Las Vegas Vacation Blog Blog

Casino operator Las Vegas Sands has laid off 283 people from its Las Vegas resorts.

Company spokesman Ron Reese says the affected employees worked in the corporate offices as well as the Venetian and Palazzo resorts on the Las Vegas Strip.

Reese says the Friday layoffs are part of broader cost-reduction measures at the company. The company is facing huge interest costs because of a debt load topping $10.4 billion.

The pressure comes as business at its casinos has been badly hurt by the recession.

Reese says nearly 7,000 full-time equivalent positions remain in Las Vegas.

The company continues to plan a May 22 opening for its $778 million Sands Casino Resort Bethlehem in Pennsylvania.

Also under construction is a $5.4 billion resort in Singapore due to open at the end of the year.

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What is Earth Hour?  It is an event where participants around the world turn off their lights for one hour in order to bring attention to the problem of climate change, and to demonstrate action and commitment to finding solutions.

Organized by the World Wildlife Fund, they initially asked Harrah’s Entertainment Inc., of Las Vegas to participate.  Harrah’s kept the ball rolling and their enthusiasm caught on in a big way.  Now, Las Vegas is an Earth Hour 2009 flagship city, one of 10 flagship cities.  This year over 2500 cities in 82 countries, literally hundreds of millions of people, will be participating in Earth Hour.  Truly a historic event.  Happening on March 28, 2009 at 8:30 p.m. local time.

Harrah’s properties, which include Caesars’s Palace, the Flamigo, and the Rio, among others, in Las Vegas will turn off their marquees, along with their lights, in observance of Earth Hour.  MGM Mirage and their extensive Strip properties will also follow suit.  Four of the most iconic symbols of the Las Vegas Strip, the Volcano at the Mirage, the Fountains at the Bellagio, the Luxor Beam, and the Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas Sign will be dark.

Other Strip area properties participating include the Venetian, the Wynn, Planet Hollywood, TI, the Stratosphere, the Riviera, the Palms, the Sahara, the Tropicana, the Hard Rock, the Four Seasons, the Las Vegas Hilton, Hooters, and the Gold Coast.  Off-Strip properties participating include Eastside Cannery, Arizona Charlies, J.W. Marriott, the Orleans, Sam’s Town, and the Suncoast.  Downtown Fremont will show their solidarity by showing a 3 minute video on Viva Vision, the largest television in the world, about Earth Hour, and having a countdown before going dark.  Non-gaming participants include local businesses, local government, and the planned community of Summerlin.

Really, anyone can and should participate if possible.  Simply turn off your own house lights and spend time with family and neighbors. If you do have to go out, here is a list of some things planned around the valley:

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Credit Insurance is a must!

Casino gambling revenue dropped 15 percent on the Las Vegas Strip in January and tumbled 19 percent in Atlantic City last month as the U.S. recession curbed spending on travel and betting.

Casino proceeds on the Strip, the biggest U.S. gambling center, slumped to $510.4 million in January, Nevada’s Gaming Control Board said today in an e-mailed statement. That extended the worst annual decline on record, as Las Vegas began the year with thousands more hotel rooms and fewer visitors to fill them.

Betting proceeds at Atlantic City, New Jersey, the second- biggest U.S. casino center, fell to $310.3 million. Revenue from tables at the seaside town’s 11 casinos fell 20 percent to $96 million, while slot-machine play contracted 19 percent to $214.3 million, the New Jersey Casino Control Commission said today in an e-mailed statement.

Visits to Las Vegas are expected to decline 3 percent to 4 percent this year, Rossi Ralenkotter, chief executive officer of the Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority, said in a Feb. 4 interview. Passenger flight capacity remains almost 15 percent less than a year ago, he said. Meanwhile, developers are preparing to open more than 13,000 new hotel rooms in 2009.

