This is a topical one that landed in our "in" box just prior to our discovery of some big (and less-than-welcome) changes to the Caesars Entertainment "Buffet of Buffet" pass, so it's perfect timing for a catch-up on the current lay of buffetland.
It was Excalibur that first introduced the "all-day-pass" concept, back in March 2009, when it debuted a fixed price of $25 that entitled you to eat at the Roundtable Buffet as many times as you liked in one day for $25. Since at that time, the regular price was $11.99 for breakfast, $14.99 for lunch, and $17.99 for dinner, eating any two meals in one day with the pass offered a saving; if you could stomach breakfast, lunch, and dinner at what has traditionally been considered one of the least-enticing buffets in Las Vegas, the saving was $20, or almost half-off. Plus, the offer included a line pass, allowing you to walk right in past the hungry hordes.
Evidently, the experiment worked, and a number of other buffets around town jumped on the bandwagon, including Luxor (which joined up with its sister property to offer a reciprocal all-in price that covered meals both at More, its buffet, and Roundtable), plus Mandalay Bay, Orleans, Monte Carlo, Palace Station, and the entire Caesars Entertainment Group (or at least most it) followed suit, often with some really great deals. For example, Stratosphere's unlimited-access deal for $19.99 (aside from Fridays, when it was $24.99), gave guests a $21 discount against the price of all three meals, while when MGM Grand debuted its pass in May 2009, allowing you to eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner for $29.99, it represented a whopping $28 off the rack rate for all three, at one of the better buffets in town.
By September of the same year, however, it seemed that enthusiasm for the trend, which perhaps had merely been introduced to boost sales in the slower summer months, was waning. Mandalay Bay and the Orleans both discontinued their all-day passes, and Palace Station hiked its all-inclusive price by $4, to $23.99.
This setback was evidently only temporary, however, and not only were the MBay and Orleans passes later reinstated, but in April 2010 came word that what was still Harrah's Entertainment (now Caesars Ent.) had taken the concept to a new level, following the Excalibur/Luxor model, with the introduction of the "Buffet of Buffets" pass that worked across multiple properties. For the bargain introductory price of $29.99, guests could eat as many of the buffets at Harrah’s, Flamingo, Imperial Palace, Paris, Caesars Palace, Planet Hollywood, and Rio (Carnival World only) as they could handle in a 24-hour period. Obviously, some of these meals are far more enticing than others, but Planet Hollywood's Spice Market, and Le Village Buffet at Paris, for example, have always been in the upper echelons, and if used judiciously the savings with the pass could be huge. The Rio's Village Seafood buffet was also later added to the CET roster, albeit for an additional $15 surcharge, adding even more potential value and diversity to the deal.
However, since its introduction, the price hikes for the Buffet-of-Buffets pass have been almost too numerous to keep up with, occurring virtually as frequently as our monthly call-around to all the buffets in town to check prices and times for the LVA newsletter. The September 2012 debut of the new Bacchanal Buffet at Caesars Palace, which has similarly upped its prices every time we've blinked and which also comes with a surcharge if you wish to eat there using the pass, has added additional complications when calculating the value of the CET all-dayer.
So complicated is the current scenario across the CET roster, in fact, that we devoted a massive Today's News item to it only last week, as we tried to get our heads around all the nuances. We'll replicate that summary below, for all those who missed it; in the meantime, here are the current prices for the other remaining all-day buffet deals around town (Monte Carlo's has been discontinued); you can compare them with the prices for individual meals, plus check for any fine-print exclusions, in our comprehensive Buffet listings (click the individual property name for additional information).
CET's BUFFET-OF-BUFFETS PASS
But wait, there's more. Much more. After extensive online sleuthing, coupled with some official misinformation, which failed to throw us off the scent, we can confirm lots of other stealth hikes have been added to the cost of using this "discount" pass.
For one thing, the price quoted above now only applies during the week. Back in December, it transpires, CET (very quietly, to the point of silently) introduced a weekend surcharge, and Friday/Saturday it's now $64.99 with a Total Rewards card, or $69.99 without. We've seen them allude to this in a few places now, but only on the B-of-B FAQ page did we find disclosure of what that price actually is and when it applies; even the official recorded information on the B-of-B dedicated hotline has not been updated to reflect the change. Nor had the change ever been disclosed to us, even though we call every single buffet in town every single month, specifically to check prices (see the ultra-timely Question of the Day for 4/4/2013, which is all about our Buffet listings.)
Talking of the hotline, this also fails to mention that the up-charge for using the pass at Caesars' uber-gourmet Bacchanal Buffet has also been increased. While it was formerly a flat fee of $15 on top of the price of the pass, should you wish to include this buffet in your 24-hour chowdown, it's now an additional $15 for breakfast, $20 for lunch, and $25 for dinner. We called Caesars and were told summarily that, "It's always been that way." No, it hasn't! And if you don't believe us (or any of the other third-party sites, reviews, and blog entries we checked), just call CET's own recorded-info line on (702) 862-3530 for proof!*
So, this means that if you wish to eat the Bacchanal Buffet at Caesars for dinner on the weekend as part of your "Buffet-of-Buffets" experience, and you don't have a Total Rewards card, it's going to cost you ... wait for it ... a total of $94.99 for the pleasure -- and that's not inclusive of tax.
The one tiny bright spark in all of this is that the up-charge for using the pass at Rio's Village Seafood Buffet, which was added to the pass-eligible list back in April 2011, has been dropped from $15 to $10. They don't tell you that on the info line, either.
*We actually called back and recorded it, so even if they've updated in the light of our reportage, we STILL have proof!
