Question of the Day - 12 February 2009

For this answer, we turn once again to Mike Attisano, whose travel guide, Simplifying Las Vegas, is available on Kindle and as a pdf at simplifyinglasvegas.com.

Maps of Las Vegas make everything look close together. Don’t let them fool you! The Strip itself is about a long four miles. And while that may seem like a doable distance, consider that you're rarely walking directly from Point A to Point B.

Here's a typical scenario. You're staying at the MGM Grand in a West Wing room and you want to see the Bellagio fountains. You walk down the long hall to the elevators, through the casino and lobby, down the escalator, past the Star Lane Shops, past the monorail station, into the garage, and past 19 rows of cars till you finally arrive at your rental (pray at this point you didn't forget your car keys). Whew! Then, if you take the Strip to Bellagio, you get stuck in that perpetual traffic jam; you can also take Frank Sinatra Drive the back way, but CityCenter and Cosmopolitan construction almost makes it faster to take the Strip! Then you have to park at Bellagio and walk through the garage and casino and out the front door and around the lake onto the sidewalk. Forty-five minutes after leaving your room, you arrive at the fountains. And that's driving!

Or you decide to walk to Bellagio, so you go out the Grand's front door and walk north on the Strip, ducking into the M&M store, the Miracle Mile Shops, and Bally's sports book along the way.

Or you catch the monorail, walking all the way through MGM and Bally's to get to and from, not to mention paying $5 one-way!

But the good news is that you can take shortcuts and combine similar activities to save both time and wear and tear on your feet. Start by combining some of your to-do list items.

Let’s say you arrive on a Friday in Las Vegas for an extended weekend adventure with friends. You plan on staying mid-Strip and renting a car. You haven’t planned out your entire trip, but you know while you’re there you’ll want to:

• visit a nightclub/ultralounge, like the Ghostbar at the Palms • gamble (low-limit tables and machines) • see a free show • go to the Shark Reef at Mandalay Bay • check out the Fremont Street Experience

Although you only have five items on the list, you’ll have to cover three different zones(south Strip, outskirts, and downtown). It’s tempting to try to cover them all the Friday night you arrive. For example, you could run to the Shark Reef before it closes, then zoom downtown to catch the Fremont Street Experience, then get back in the car and go to the Palms to dance the rest of the night away. Of course, by Saturday morning, you’ll probably be exhausted and too tired to do the rest of the things on your list.

The solution? Plan ahead. Even a little bit ahead. It’ll save you a lot of time and shoe repairs. Here are some examples of how you can spread it out a little bit.

Friday night (mid-Strip): • Explore free shows mid-Strip near your hotel (e.g. Bellagio fountains, Mirage volcano, Sirens of TI). • Go for low-limit gambling mid-Strip. This is getting trickier every day, but it can be done (for example at Imperial Palace or Bill's Gamblin' Hall).

Saturday (south Strip): • Venture to the south end of the Strip. • Gamble for low limits at the Tropicana. • Take the free tram from Excalibur to Mandalay Bay to see your fishy friends at the Shark Reef. Or walk from Excalibur to Luxor (there's a walkway/people mover from the south side of the second floor of Excalibur), then through Mandalay Place to MBay.

Saturday night (downtown): • Head downtown to see the Fremont Street Experience (take I-15 or Industrial Road to avoid traffic on the Strip). • Gamble in any of the low-limit casinos,

• "You missed a major convenience when answering how to get around Vegas ... the Deuce! It runs up and down the strip from Mandalay Bay all the way to Fremont Street downtown and has a great price on the 24-hour pass. It runs every few minutes, so forget renting a car -- use the bus!"
• "I used the bus system and it worked real well. I took a bus from the airport to the downtown hotel. It was funny, the transportation-booth lady didn't want me to. She said I'd be on the bus all day with all the stops along Maryland Parkway. It wasn't true, but it was a big saving. I also took the bus from downtown to a municipal golf course. Again, it took some additional time, but the bus went right to the course and back, after playing a reasonable green fee for a muni."
• "I think the best deal for parking at the large casinos is to use the valet service. It's free, but a decent tip is appropriate and your homeowner's car insurance should cover any damage to your rental, just in case it comes back to you with a new dent. But check with your insurance agent. [Editor's Note: Better yet, check QoD 11/16/08 for the whole valet-rental car question.] The best part is that you're in the front door and not a half-mile away!"
• "When going downtown from the Strip, I agree that I-15 is best, but instead of Industrial we take US93 southbound, then immediately take the downtown exit, then the first right (I think Main or one block north of Main) and then 1-1/2 blocks west. Take a left into the parking garage for California. Get a parking ticket, park on the fourth floor, take the elevator to the casino, and get the 10-hour validation at the time clock by the cage. Walk out the front door and you're one block off Fremont and close to Binion's and all the less expensive gambling. No hassle, and free indoor parking."
• "As for the question of walking, the problem isn't that going around Vegas requires too much walking. The problem is that most Americans do pitifully little walking in their average day, with people who live in the few mass-transit-oriented cities the exceptions that prove the rule. Sure, walking from one end of the Strip to the other, visiting all the highlights along the way, is a long walk, but it's a shock to the system for people who are used to the idea of never walking.
  
  "For a population that seldom walks longer than the distance from their parking space to the supermarket (and circle endlessly to get a space that's close), 5-10 miles a day of walking might seem like a lot. For those of us who live in places like NYC, where we walk all the time, it's tiring, but absolutely doable -- if not for the fact that we have to keep trying to get around the people who don't know how to walk.
  
  "So here's a follow-up question: In NYC, the generally acceptable pace for walking on sidewalks is about 3 mph. Anyone walking slower than that knows to get to the side and let people who have someplace to go get by them. Even crowded streets with tens of thousands of people can maintain that speed. In Vegas, I've found that people tend to walk at about half the pace to which I'm accustomed, and they're always stopping suddenly, as if no one is behind them trying to get somewhere. Are Americans really that bad at walking, or is 3 mph somehow an unrealistic expectation?"