“In Vegas the problem is really not so much in the gambling side of the business, but more so on the hotel side,” Robert LaFleur, an analyst at Susquehanna Financial Group, said today in a Bloomberg Television interview.

“Room rates had gotten exceptionally high,” LaFleur said. “It’s a huge source of profitability, and right now we’re in a very, very damaging rate war on the Las Vegas Strip.”

Steepest on Record

Revenue for all casinos in Nevada retreated 15 percent to $908.6 million in January. Monthly proceeds for Clark County, which includes downtown Las Vegas as well as the Strip, tumbled 16 percent to $777.5 million.

Last year’s 11 percent fall on the Strip was the steepest since record-keeping started in the mid-1980s. Atlantic City’s gambling revenue tumbled 7.6 percent in 2008, its worst annual decline, compounding a 5.7 percent slide in 2007 after nearby Pennsylvania and Yonkers, New York, allowed slot machines.

Casino owners Harrah’s Entertainment Inc., Boyd Gaming Corp. and MGM Mirage began an express weekend train connecting Atlantic City to Manhattan’s Penn Station last month to boost visits. New York is at least two hours away by car.

All 11 casino properties posted gambling revenue declines last month. Slumping play has already persuaded Atlantic City’s council to postpone a casino smoking ban for another year.

‘Screaming Deals’

“There’s been a lot of construction activity in terms of building out new hotels” in Las Vegas, Orbitz Worldwide Inc. Chief Executive Officer Barney Harford said in an interview last month. “That was happening in the run-up to this tough economic environment, so capacity was moving in one direction and then as demand started to go downwards, you really felt a challenge.”

The glut of rooms has led to “some screaming deals out there to go to Vegas,” Harford said. “People are really trading up to four-star and five-star properties, because the folks are going to go down for a long weekend or something, and they can afford to do that at the current rates.”

Total visits to Las Vegas slid 4.4 percent last year to 37.5 million people, according to the visitors authority.

Passenger traffic at Las Vegas’s McCarran International Airport declined 7.7 percent to 44.1 million in 2008 from a year earlier, the second-biggest annual decline since data were first compiled in 1960, Clark County Department of Aviation figures show. The airport recorded its biggest annual passenger slump, 8.1 percent, in 1981. Passengers dropped 16 percent in January.

Las Vegas added about 8,000 hotel rooms last year, bringing the total to 140,000. That will swell again in 2009 as MGM Mirage and Dubai World’s CityCenter and Fontainebleau Resorts LLC’s new casino resort open.

Strip developers have indefinitely suspended construction on four projects that were to have added 6,900 hotel rooms and condominiums, according to the visitors authority.

Source

Get on out to Las Vegas and Rent a home instead of staying in a hotel.

On a vacation in the desert you’ll need a lot of water. It seems that every business on the Strip is trying to take advantage of that. Hotels and casinos have their own branded bottled water which costs $3 for a small bottle.

Avoid paying such prices by knowing where to find a local drugstore. There are two places along the Strip: a drugstore across the street from the Sturdust hotel on the northern end and a drugstore near the MGM Grand. If you are in Downtown Las Vegas, there is a drugstore near the entrance to the Fremont Street Experience.

Book a stay at the Riviera now through Dec.29, 2009 and get 50% off your stay!

To take advantage of this offer, be sure to book the “50% Off Your Stay” room type!

Stay Dates: Now - Dec. 29, 2009

Terms & Conditions of the Riviera 50% off promotion:Blackout dates may apply. Promotion applies to bookings made between now and Dec. 29, 2009 for stay dates between now and Dec. 29, 2009 only. No minimum stay required. Offer has no cash value and becomes void if qualifying booking is cancelled. Promotion subject to change or termination at any time, without notice.

