Trip Report Las Vegas 11/4 thru 11/9 - Part 1

Flew to Vegas on Sat. 11/4 from JFK on Jet Blue with two friends. I highly recommend this airline. Comfortable seats, free satellite TV and low cost movies to pass the time. Watched the Devil Wears Prada and enjoyed immensely. Also being a nervous flyer being focused on the movie kept me distracted . We arrived in Vegas at 3:45 pm. Went to the carousel to retrieve our luggage and then proceeded to the taxi line to take us to the Stratosphere. Line was long as usual but then I noticed another roped off area that only a few people were standing at. we went over and was was told by a man I assumed was a dispatcher to get in line as there were three taxis available. Upon reaching the taxis, we handed our bags to the driver and told him we were going to the Strat. Being informed via this forum and the travel channel about taking the tunnel and highway, i told the driver not to take the highway but to go down Flamingo Road. The driver did not respond, but within minutes I realized that he did take the hghway. I spoke to him and stated again that I had asked him not to take the highway he never

responded to me. The trip ended up costing us $21.00 when it

should have been no more than $14.00. of course he received no tip. But I wonder if there is any recourse when your instructions are ignored. I must look into this. When we walked into the Casino on our way to the front desk, we had to walk across the casino floor. I noticed there was a very long line. The line was leading from the

hotel check in. I was told later that the computers for check in had been down since early that morning. We were on line to check in for almost 45 minutes. We finally reached the desk and were checked into a room in the Premiere Tower. This was only to be for one night as we had booked a Suite for Sunday thru Thursday.

We arrived in our room finally. The room was very clean nicely decorated with two queen beds and a reasonably sized bathroom. As we were hungry, we just set our bags down and went in search of food. Proceeded to the Buffet for dinner. As I have stayed at the Strat three times previous, I felt that the food was not as good as I remembered. The selections were very mundane. Everything seemed to be covered in gravy. After dinner, we headed into the casino where to my surprise it also seemed to have changed from my previous visits. There was a lot of construction going on in the middle of the casino and there were far less slot machines on the floor with large areas of empty space.

I did see on the casino floor the Giant Wheel of Fortune Penny Machine. It seemed to be getting a lot of play. I do not know why they call it a penny machine when the max coin spin was $4.00.

They should just be honest and call it what it is a dollar machine.

Being somewhat of a low roller I decided that was too rich for my blood. I passed and proceeded to look for a IGT Gamemaker multigame slot. I love to play keno and Vegas has some of the best

Keno games. I played keno and VP for a few hourssnd was up a few dollars. Until jet lag finally won and I dragged myself up to bed. My friends had already retired for the night. The next morning, we

were ready to experience Vegas. had breakfast at the buffet again, and I must say that the breakfast buffet was excellent and a 100%

improvement from the dinner buffet. The menu choices ranged from made to order omelets, breakfast items , beef, chicken, tacos

and a full dessert bar. After stuffing ourselves we then wandered around the casino and I was really able to notice the changes the

Strat had made. The open areas were more glaringly apparent in the morning than they had been the night before. The machines on the floor seemed to be very gimmicky and the standards were not as plentiful. The Giant Wheel of Fortune was still being played heavily. My friend decided to try her luck on it. She proceeded to sit down and play and almost immediately lined up a spin. When you receive a spin, the bonus is from 250 X your line bet to up to 100,000 times your line bet. The top of the slot screen shows what everyone wins. I watch some large bonuses being won. My friend won 1,000 times her line bet on her first bonus spin. She won $500 dollars within a matter of minutes. She was hooked from that point on. I watched her for a while and then wandered over to the slots. I played a while but nothing was happening. I noticed that there didn%26#39;t seem to be much action at the reel slots and did not notice anyone winning. After a while we went back upstairs to call to see if our suite was ready. We were told it would be awhile to clean and prepare the room and not to worry about checking out of the room we were in, and to call back in a couple of hours. This was eleven oclock. At 1:30 pm, the suite was still not ready, repeated call later we still had not checked into the suite. This was very annoying as we were on standby and did not feel comfortable to leave the hotel until we had checked into our new room. As the reservation was in my name, I finally asked to speak to a supervisor and complained about the situation. The Supervisor apologized for the delay and promised within the hour our suite would be ready. By this time it was almost 5:00 pm. They finally sent a bell boy to take our bags to the suite. The suite had two queen beds, a sofa bed, mini fridge and microwave and a full size jacuzzi in the bathroom. It was also very spacious. Now we were ready to start our Vegas adventures.

To Be Continued...........

Trip Report Las Vegas 11/4 thru 11/9 - Part 1

We stayed at the strat a few years ago and found poor check problems and a poorly run hotel. I know your pain LJ

Trip Report Las Vegas 11/4 thru 11/9 - Part 1

Loving your report so far, cant wait for the next instalment!!!!

will it be on soon???!!!

muffty x

14.00 to Strat is extremely optimistic, $21 isn%26#39;t bad.

Taking the highway can cut out a lot of time from such a long trip

The strat is a bargain hotel for a ';value';, not luxury, vacation, and serves that role well