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My wife and I left Littleton, CO Friday night and flew out of DIA on Southwest Airlines. The flight departed about 30 minutes late. We arrived at McCarren International Airport around 11:15 in the evening.

We deplaned at gate 25 where there is a bar to your immediate left , went down past the usual array of slot machines and off to baggage and ground transportation.

Everything was going smoothly until we hit the cab line… whoa the line was wrapped around about seven deep. It was 11:30 pm and the Cabs were backed up to Japan and back.  The temp was about 102°.

We got through the cab line in about 30 minutes, not too bad really, and ended up at the Bally’s around midnight and went straight to the room. This was the first time we stayed at Bally’s and we were not quite sure what to expect.

Bally’s is one of the oldest hotels on the strip and the outside of the hotel is pretty drab. The blue and white outdoor decor is aged looking and none of hotel’s windows face directly out onto the strip. This may have something to do with the fact that at the time Baily’s was built there were no other hotels to look at or obstruct the view. Bally’s sits right across from The Bellagio. Our room was on the 14th floor you could only catch a glimpse of the fountain.

The room decor was a vintage 70’s/80’s mix, but it was big, clean and comfortable. The Casino has been updated and a fun place to play. The casino is attached to Paris through a breezeway with easy access to Paris’ casino, shops, restaurants and shows. All in all, my wife and I really enjoyed our stay because of the location on the strip and we had a blast in the casino.

(Las Vegas, NV) The Las Vegas Sun is reporting that 3 people were hurt when an elevator at Fitzgerald’s Casino fell rapidly.

According to the Sun, the Elevator may have been overloaded at the time.

The elevator brakes broke the fall and the cable did not break the Sun story said. Two adults an one child was hurt.

OK..I just spent an hour and a half trying to book rewards travel for my wife who is traveling to Minneapolis to see her Mom.

And I tired to book flight reward travel for the two of us to travel to Fort Lauderdale where we will be departing for a cruise in November to the Caribbean.

The problem with most rewards travel, I have found, is that you can never use it when you want or you fall short of the number of miles needed for tickets. As was the case today, when I was trying to book our flights.

I tried to use the Frontier rewards card for the trip to Fort Lauderdale. No luck… every day I could possibly consider to get to the boat on time was blacked out.

So I tired the US Air card which tends to have fewer restrictions, but we were short on mileage points. We would need to buy 10-thousand miles and that would cost about 400 bucks with fees and taxes etc…

We have been spoiled by taking most of our vacation travel over the past several years to Nevada… Las Vegas, Laughlin, Reno and more.

We have the Harrah’s Total Rewards players card and that really helps stretch the vacation dollars. Plus we frequently book flights on Southwest by using its “Ding” alerts on-line for the best deals. Our flight 6 weeks ago on Southwest only cost 156 bucks for 2 round trip tickets.

If you work it right with your players card and discount airlines, you will be spoiled by vacationing in Nevada too.

Bellow is an chat session I had with a friend about why it is good to use a players card if you travel to Vegas frequently. There are lot of different players cards used by the casinos. My wife and I have several of these cards, but we primarily use Harrah’s Total Rewards Card. This card is good at several of Harrah’s Vegas properties and at any Harrah’s Entertainment property anywhere. My wife and I have been to Harrah’s Laughlin and Reno on free trips we earned on the Total Rewards Card.  

Excerpt of Chat With a Friend About Total Rewards

(Friends) says: you guys go to Vegas and and Nevada all the time and you’re always getting free rooms and…

we love it there…we have harrah’s players card for for the flamingo, caesars, harrah’s, and other so we get rooms and flights and stuff ..are rooms are comp’d for 4 nights on this trip 

(Robb) says:

our rooms

(Friend) says:

how do you do that to get the rooms free

(Robb) says:

we gamble an average of about 500 each time we go and that helps us earn enough points

(Robb) says:

we earned completely free trips to laughlin and reno

(Robb) says:

then just pay for gambling and food

(Robb) says:

it ends up costing us less for the trips overall using the players card… because before we would gamble anyway and pay for rooms and every flight..and if you fly southwest you get super cheap flights… last trip was only 156 round trip for both of us..this trip is 256 round trip and free rooms 

(Robb) says:

and we get entertainment discounts, drink coupons, restaurant and gift shop discounts

One thing my wife and I can never miss on our trips to Las Vegas is the Bellagio Flower shows. The Indoor botanical displays are changed several times of year and follow holiday and/or seasonal themes. Here is the schedule of Date for the display changes:

• December 1 - Holiday Display
• January 12 - Chinese Yew Year Display
• March 15th - Spring Display
• May 17th - Summer Display
• September 13th -Harvest Display