clairelong

karenvk-Let us know in your opinion how the Flamingo is. Good thing about bypassing the Mirage-worst new owners who only look for the dollar and not worried about satisfying the customer. The MGM also has a helluva lazy pool and nice pool along with so many others listed. I will be waiting about your stay at the Flamingo! Have a super time!

karenvk

Deborah and Claire, thanks for your posts. Deborah, bummer about the gym...my daily exercise is just vigorous walking so I should do just fine in Vegas without the gym! Thanks for the restaurant tips. I'll check out Cafe Lux but might pass on the rest as they are chains that I have been to in other parts of the country).Hmm, might have to hit the brewery though!

karenvk

Hey, where's M&M world? I'm thinking it's about the only place I can bring an "appropriate" gift home for my kids!

Deborah

Karen:

Try vegasfreedom.com and click on guidebook and click on dining. You can find any restaurant you are looking for. Yes, some of her suggestions are chains, but good food at decent prices.

karenvk

Deborah, thanks for your reply. Sorry, I didn't mean to sound ungrateful...all I meant was that when I travel, I try to go to independent restaurants (not places I can hit at home and get the same dishes) or even small chains that don't have any restaurants near me (ie: Nobu). I'll be sure to check out vegasfreedom.com

ellen_griswold

We're also trying the Flamingo this summer, but will be there only one night. An afternoon at the pools and an evening to stroll and we'll be back to the canyons and NP's. The pool party rate and central location were jsut too hard to resist!

Deborah

Karen:

I am the same, but my friends aren't as adventurous as me. I heard the Voodoo Cafe at Rio was fun, but not sure if it still is.

Golfergal

Karen - We stayed at the Flamingo last summer and really liked it for the price. I am a tad spoiled, so I was a little bummed that we weren't staying somewhere "nicer". Some trips just require you to control your budget more and that was one of them for us. I had heard the pool was nice and frankly that is the main thing I choose for our annual August trip (DH has a sales meeting there every year). So I went along, with a bit of hesitation. I LOVED the pool. Lots of people, but it didn't feel as crowded to me as say, the Mirage. And it has all those palm trees and misters. Again, for the price it was perfect. Central, clean, decent casino, great pool, lots of drinks. All is all worth the money. Is it a splurge hotel, no, but the savings allow you to splurge on other things. It is the first place we are looking at for this year's trip.

As for restaurants, we tend to splurge at bit, but here are some thought that may or may not fall in your budget.
- Crepe stand at Paris (no atomsphere but awesome crepes)
- Mon Ami Gabi at Paris (great location/view and decent priced menu)
- Kahunaville (a chain, but lots of fun)
- Spago (we had very reasonable good meals here)
- There's an Italian restuarant behind the Flamingo that people recommend (we hated it but we are admittedly Italian food snobs)
I would suggest you look downtown or off the strip (Paradise Road) for other well priced food options.

Have a great birthday trip.

karenvk

Golfergal: thank you for a great post. Just what I needed to hear. I too would have liked one of the newer nicer hotels, but as I've mentioned most are sold out at least 2 days during our stay and I was not willing to spend $450+ per night for the ones that were available. That's more than we'll spend for the 4 nights at Flamingo. I like your restaurant ideas too! What kind of room did you stay in at Flamingo and would you have any recommendations for a particular section, tower etc? I'm thinking if their availability is good, they might grant a request! I like good italian too and heard good things about Canaletto at Bellagio. Might be worth a shot for us! All this restaurant talk is getting me hungry!

samsgram

Karenvk

Would you please post your experiences with the Flamingo re: rooms, pool crowded, and anything else as we are going in 2 weeks. Friends of ours that were there recently were originally given a non-renovated room and were able to switch to a renovated one. Did you have a similiar experience? Thanks

Angie626

Yes Karen, I would love to hear a report on the Flamingo and your restaurant choices also! I'll be there at the end of July.
Hope you are enjoying your trip...

