Hi,

We need to go to the Las Vegas area to visit an ailing Grandma with a 14 month old. Any suggestions on where to stay? It can be outside the strip.

Will you have a car? Where does Grandma live? Will you be taking the toddler to the strip or do you have relatives to babysit while you go to the strip? Not much there for a toddler and you can't take him/her into the casino. If you are going to visit Grandma, I'd focus on what is close to where she is for a first step. Are you planning to spend a week at the casinos or just a single visit during the Grandma visit? A lot depends on what your intention are.

Hi,

This is not a sight-seeing trip. We are looking for some clean place since my toddler is still crawling. We are only going to stay for 3 days (2 travel days). We are going with relatives, but don't anticipate that they are going to spend much time babysitting (maybe a couple of hours). It is hard to entertain a toddler without toys.

So then the relevant question is still, where does grandma live? Las Vegas is a big area, so you'll probably want to be as close to her as possible.

But still, Las Vegas is a big place - if you knew which side of town Grandma lived in or would be staying it, it would be a lot easier to help. Picking a hotel in Las Vegas is a needle in a haystack without knowing north, south, east or west. Just trying to help you decide on something convenient, that's all.

I stayed at MGM with my toddler. It seemed to offer a good selection of kid restaurants (Rainforest Cafe, coffee shop, Krispey Kreme). I've taken my son two or three times to Vegas (my grandmother lived there, but we saw her for brief, 15-minute visits due to her advanced age and health). It was never that much fun for him. I didn't take him swimming, but we did walk over to New York New York and to the M&M store. Many Vegas hotels charge a lot, like $150, to get a vcr. So we brought a portable DVD player and a lot of Blues Clues type dvds, some small surprise games and toys from home, and suffered through it. When I returned to Vegas without kids for an adult trip, I was amazed at how much more fun I had.