The wife and I are escaping to Vegas for 4 days next week. First time out there for both of us, a year late 10th anniversary trip.

We'll be staying at the Monte Carlo. Any tips or spots to hit?

I'm stoked!! :D:hurray:

Play a couple thousand on the slots for me,I'll pay you after we win.:thumbsup:

Were there no rooms available at the Chevelle?:confused:

I've never been but my folks stay at the monte carlo every year. They really seem to like it there so based on their reaction id say you picked a good place to stay.

Do the "Big Dam Tour"at the Hoover Dam.:beers:

Thing about Vegas on your first trip is that it can be overwhleming and usually this means that you try to cram too many things into your visit and see so many things that you might as well of seen nothing.

My advice - dont try to do it all, dont even try to do 1/2 of it. Pick a show or two to see, scoot around the casinos but bouncing around all day every day to every spot you think you want to see ends up sucking at the end.

Sweet go kart tracks, they got killer dune buggy rentals out that way (not your average go slow, follow the leader on a plane old straigh path but haul ass, keep up with the leader, they dont even care if you wreck type stuff), the Cirque shows are entertaining (they have buffed midgets...cant go wrong with a buffed midget on a trapeze) and the coasters and rides (NY/NY is a fun one and I ALWAYS clean up on black jack in that joint)

plan and stick to it. First time I went there I was so scattered that by the end I didnt REALLY get to see or do squat. Just kind of pushed through everything and at the end was just worn out. Best to chew on vegas rather than beer bong it. :D

Better yet - PM Rowdy and do what he says. Might include a butt pucker of a ride in that mean car of his. You could video your wife in it, get her screaming and then you cleaning up the seat afterwards. Post here, all will enjoy. ;)

Do the "Big Dam Tour"at the Hoover Dam.:beers:

"Where the hells the damn dam guide?!" :D

Thanks for the tips Beaux. :thumbsup: We've got a basic game plan of what we'll be doing, as it is SO massive. Gotta hit the Phantom of the Opera, per the wife :boring:, I'd rather see Bite. :D

Thought about doing those crazy rides off the top of the Stratosphere, don't know once I'm there though...1000 feet is a loooong way up.

Grab a pass for the train that runs up and down the strip, it was too damn hot out there last week when I went and plus you see a little more. Check out the water show at the venitian and try to get up to downtown at least once to check those things out. When you really need / want some beer, just go sit on a nickle machine and drink all you can. Have fun, give the city the finger for me, they always rip me off :) j/k, last week we won!

My wife and I enjoyed the Monte Carlo while we were out there in February. We enjoyed it because it was smaller and didn't take forever to walk through the casino to the hotels. It is close to the middle of the strip, so we were able to walk everywhere we wanted to go.

I would recommend getting tickets to a cirque du soleil show. We saw KA and it was AWESOME!!!! Really cool show to watch...truly amazing.

Have fun, walk around - everything looks closer than it really is!!

Monte Carlo is fun, but there is a lot of costruction going on by there at all times of day / night.

I'll be out there at the same time for company business. Have fun!

We stayed at the Monte Carlo last fall....very nice hotel.

Play "red 34" on the first roulette wheel you come to. Very lucky number.

Ditto on the construction right next door to the Monte Carlo.

Lastly, wear comfortable shoes....advise your wife of the same.

The fountains at Bellagio were neat, the Caesars Palace has a nice mall, the Treasure Island has a pirate ship show (we didn't see it, was too windy) the volcano erupting at the Venitian. Fremont Street...not as many hecklers there, some guys doing cool paintings with spraycans....

While on the strip, beware of the temptation to walk to the casino "right over there"; it will appear ALOT closer that it really is because the casinos are all so huge.
(No I am not, nor have I ever been affiliated with any cab companies - I've just fallen into this trap WAAAY too many times)

I too had to go to Vegas with the wife a year or so ago....I am not much of a gambler so I thought the whole trip would be a waste. The sights were cool to see but overall I was disappointed after all the hype I had heard for years.

Now the one very cool thing about the trip for me was there is a rent a exotic car place called Rent A Vette http://www.rent-a-vette.com/ . Anyway you can rent all kinds of exotic cars , Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Bentleys, Aston martins, etc. I ended up renting a Z06 Vette with the six speed manual transmission for a couple of days. I drove it out to the Hoover Damn tour and cruised the strip with it a few times. I would never drop the change for that kind of car so it was fun to play with for a few days though. I figured at least it would give me something to remember my trip, instead of donating to the casinos. I am pretty sure they didn’t build that place on everyone winning. LOL anyway enjoy your trip.

Been there once, but on business. My bosses went to their rooms after dinner and I went back partied my ass off. Lost a few bucks, but it was a blast. :D

I stayed at the hotel that looks like a castle. Can't think of the name of it. Good times.

I've been to Vegas a number of times. Here is the most recent trip. You haven't been to Vegas until you've rolled with Rowdy. He is the most excellent tour guide and awesome guy to hang with. Here is a copy of my post after my little adventure in Vegas with Rowdy.

Crack a cold one, and have a good read. :cool:

Rowdy, thanks for the most excellent trip to Vegas. Look forward to seeing you again.

From my post in performance...

Let's just say, Rowdy Raised The Bar.

That was the most fun I've had packed into 36 hours in Vegas in the 5 trips I've been there. I don't know what it is about Vegas, but it's as soon as the airplane touches down at Mcarron Airport, the heart starts to race a bit. Well, the thrill of the adrenalin high lasted pretty much the entire trip this time.

