New Years in Vegas

Spending New Years Eve in Vegas is something everyone should do once.

Unless you do not like crowds.

New Years Eve is one of the most crowded days to be Las Vegas. It will be interesting to see whether the economy will impact the New Years Eve party in Vegas.

Want fireworks?

At midnight a spectacular fireworks show, coordinated with a musical soundtrack, will launch from eight ground locations along Las Vegas Blvd. from Mandalay Bay, Luxor, MGM Grand, Caesars Palace, Treasure Island/Mirage, Las Vegas Convention Center, Stratosphere and Fremont Street Experience.

Want stars?

Three-time Grammy Award-winning artist, Fergie (from the Black Eyed Peas) performs live at The Venetian and The Palazzo before heading to LAVO nightclub to take on duties as celebrity host. At the Playboy Club in the Palms, Kid Rock, will host and DJ the 2009 New Year's Eve celebration following his live performance at the Pearl Concert Theater while AKON rocks the House of Blues at Mandalay Bay. Pink will turn up the heat at Wasted Space at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino.

The Kardashian Sisters will host a party at LAX inside Luxor, while Carmen Electra hosts the annual bash at Tao inside The Venetian. In addition to the street party outside, Las Vegas Blvd. morphs into a celebrity block party within Strip nightclubs. Usher celebrates all night at The Bank in Bellagio, while Ashlee Simpson-Wentz and Pete Wentz party at PURE next door in Caesars Palace. Just on the other side of Caesars, JET at The Mirage rings in the New Year with New Kids on the Block, Donnie Wahlberg and Danny Wood, while hit reality-stars Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt host festivities at Christian Audigier at TI. The newest nightclub to hit Las Vegas, XS at Encore, is sure to please New Year's crowds with 40,000 square feet of party space.

Getting around

With thousands of revelers descending upon The Strip for New Year's Eve, the Las Vegas Monorail will be the only form of public transportation available because Las Vegas Blvd. will be closed to traffic. The Monorail offers visitors a convenient option to and from the city's hottest spots safely, quickly and efficiently. On New Year's Eve, the system will be open from 7 a.m. to 3 a.m.

General tips
1. Eat early - You WILL be waiting in line for everything.
2. Bring a jacket - It snowed in Las Vegas for only the second time that I remember (because I was there both times). It's December and it can get cold.
3. Park and walk - It's probably the only day of the year that you have to pay for parking unless you are a hotel guest. So leave the car in your hotel parking lot or pay $10 to $20 bucks to park and walk to where you need to go. But once you park, leave it until you are ready to go home.
4. Stay the extra day - The airport will be in chaos. The hotel check out will be in chaos. If you stay on the Jan. 1, you can watch the bowl games and the town will go back to normal.
5. You can still get a room for NYE now if you move. Look on different hotel websites for the rates. If you are driving to Vegas, you can still get a room and have a blast.

Strip or Not to Strip? That is the question.

For hotels (this is a clean blog, people)

For a town with over 150,000 hotel rooms (according to a dated New York Times article), figuring out the best place is a bit of a trick. To answer, you need to ask a few questions.

Who's going? You and your honey, you and your friends, you and your family, or just you.

How much do you want to spend on a room per night?

Is it your first time to Las Vegas?


Answering those questions will determine the best hotel for you. Some people chose the place with the cheapest hotel prices. That's fair too because I do the same thing.

More guidelines later. But here are some general rules to start with.

If it is your first time to Vegas, stay on the "Strip". The Strip is S. Las Vegas Blvd. (type it into Google maps. From the southernmost hotel (Mandalay Bay) to the northernmost (Stratosphere). The hotels between those two points are considered the Strip. Pick one of those hotels. Once there, you can walk or take a quick cab to anywhere you want to be.

Also, if you can, be flexible on the dates you can go. The best deals for hotel rooms are between Thanksgiving and New Years and, after the Fourth of July to Labor Day. So, plan around the times when rooms are cheap.

