The final night of the annual late summer trip was in a "partial lake view" Bellagio Suite located in their Spa Tower. We arrived around 1 PM and quickly were at the Front Desk. At the time I had made the reservation, there weren't any full lake view suites available, which are in the original tower, so I asked if there were any at check-in but they were still sold out. The clerk assured me that where my room was located, on the 28th floor towards the south end of the building, I would have a great view. Sure enough, we couldn't have asked for more. A full lake view plus views of The Cosmopolitan going up. In fact, it might have been even better than a room in the original tower due to being set back further from the Strip. As a bonus, it was $50 cheaper!

The Spa Tower is a little bit of a walk from the front desk and casino but is near the Convention Area and City Center monorail station. There was excellent security at the elevator at all times with a person checking keys and a key required to select a floor once in the elevator. I have noticed that to be slipping (or nonexistent) in many places recently and it was good to see at Bellagio. Once we got to the suite, it did not disappoint. It is a true suite with separate living room and bedroom plus a "his" bath with steam shower and a "hers" with a large Jacuzzi tub. There is also a half bath off the entry way. The room is decorated in dark neutral colors and is much more pleasing than the look of the older suites. It is loaded with all the latest bells and whistles like motorized drapes, 4 flat-screen TVs, DVD and IPod players. There is also plenty of other little touches; scales in each bathroom, robes and slippers in the closet and full toiletry supplies including razor, shaving cream and toothbrush. The couch was very comfortable and the bed provided the best night sleep of the trip. All in all, it was everything we expected from Bellagio.

Outside of the room, our feelings towards Bellagio change considerably. After checking in, we wanted a quick bite to eat. Your fast dining options are limited to one: "Snacks." Yes, that is the name of their snack bar and it isn't mentioned in the 28 page Dining Guide that is in the room. While it was quite possibly the best snack bar food we have ever had, $28 for a BLT, mini pizza and a Coke is ridiculous, even in a casino. A similar issue arose at dinner time. If your are not in the mood for 5-star dining, which is aplenty, your options are once again limited. It was late and we wanted room service as we enjoyed the fountain show from our suite. A quick look at the menu yielded very little that couldn't be called pretentious. We ended up jumping on the monorail over to Monte Carlo and ate at The Pub.

The quality of the room, the experience of the fountains from above and the beauty of the public areas make Bellagio (along with Wynn) the best Vegas has to offer. It's hard to not love the place. However, the total pretentiousness of the environment (afternoon tea and caviar in the lobby bar) makes it hard to relax and enjoy yourself. We are rarely top chef diners or turndown service people so those amenities are of little use to us and the ones we do use are not there. Having to leave for a simple casual meal or Starbucks makes shelling out for the luxury impractical. The quote to sum it all up came from Lisa... "We are paying for the inconvenience!"

If you are looking for a full-blown, money is no issue, luxury Vegas experience or are a $1000 a hand player; there isn't much that can top Bellagio. However, there are a lot of other hotels with nearly the same luxury but without the over-the-top budget or attitude. We were happy that we splurged for the one night in an awesome room especially since it's been almost a decade since we last stayed at Bellagio. But now it's back to many more nights at places like Mandalay Bay and South Point, which are much more our style, until our next stay in another 10 years!

Click Here for Suite Pictures
Click Here for Pool Pictures

The long-awaited Planet Hollywood and Flamingo maps have been posted on the Property Map page along with an updated Caesars Palace map showing the new pool area and mothballed Octavius Tower.

Our annual late summer trip in now in the books and it was quite the great time. 4 nights in 3 different suites, all of them excellent, made for memorable trip. No budget places on this run and the best part was only paying for the last night! The trip started with a night in a 1 bedroom suite at South Point. This is the standard room that they comp and it now feels like home. I might even get around to writing the review this time! I had my host get me a 6 PM check out to enjoy it as long as possible. I then moved over to THEHotel at Mandalay Bay for 2 nights in a end suite with views on 2 sides. Lisa joined me on the second night at MB then we moved to a gorgeous lakeview Bellagio Suite for the final night. We are torn about our feelings towards Bellagio with such much good countered by some very large bads... The upside is that after 8 years, I can finally update those room pics!

A couple of tidbits from the trip...

Everywhere we went, it was quite busy especially considering it was mid-week in August.

Something I never seen before, a sign in Mandalay... "You must be 21 to enter Sports Book or dine at Canter's Deli." I completely understand but pretty hardcore making the deli 21 and over!

There are 2 giant electronic signs on the front of Planet Hollywood that are nothing more than giant billboards hawking everything from clothes to condos in Miami. Even in a town known it's cheese, that's pretty damn cheesy.

Speaking of PH, yesterday was a momentous day in the history of Casino Property Maps. I was finally able to get a map of PH for the FIRST TIME EVER going all the way back to the Aladdin days. To top it off, I also scored a full-color map from the Flamingo, something not seen in at least 5 years. Thanks to those who wrote to let me know about that news!

Stay tuned over the next few days for all of the reviews, room pictures and maps as I get them posted.

For the first time in as many trips as I can remember, I will have no room pics, property maps or anything else of note coming out of a trip to Vegas. It was a trip that barely was even really a trip! The purpose was business with my boss to visit a potential vendor and luckily, he is a cool guy who loves Vegas. We landed at 10:00 AM, picked up our rental car then swung by South Point for a bite to eat and a quickie gambling session. We then went to our meetings all afternoon before checking into our room at Bally's. The evening consisted of 4 hours of penny slots and video poker at the bar with an hour of dinner in between. Excellent service at Sully's Bar in Bally's made for an early night and we were back at McCarran by 8:00 the next morning for the second leg of our trip. The whole time was a blur and a vivid reminder of why I refuse to do a single night trip on my own anymore. It is just a tease that isn't worth the hassle of travel.

After gaining a new respect for the guys over at Google, I am happy to announce the addition of another new feature: The VegasCasinoInfo.com News Search. You can now search through more than 2 years of Vegas news, reviews and commentary. It was interesting to go back through some of the older posts and see how much Vegas has changed in just that short time. As with everything on the site, it is a work in progress with plans to expand it to search the entire database beyond news. It turned out to be more difficult than I figured it would be to generate decent results even with such a small database. I can only imagine what it takes to run Google on a daily basis!

In general Vegas news, the Cosmopolitan announced that the Grand Opening will be December 15 and I already have my room booked! As it stands now, it looks to be the last one in Vegas for a very long time with construction stopped on Fontainebleau. If it's even half the fun I had at the openings of ARIA and Vdara last year, it will be a great experience. It better be fun because they are pretty damn proud of their rooms for that night. The standard room, which they call the "Terrace Studio", starts at $300 and they go up from there with an upgrade to a "Premium View" room being $30. As the name implies, many rooms have terraces, which should make the upgrade definitely worth it. A large majority of the rooms were originally intended to be condos so they are rather large at 620 Sq. Ft. and have small kitchenettes. The rates drop in the mid $100s a few days later and probably will trend even lower which certainly isn't too bad for a brand spankin' new room. Another bankrupt developer's loss is our gain!

Another new feature has been added to the site, the VegasCasinoInfo.com mailing list. Add your name and you will be notified instantly when new updates are made to the site. It's something that is long overdue but I have put off because of people's concern about Spam. With the amount of new things that have been added recently combined with several trips planned in the near future made now the right time. In conjunction with the mailing list, I have also put up a no-BS privacy policy to try to put some of the Spam fears to rest and make it crystal clear that nothing other than the occasional site update email will come from signing up. So join in and look for the best Vegas news, reviews, commentary and pics delivered right to your inbox.

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