We just got back from a weekend in Vegas with friends to run the Rock n’ Roll Half on November 12, 2017.
Gambling:
- We went to Treasure Island and won $90 playing blackjack! At the time of this blog post they had the best blackjack odds. We literally just followed the rules for minimizing your losses and played the minimum bet each time, and stopped once we had almost doubled our money (we put down $100).
Restaurants:
- Mon Ami Gabi: I was not impressed. They’re right across from the Bellagio fountains and have a great view of the show if you sit on the patio (if the fountain is running – it doesn’t start until 3pm on weekdays). Unfortunately, the food is hit or miss and generally overpriced. I had the worst cappuccino I’ve ever had in my life there, and the Croque Monsieur was awful. However, my friend was raving about the mussels. They had a good off menu vegetarian dish, and the corned beef hash was decent.
- Taco Bell Cantina: We ate at the McDonald’s next door for a late night snack and later realized that the Taco Bell Cantina serves alcohol and cheap tacos.
- Sparrow and Wolf: It was good but too pretentious and very pricey. We had the big ass pork shank, dumplings, bread ($5 for a small loaf of bread), and mushrooms. The pork shank was delicious, but I don’t think I would go back. My friend had an inventive cocktail served in a copper gnome mug (a variant on a Moscow Mule) which was pretty cool.
- Flour and Barley: From the Strip near the Flamingo Hotel, if you’re trying to get to the In-n-Out near the big wheel, you have to go down this side street. It’s filled with a ton of restaurants that have a lot more personality than the ones on the Strip. We went to Flour and Barley, a pizza place that also served craft beer. I thought it was great!
Bars and Clubs:
- Chandelier: We tried their overpriced plant drink which makes your mouth go numb. It was fun but a little gimmicky. Unfortunately Levels 2 and 3 were closed when we went there but it looked really, really cool.
- Voodoo at the Rio: I liked the rooftop club and the great view of the city. Well drinks were $13, which is somewhat to be expected. The crowd was a lot older than I would have guessed, but I thought it was a good time.
- Pro-tip: Sign up for free entry to clubs/pool parties at lasvegasguestlist.com! It’s super easy. Pool parties are only open from April-October, so we weren’t able to do one.
Rock n’ Roll Half Marathon:
- I wouldn’t do it again. There were way too many people (20,000 participants) and it took forever to get anywhere. Due to the lack of pedestrian facilities in Las Vegas and the fact that everyone was trying to get to the same place, it took us 45 minutes of walking to reach the gear check, which was only about a mile away. Luckily, we left our AirBnB an hour before the race started. Even though the race officially started at 4:30pm, we didn’t get to start running until 5:30pm, so we were just waiting impatiently in a packed crowd of people. Plus, the faster corrals (which we had originally signed up for) closed at 4:10pm so we couldn’t get in! Some parts of the race were not well lit, and I was worried I was going to trip and fall. Worst of all the crowd of people didn’t really thin out that much during the race, so we were constantly dodging or weaving around people going at slower paces. Wait, just kidding. The worst part was at the finish line. We had to walk for a mile before we could get to the gear check at the end and rest. The finish line was at the Mirage and we exited the race area at the Bellagio – it was crazy. However the medals were pretty cool, and the race was completely flat.
Credit Card Churning:
- We booked the flights using 25,000 Alaska miles each to fly Alaska round-trip from SEA to LAS. I know, it’s really not the best redemption value, but the flights were expensive and there wasn’t much award availability. While in Vegas we stayed in an AirBnB condo a few minutes off the strip.
WanderLiz 