Finally, weekends will see room rates double or triple. No matter the time of year. So go during the week or be prepared to move into a cheaper hotel for the weekend. So look for weekday prices and weekend pricing if you are going to be in town for the weekend.

Even in this economy, there are still deals to be found if you look for them.

Vegas solo vs. group

A popular question that comes up is can I go to Las Vegas alone. How safe is it? What do I do? etc.

I guess it depends on what you want to get out of your trip. For example, I wanted to go to Vegas with someone I was dating at the time. She doesn't gamble. I do. She loves shopping. I don't. She would like to go to a show. I would tolerate it. So my choices were to do separate things or one person hating what they were doing while on vacation.

So, if you go with a group, make sure you are all of like mind. If it's a gambling group, go gamble. If it's a clubbing group, hit the clubs. If it's a poker group, then play poker. If it's a sightseeing group, then see the sites. So at least have a mix of people so one person doesn't feel like an outcast from the group.

FREE TIP OF THE DAY: If your group scatters, always have a set time to meet every day either for a meal (lunch usually) and gameplan the rest of the day. Trying to do it on the fly causes problems. It doesn't have to be in the room. It can be in the lobby of your hotel.

Going solo

No big deal. It's not a hassle to eat in restaurants. There are people eating by themselves all the time. It's actually easier to get tickets to popular shows. For some shows on Saturday night, it could be impossible to get 2-4 seats together. Finally, you are not on a timetable. You can do what you want when you want.

It's also safe as long as you don't act like an idiot or flash cash on the streets. Be smart and stay relatively sober.

Bottom line

Don't fret if you can't get a group together for a Vegas trip. Trust me, you will have fun going solo.

Vegas airfare news

Cheap, last-minute trips to Vegas might be a thing of the past if you need to fly.

According to various reports, fuel prices will be causing cuts in flights to vacation spots. Delta will be cutting 45 percent of their flights to Orlando. Five carriers will be cutting a quarter of their flights to Hawaii.

Even Vegas won't get spared. US Air, Delta, and Northwest will cut their flights to Vegas by 25 percent.

A summary from USA Today:

Meanwhile, Las Vegas, the nation's casino capital and a magnet for low-fare carriers, is also drawing major reductions in service. US Airways (LCC), the No. 2 Las Vegas carrier after Southwest (LUV), will have about a quarter less flying capacity out of the city this October, more than 120,000 fewer seats. Delta (DAL) and Northwest (NWA) will be down about as much in percentage terms.

One reason is that the average airfare per mile flown on Las Vegas flights is among the lowest of any airport, according to consulting company Sabre Airline Solutions. In May, it was about 10 cents, compared with 16 cents a mile on flights from Minneapolis, for example.

US Airways' downsizing in Las Vegas includes eliminating its cheap "red-eye" flights that took off late and flew through the night to the East Coast.

"If there are plenty of seats to go during the day, most people would rather fly during the day than make a red-eye flight, so those seats are going first," says Andrew Nocella, US Airways' chief planner.

Bottom Line: ALWAYS be on the lookout for deals to Vegas (even though they might be few and far between). When you see a deal, be ready to grab it.

How to Get Married in Vegas (note: I wrote, you not me)

Once again, please note that I did not say I was going to get married. Whew!

Okay. Just for pure research sake. I wanted to find out what I needed to get married in Vegas and why it is so easy.

According to Vegas.com, you need: All you need is a Social Security number (one for the groom and the bride. Commitment ceremonies available at several chapels, however, marriage is not legal between two people of the same sex in Nevada), proof of identification and age (driver's license, passport, birth certificate - in English if you are foreign) and the marriage license fee ($55). There is no blood test and no waiting period after a license is issued.

It is also important to note that Nevada also leads the country in divorces because of a low residency requirement.

And, according to Ancestry.com, August and July are the most popular months for marriages (Once against, there is no relation to timing and my research)

And, in true betting fashion, the site also launched VegasWeddingOdds.com, an online marriage-predicting site which, based on your first name, will give you the first names of the people you're most likely to marry in Nevada. (My results were absolutely scary in its accuracy.)