After the guards let me through customs, I walked out into the Vegas night to see one very ominous and sinister-looking black '66 Chevelle parked in the area reserved for foreign diplomats...who was I to question it ? Behind the wheel of the Chevelle was the man whom I would soon get to know as Las Vegas' ambassador to visiting gear-heads. Enter Rowdy. He certainly has the credentials and a most suitable vehicle for the job. I was pleasantly surprised to meet Mike, aukai and his wife Maria at the same time. Mike graciously offered me the shotgun seat and my own personal version of "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" was about to unfold. Hunter S. Thompson would have enjoyed this journey.

With a bark and a roar, the Mike Wolfplace Lewis 540 immediately commanded my full and undivided attention. The peaceful glow of a couple in-flight beers was instantly replaced by an acute and sobering awareness of my immediate surroundings. This wasn't going to be a routine cab ride to the strip. No sir.

Leaving the airport and heading east to the freeway on-ramp, the sound of the 3" full exhaust compares to none I've experienced before. Darting through traffic, without any sign of body roll, the ride to the Golden Nugget to drop of Mike and Maria reminded me of my last low-level contour flight up the river in a helicopter. It's as if the traffic opened up on cue, enabling us to have ample lane choices and modest open spaces to let the '66 stretch it's legs. Which, I might add, it does explosively.

It was then time to head out to Rowdy's ranch on the north side of town. About 15 minutes into the ride, and after many solid stoplight launches and runs through the gears, I thought to myself that this is about as good as it gets... a 36 hour pass from the daily grind at home, and cruising in a 750-hp-10-second-Chevelle with the windows rolled down in Las Vegas. It was about this moment in time I caught myself humming Guns 'n Roses Paradise City and hitting Rowdy up for one of his Marlborough's. Well as good as it gets, it gets better.

Next morning I do my obligatory high speed tour of the SEMA show and Rowdy picks me up in the '66 amongst grim city traffic. Whoever said loud pipes saves lives as it applies to motorcycles should extend that phrase to cars and say loud pipes make holes in traffic for you. We ripped out to his house, after a brief stop at a no-anglais Mexican restaurant. The food was great, but a bit too spicy for a whitebread hick like me. I had to make a most inglorious stop enroute to the desert. Rowdy warned me about the add-ons. I should have listened.

We quickly loaded up the quads in the back of his truck, and brought along some very serious and specialized hardware. You never know what you might come across in the desert. After a quick stop at Carroll Shelby's museum at the Las Vegas Speedway, we headed for the dunes just east of Nellis Air Force base. Unloading the quads, I was once again the small town hick, staring at the sky in awe as the USAF fighter jets continuously roared over our heads in pairs. A real display of power for sure.

We booked out into the desert and found a very isolated canyon away from all the tour buses and other thrill seekers. I expected to see Wyatt Earp or Billy the Kid rise out of the dust from all the racket we were making blasting caps out of the .38 and the .357. This was certainly the real deal. Don't get much opportunity to fire handguns here in Canada. Back on the quads, load 'em up and race back to town.

Back at Rowdy's hacienda, he generously offered me a cold one, while I came down off the good buzz of quadding and shooting. Soon it was time to make tracks back to town, and possibly fulfill some of my pending corporate obligations. Sober-as-a-judge, and ever the willing wheel-man, Rowdy offered to run me back to the strip for one last pass in the invisible-to-the-Man '66. Right on. I was hoping we weren't going to take the truck.


For those of you that have never experienced it, make it a must-do before you die. You have got to go for a ride, and I mean a RIDE in a car with the pull-your-face-back acceleration that this car has. It's downright sickening. Pulling out onto the seemingly open and endless four lane stretch, I just kinda knew he was going to get into it. Well tell you what. When that thing hooked in first it was Go-Time. With the original low back bucket seats, when we hit second, all I saw was the roof of the car. By the time we hit third, I was again looking out the windshield and finding myself grateful Rowdy didn't have a stereo in this thing. The sound, and feeling, of that 540 buzzing up past 7000 was like nothing I've ever experienced. It was like gulping a tablespoon of adrenalchrome. Four-letter-word awesome.

About this time, there was a passing thought through my head, "Jeez, this thing goes good, but Man, that gap is getting a little tight." As we approached closer yet, I did start thinking Rowdy must see something I don't, but it was never a bad thought. Things continued calmly, but just with some options needing to be considered soon. When I did in fact conclude that he had no intention of stopping in time, I thought to myself, "Dammit, this car is too sweet to wind up bending it like this." About this time, I think Rowdy had the same mental conclusion, and pulled off a textbook save. I was amazed at how quickly and agilely a 40+ year old car could jump up on an elevated concrete median. The only UH-OH, was the thump by my feet as the header punched the curb. And just like that, we were back down, 4 or 5 cars closer to the light, and invisibly stealthed out of sight.

I caught myself chuckling out loud as I recanted in my head hearing Rowdy go, "This ain't gonna happen." As bad as it might sound, it never felt like a panic situation or one of those omigod things. It did happen quickly, but hat's off to Rowdy for making it look routine. And I guess that's the hairy thing...it just might be another routine day in Vegas.

I have to tell you though, in a city of Bling, like Las Vegas, full of its stretched limos, Ferraris and 24" spinners, there's no cooler thing than cruising the strip bumper to bumper and moving one car length a lumpity lump cam rotation at a time in the most badass street car in Las Vegas.

Folks, you won't find it in the coupon book or on Expedia, but do yourself a favor, when in Vegas, hook up with the self-proclaimed Desert Rat and Displacement Whore himself, Rowdy. It's the best thrill ride in town. And he's one hell of a tour guide.

Thanks Rowdy. It was a riot...and I'll be back again.
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