking time out chair so I order a patron and soda, it is 15 I don't know what our plan is so I give the guy 25. I realize that I should have gotten her and I waters to pound down for hangover prevention so I ask the bartender for two Glasses of water. He tells me their policy at Chateau is not to give water to people in cups, we would need to buy water; ok I buy two regret tipping the guy anything and resolve to be done with this place ASAP. So there is a strange contradiction here, this place is obsessed with keeping people cool with large fans and misting devices but will not Hand out water like they do everywhere else, heck at marquee that have huge self serve water stations at every bar.

We continue to walk around the "maze" of tables and encounter more fans and then we see the dance floor. My wife, really excited to Dance runs to the dance floor because there is empty space, then a look of pain and disgust comes across her face when I get there I realize why, there is a very bad very strong odor; we can't leave the dance floor fast enough. Then we realize everywhere outside of the various large fan's jet stream had this odor, it sucked.

For the record the music was not bad pretty standard stuff.

We decide to head out it is a little after 2:00 we literally did a lap and left, we approach the elevator and as we get close the two girls in front of us wipeout from the water put on the floor by the misting machines. The bouncers made us walk down the steps to this deck bar that was playing some type of Latin hip hop mix.

My wife wants to stay for a few minutes, although a odd mix it was entertaining for like 20 minutes, however after that I could not handle my empty drink + the mariachi music background set to everything. We headed down another set of steps and back over to Marquee.

One curious note, they had a sign at the lower bar that said open bar for men $50 all night ( women were cheaper but I cannot remember the price). At this stage of my life I could not handle this scene even for that low cost trade off but I figured that I would point this out because at another time and place I would have been all about this.

It goes without saying this place was not great, with the view it seems like it could be salvaged to be decent in some way but that is for someone smarter than I to figure out.

Next post will be marquee (visit 2). The odd side trip did end up serving a purpose.

[Victoria Feels]

Great report thanks!