To paraphrase Mick Jagger in "Shattered," "Don't you know the room rate's going up Up UP UHHP UHHHHHP! (shattered, shattered)."
On the other hand, this town is hardly in tatters (sha-doo-bee). Las Vegas is now the 27th largest city in the U.S. and one of the top five or so vacation destinations on the planet. Thus, yes, prices at the newest and most upscale resorts (which cost upwards of $2 billion to build, after all) have been climbing and climbing. In fact, prices have been rising steadily for nearly 20 years, since the Mirage (at an unheard-of $650 million) opened, when the rest of the town was in tatters (sha-doo-bee).
Today, to stay a night at the Wynn or the Venetian'll run you $279 on average, which is no different than the cost of a night in a high-end hotel in Manhattan, San Francisco, London, or Paris. And you can spend more than $1,000 on dinner for two at Robuchon at the Mansion, Alex at the Wynn, and several other Vegas restaurants. Fully 19 shows have a ticket-price option of more than $100. Buffets for $35, hamburgers for $60, glasses of cognac for $2,000 -- indeed, the sky's the limit for suites at the Palms, bottle service at PURE, and renting a Lamborghini for the weekend.
On the other hand, a bed's a bed and a burger's a burger, and if you don't care about sunken living rooms with dining tables, convertible sofas, writing desks, fax machine-copiers, and mini-bars, along with canopied beds, three telephones, and two big-screen TVs (room amenities at the Venetian), you can book perfectly suitable accommodations, on weekend nights even, at the Plaza for $40, the New Frontier for $70, and the Stratosphere for $90. (We run a room-rate survey every month in LVA, with prices regularly as low as $39 at Terrible's and $79 at the Hard Rock.) And weekly motel rooms with kitchenettes are even less expensive per night than that.
There are, likewise, plenty of bargains for food around town. This month's Top Ten contains a 75-cent hot dog, a 99-cent shrimp cocktail, a $1 beer, a $3.95 lunch special, a $4.95 steak dinner, and a $6.99 prime rib. Some good buffets are still as low as $5 for breakfast, $7 for lunch, and $9 for dinner. And every month we cover locals eateries, many of which are extremely reasonably priced.
Comedy clubs, afternoon shows, and even some good evening entertainment are still affordable.
There's free parking everywhere; try that in any major city in the country (one of us just spent a night at an Embassy Suites in downtown Sacramento and was charged $18 for mandatory valet parking). You can spend the better part of a weekend just attending the free spectacles, from the Rio's Masquerade Show in the Sky to the Fremont Street Experience. You can ride Deuce buses up and down the Strip all day long for $2.
And if you gamble at all, your drinks are free. With a players club account, prices come down fast and far. Plus, if you budget gambling money for entertainment, you have a shot at winning enough to pay for everything and go home with more money than you arrived with (or at least breaking even or subsidizing your vacation a little). Try that in Paris.
Bottom line: Yes, prices are rising in Las Vegas and in some cases, they're going sky high. Then again, prices are rising all over the country (a more accurate way to put it, after 15 years of the Fed inflating the money supply through the roof, is that the value of the dollar is dropping like a rock) and the world. However, you don't have to spend more than a middle-income budget allows. If you're diligent, you can still find plenty of bargains in Bargain City.