If traveling around the strip, walking is a reasonable option as hotel-casinos are found close to each other. In fact in most cases, at least two hotels are connected to each other either by bridge or underground or in the case of Excalibur, Luxor and Malanday Bay, by a complimentary rail shuttle. Be aware that during the summer, the oppressive heat during the daylight hours may make walking a very uncomfortable activity. So if you don’t feel like walking or are staying at a hotel off the strip or better yet renting a home in Las Vegas here are some options:

he Las Vegas Monorail [11], +1 702 699-8200, runs on the east side of the strip with stops behind several of the hotels and at the Las Vegas Convention Center [12]. It costs $5 one-way, $9 return and $15 for a one-day pass. Do the math before boarding, it could be cheaper for a small group to take a taxi. Because the monorail stops at the back entrance of the hotels, it takes a long time to wind through the maze of casinos, often taking 30 minutes to an hour to get from one point to another on the Strip - if you’re in a hurry take a taxi.

Taxi

One of the easiest ways to get around is by taxi. It is relatively cheap to go from hotel to hotel. The cab driver is required to turn on the meter and to take the shortest route to your destination. There is a surcharge for rides originating at the airport, but not for extra passengers. Taxi lines (queues) are typically found at the front of hotels. You would be unwise to attempt to hail one on the street, especially on the Strip as it is illegal for a cab to stop traffic to pick up or drop off a passenger. The best way to hail a cab outside of a cabstand is to use the following method: if you are wanting to go north on the strip, stand on the east side about 20 feet before a turn off. The cab you want to wave over will have the yellow lights off. Standing like this allows the cab to turn off the road and pick you up. It is customary to tip the hotel taxi dispatcher $1 or more; tip the cab driver at least 15% of the meter, and about $1 per piece of luggage.

Renting a Car in Las Vegas

Renting a car at McCarran International Airport is fairly cheap and popular. The opening of the new rental car facility has increased the wait time to get your car. All the rental agencies are now located under a single roof and all use the same shuttle from the airport to the facility. There have been reports of an extra 30 min increase in the time it takes to pick up and/or drop off your vehicle, so please add this to any arrival and departure times so you won’t be late for anything important. Expect to pay about 50% more for your car rental due to recent tax increases.

Illusionists Siegfried and Roy gave a “final” performance Saturday in Las Vegas, one that included a surprise guest star: Montecore, the white tiger whose mauling of Roy Horn in 2003 effectively ended the duo’s career.

According to an Associated Press story, the duo performed a trick that placed Siegfried in a cage that was briefly covered in drapes. When Roy removed the drapes seconds later, Horn appeared on the other side of the stage, and in the cage stood Montecore.

The performance, at the Bellagio hotel and casino, was part of a benefit for the soon-to-open Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health. The two have not performed at The Mirage, the site of their 13-year run in Las Vegas, since Roy’s mauling.

The Bellagio performance will air Friday in a one-hour special on ABC-TV’s ” 20/20.”

The city of Las Vegas and all its vistitors will miss this great duo. Which las vegas shows compare to them?

Do you mind mid 70s weather? I didn’t think so.

Right now, as you can see on the Las Vegas weather forecast here it is just very that weather in Las Vegas, making it an ideal time to take your Las Vegas vacation.

While you’re out there don’t remember to consider renting a home instead of the hotel stay, it is a much better experience.

Bright lights, fun, games, big shows. It’s hard not to find something to make a vacation visit enjoyable in Las Vegas.

And with the economy cutting into attendance these days, the resorts and casinos are working a little harder to keep people coming, making it easier to find package deals and lower rates that will stretch your travel budget. Just remember, like the song says: You gotta shop around.

Start out by getting acquainted with the city at the official tourism web site - which offers to tell you all about places to stay and play. And they display “Special Offers” right up front, linking you to a page where you can search by date and section of the city. Back on the main page, click on “Play” to search schedules of shows (Jay Leno is at the Mirage, two dates only, in late March, and Bette Midler is at Caesars Palace in late March and early April). You can also check out sports events. “Play” also gets you to a searchable directory of all the casinos in town. Read it all..