Baggage Fees and Airfire increases

First, you might have heard about American charging for even one piece of luggage. $15 for the first bag, $25 for the second bag, $100 for bags 3-5, and $200 for 6 or more. By the way, that's per way. So double that for a round-trip. (Source: NYT)

Yes, they have to find some way to make money (not that they will). But I see nothing but disaster in two ways. 1: People won't check bags and will take bags on the plane which means even longer security lines and jammed overhead compartments; 2: People will flee American Airlines (the fact that they are cutting the number of flights might make that decision even easier.

If I were in my old job running PR, I would tell the airline look seriously into announcing the fact that we are not charging for 1st or 2nd bags as a counter promotion. That would be smart. However, there is a reason why airlines are going bankrupt. The people in charge are idiots.

Like the Idiot of the Day: United Airlines.

So in the Dallas Morning News, United responded to this baggage charge with bits of news of their own.

United Airlines overnight has raised fares by as much as $60 for round-trip tickets, Bestfares.com CEO Tom Parsons said Friday. If this airfare hike is matched by the other major carriers, it would be the 12th successful increase out of 17 attempts since December 20, 2007. Travelers flying over 1,500 air miles one-way between markets without a low-cost carrier have seen their airfares jump by $340 roundtrip in the past five months

So who will be affected?

Bestfares.com said that United hiked fares $20 round trip for flights up to 400 miles, $40 for 401-750 miles and $60 for flights over 750 miles. "Many of these airfare increases only affect cities not served by a low-cost airline such as Southwest, Virgin America, JetBlue, Spirit or Frontier," Bestfares.com said.

Translation: We are going to punish people who aren't served by a low-cost airline. But don't worry. They will find a way to make it for all routes by the end of year (my prediction).

But the second bit of news from the DMN article.

The Associated Press quoted United spokeswoman Robin Urbanski as saying United was "seriously considering" charging passengers on domestic trips for their first piece of checked luggage.

Translation: If people accept American doing this, we will do it by August 1.

MSNBC has some predictions about flight cost in the near future.

• This luggage fee is a step too far. AA will eventually have to back off of the fee.
• Problems with controlling carry-on luggage will increase exponentially.
• Delays at TSA checkpoints will increase as more passengers bring more baggage through the inspection points.
• Delays at the boarding gates dealing with luggage arguments will further delay AA flights to less than a 50 percent on-time rating.
• Other airlines will adopt a wait-and-see approach to this dramatic fee increase, forcing AA to rethink their fee structure.
• The Transportation Department will force airlines to disclose these fees in their advertisements. This will allow other airlines to simply raise airfares without raising the total advertised cost of the trip. AA will eventually (perhaps before June 15) roll this fee into their airfares.

The Time in Vegas

I saw this on Billboard.com while looking for American Idol information.

After reuniting for the first time in 15 years for the 50th Grammy awards in February, R&B/funk group the Time has announced additional concert performances at the Flamingo Las Vegas, beginning June 24 and wrapping Aug. 2.

All original members of the Time -- Morris Day, Jerome Benton, Jellybean Johnson, Jimmy Jam, Terry Lewis, Monte Moir and Jesse Johnson -- are slated for 15 shows at the Flamingo. Tickets are currently available via Harrahs.com, with prices ranging between $65 and $125.

During the band's Grammy performance, Jimmy Jam introduced his fellow bandmates and group opened with "Jungle Love," switching over mid-song to a slightly down-tempo, pyrotechnic laden version of "Umbrella" by Rihanna, who then continued with "Don't Stop the Music."

Now, I missed the Grammy thing but will look for it on YouTube. But I love The Time. They are so much fun. I don't know how good they are now. But in the 80s, they were awesome. Sorry, the fan boy in me is coming out. Tickets are a bit pricey and I would be breaking my personal rule, "No shows unless it's Prince", but this is a worthy exception.