tobin88

I just returned from a stay (shortened) at the Flamingo. Although they gave me a great view of the strip the hotel itself is a bit dumpy. We paid $55 and liked the central location and had hoped to swim in the pool. The pool was so crowded--people shoulder to shoulder. We left a day early. I thought the Paris hotel looked much nicer/cleaner and it was less crowded but I dont know what the pool is like.

rufus

I always recommend Star Canyon in the Venetian. Creative southwestern food at very reasonable prices. The ribeye steak topped with frizzled onions is a winner.

psychoelf

Karen, I'll be going to Vegas in October and I've been trying to research restaurants, so I'll tell you some of what I've found out so far. We're planning on trying Canaletto (BTW, it's in the Venetian, not Bellagio) since I love Italian. I've only found a few people who have eaten there but they all loved the food. Also at the Venetian is Valentino which has gotten good reviews. Any other recs for Italian food I've found were for places off the Strip.

If you like Thai, Lotus of Siam has received rave reviews. It isn't on the Strip either but I'm really tempted to take a cab to try it. People love this place!

At the Rio (again a short cab ride) is a restaurant called Rosemary's that gets good reviews as well. Rosemary's has an off Strip location and it did so well that they opened the new place at the Rio.

Mon Ami Gabi at Paris and Emeril's at MGM are well liked, and, personally, I can't wait to try Aqua at Bellagio.

Hope this helps a little.

Elf

tgordo

Best thing about the Flamingo...24 hr. hot tub. Nothing like heading to the tub at 3am after grinding it out at the tables all night. Unless they've changed the security layout when I was there 2 years ago, it is possible to just walk into the pool area from a side street entrance but I don't think many locals do this. You can however, stay at Bally's or Paris (they are joined together) and walk over to Flamingo at 3am as I did and enjoy some bubbles and a stogie. Then hit the hot dog joint behind the Flamingo for their hot dog special...$1.50 for a dog and a Heinie. Then walk back through Ballys casino to get back to your room in your wet bathing suit. Priceless. Ooops, what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. I forgot.

tobin88

The Flamingo now requires a room key to access the pool area. We were checked everytime we entered by a security guard.

clarkgriswold

One thing about the Flamingo is that some of the rooms are quite run down. As one of the largest hotels in the world, it's hard to get them all renovated on time. If you get a musty one, march back down to the front desk and act like you've stayed there several times in the past. Tell them you KNOW that they have MUCH nicer rooms than that and that you want something decent.

karenvk

Just got back tonight from our travels...Had to check this site and it was interesting to see all the posts since I was gone! Great trip and I'm too tired to go into great detail but I'll try to hit as much info as I can that people were asking about. Firt of all thank you to rufus for the tout on Star Canyon. Amazing meal. Unfortunately, the restaurant was sold this week and will become a seafood restaurant over the next few weeks. Try to get in this week if you can! Flamingo was fine. We did get a renovated room which was clean and roomy with a desk area and 3 nice arm chairs. My only complaint was the small bathroom and lack of water pressure (showers are almost sacred to me). But overall, a great location. We did have to stake out our places at the pool early but since we were on east coast time for most of our stay, we were up by 5:30am anyway. So we tended to be at the pool by 7 and left by noon. We stayed at the upstairs pool which tended to have less kids and more palm trees to provide some shade. They have a barbeque lunch by the pool which offers several options for $6.00 and was really pretty good! Of course the smell of barbeque wafting over is not playing fair but hey...it's Vegas! The pool party rate was a great deal at approx $55 per night and included free drinks and a 2 for 1 at their buffet which was quite good (we used it before we flew home knowing how little food we'd be getting on Jet Blue). We had a great lunch at Wolgang Puck's Studio Cafe in the MGM. The location was fun (overlooking the casino floor) and the food was fresh and delicious. DId a ton of walking and only used a cab once to go downtown to check out the whole Fremont Street experience which was quite fun - and a colorful group of characters down there as well! My husband did enjoy the $3 crap tables at Binions Horseshoe (and managed to win there too). The fountains at Bellagio are not to be missed. We saw performances during the day, at dusk and at night and they're simply awe inspiring. Like ballet almost! Didn't hit any shows this time but visited almost every casino on the strip. I'd be happy to try to answer any questions you might have!