Do you ever envision a day when a Vegas resort will offer an “all-inclusive” package similar to many tropical locales and cruise ships, whereby you pay one price for the room, food, and drinks? It would seem like this might help keep customers on the property, and perhaps then more likely to spend a gambling budget only in that location. Thoughts?
"All-inclusive," as stated in the questions, means a hotel-resort that charges one price for accommodations and a meal plan (generally all food and beverage) for week-long stays. It's like a cruise on land.
It's a convenient way to spend a vacation (if you want to spend it entirely in one place), because you don't have to make travel, activity, or dining and drinking decisions several times a day. Everything is included, so all you do is show up at the various restaurants (you usually need to make reservations for the fancier rooms, though the coffee shops and buffets are readily available), eat, and sign your name and room number to the bill. Club Med is an original all-inclusive resort chain, but now there are many throughout the Caribbean and Mexico and in Hawaii, such as Hedonism, Couples, Dreams, Breezes, Secrets, and others.
To the best of our knowledge, no Las Vegas resorts offer all-inclusive packages. Actually, Las Vegas isn't set up for such vacations, since so many resorts are so close together that it's not conducive to staying in one place all day every day for a week. Almost no one wouldn't want to get out and look around town, to say nothing of participating in any number of activities, missing paid-for meals and events at the home resort. Indeed, not even Las Vegas' outlying resorts, such as those at Lake Las Vegas, offer all-inclusive deals.
The closest Las Vegas comes to the typical all-inclusive is the package deal, with airfare and a three- to four-night hotel stay and some combination of show tickets, a couple of meals (usually at a buffet) and drinks.
However, there’s a new wrinkle on this deal in Vegas. As described in our new book Rock Vegas, a four-day music festival, the Big Blues Bender, takes place in September (this year, 7-10) at the Plaza downtown.
The Big Blues Bender is a “land cruise.” Live-music cruises on actual ships have become popular. You can cruise for a week, practically anywhere in the world, and be entertained nightly by a diverse genre of bands. The Big Blues Bender is on land, but comes with everything you’d get on a ship: an up-close-and-personal experience, but with a hotel as the festival grounds.
“Mini-all-inclusive” packages start at $1,049 for a single room for four nights and a four-day wristband to all the music events, while the exclusive all-inclusive is a four-person suite, four-day wristbands for the music and unlimited drinks, three lunches and four dinners, plus a slew of extras for $7,996 ($1,999 per person).
This year’s headliners include David Bromberg, Mavis Staples, Dr. John, Tab Benoit, Walter Trout, Doyle Bramhall, and 50 other artists.
The BBB promoter has 30 land-cruises registered — Electric Bender, Big Country Bender, and Jazz Bender among them—though whether or not they wind up in Vegas remains to be seen.
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Diane
Jun-27-2017
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