Downtown Is Dying

Fact.

Can't help you with the spa and shows but as a guest at MSS you get pool privileges over at the Cal.

The Golden Nugget has a beautiful spa and lovely pool area!

Tried the pool at the Cal. I don't know how a pool that is so small can feel so cold, it's like jumping in ice water. It just lacking something. I have sat up there for hours and saw no one. Great place to read a book. Attempted to try the pool at the Nugget and I refuse to fight over a place to sit. I would prefer something between the Cal pool and Nugget pool.

Plaza has a nice pool and a small Gym too and I think that the rooms have been redone nicely.

RecVPPlayer

First thing I said aloud in response to your post was, "Man, he's a real downer!" However, I thought longer about it and realized, it may have something to do w/the number of years you've been visiting and frequent visits to the same destination over and over.

As for me, I've become a downtown convert myself, largely in part to LVA. My first three trips to Vegas I stayed on the strip and never even made it downtown. AFter joining LVA in 2009 and reading great trip reports and reviews, my husband and I decided to check it out. Every trip back since then, we found ourselves spending more and more time there. Now, this year, for the first time ever, we have two nights booked at MSS. Can't wait!

I keep checking to see if there are any improvements playwise on the Strip and at least for me, I don't find enough of it as opposed to Downtown and anyway for me, it takes me less of a play requirement to get stuff out of the casinos.

At the Strip casinos, at least as far as I know, it takes even more play (and also possibly even at a higher level) to get things (offers) out of casinos as opposed to casinos in Downtown LV.

RecVPPlayer

I have 45 years of Las Vegas experiences. When I was 20 to 40 I loved the strip, but still enjoyed going downtown on occasion. As I have aged I have grown more fond of downtown and love it these days. The strip and downtown have changed immensely over time. Some changes have been for the better and some not. If I were much younger I might prefer the strip for the action, but since that is not happening I will stay for the most part downtown and visit the strip on occasion.

If you like being overcharged, gouged, play horrible games and be counted as nothing- by all means enjoy the strip. I'd rather have the fools who play 6/5 bj, 80% return slots and 7/5JoB not come downtown and excourage those casinos to follow the trend any more than they already are.

Just my opinion, but all in a nutshell----I get Mickey's point--nothing much new has come along in the last few years downtown, but I'm a little on the tight side, and it works for me. I have to play video poker for comps. I cannot afford to run $25,000 through slot machines on a trip to keep comps alive, but I can afford to play $25,000 in VP, with good pay schedules, so it's either downtown or Henderson, it's not gonna be the strip. For me, the strip is for visiting, downtown is for staying and playing. Not crazy about dodging panhandlers at 3 in the morning, not an abundant amount of elegance, but all things considered, it works for me.