brianbenz.com

I’ve been living in Las Vegas for 13 years and working at Microsoft for 5 years. Next week there are thousands of Microsoft customers, partners and employees coming to Vegas for Microsoft Inspire and an internal event.

I’m really looking forward to catching up with everyone here in Vegas! As a local I get asked a lot of questions about Vegas from visitors, so here’s a local geek’s guide on Vegasing this summer.

Note that this is very, very, VERY far from any kind of official advice from Microsoft, this is just my own advice based on years of navigating this crazy place. Hopefully it’s useful, I had fun putting it together. If you have any questions, let me know in the comments! Also, feel free to follow me on twitter @bbenz.

Arriving in Vegas:

The main airport is McCarran International. There are some things you need to know about the terminals. Here’s the official listing of the terminals for your flights, but here’s the unofficial info that you need to know:

Arrival Gates starting with D can be tricky — catch the right train! You take one of two trains from the D gates satellite to your luggage in Terminal 1 or Terminal 3 depending on the airline. Check the signs as you arrive and be careful or it will set you back an hour or more to get the bus to the right terminal.

Everything else is as you would expect. Gates starting with A, B or C are in terminal 1 and your luggage will be in Terminal 1. -Gates starting with E are in Terminal 3 and your luggage will be in Terminal 3.

Pro tip: If you have no checked bags and arrive at the D gates, take the train to terminal 3, not terminal 1. It’s much nicer, less busy, and the taxi, car share, and car rental arrangements are much better.

Vegas Airport fun fact: Watch for unmarked white 737s with a red line along the windows. These are Janet planes. They fly workers to area 51. The windows are blocked out inside.

Getting Around:

For the conference, there are shuttle buses between the main venues, which I highly recommend. Normally, this is a great walking town, and if you can get to your destination by navigating indoors, go for it, but the summer heat makes that dangerous.

Other than that, cars are still king in Vegas. But note that as of this year, Parking is no longer free!

Car share and taxi

Uber and Lyft are plentiful, but always get an estimate in your app — surge pricing is notorious and frequent. If it’s crazy, there are plenty of cabs.

Taxis are plentiful. They will get you between most strip hotels and elsewhere for $15-$20 each way. From the airport to Aria should be $15–20 max if traffic is bad, which is rare. Beware of Long Hauling — the route should be on the surface streets, no highways or tunnels. Paradise, which becomes Swenson, left on Harmon, right into the hotel entrance. 10 minutes max.

Car Rental

Note that a new car rental center opened off-airport a few years ago, so you take the buses marked “rental center” to pick up all cars (there are no individual rental company buses).

Parking

Parking at Casinos used to be free, but no longer. If you are a hotel guest, generally you can park at your hotel for free. Valets, which used to be free, now charge as well. One trick — if you have a casino club membership, you may be able to use your hotel loyalty club status to get an upgraded casino club status, which includes free parking. See the loyalty club hack section below for more details.

Public Transport

The Monorail is a good bet of you are staying at a hotel with a stop attached. Ridership is down — you may be the only one riding these days, and it does avoid traffic, but stops may be far from your hotel or the conference venue you’re going to…. if it works for you, buy a return or multi-day pass.

The Deuce double decker buses that run on the strip are an option, but are mostly fun options for tourists and therefore not too efficient at getting you around. You’re in Vegas on business, remember? Fun trivia fact — most public buses in Las Vegas have free wifi.

Group Transport

Limousines are more reasonably priced than you think. Cost per person from the airport can be similar to taxis for three or more people, and some limos are on call by the hour if you need it during the conference. Bell Trans is a reliable options.

For larger groups, rent a Double Decker Bristol. Or this crazy converted Cadillac that looks like a boat. And invite me.

Hotels:

Vegas hotel rooms are generally larger and nicer than most cities, quiet, clean, modern and well designed. One thing — you may have heard of this thing where you slip the front desk clerk a $20 bill to get you an even more awesome room. That’s absolutely a myth. The going rate is $40–60 😉. No guarantees, but the suites in Vegas are next-level and I have had some truly awesome rooms this way.

Hotel loyalty program/Casino players club program hack

There has been a huge consolidation of casinos and hotels in Vegas, to the point where there are just four main players now. They all have players clubs (I call them payers clubs 😊). You can attain status and perks by gambling, like show and restaurant discounts, line passes to restaurants, invites to clubs and lounges, and most importantly for me as a local, free parking.

But here’s the hack — you can also get this status in some of the players clubs by requesting matching status from your hotel loyalty program, no gambling required!

Note: Bring your hotel club card to the players club on the casino floor if you want the match — they can’t look your status up online.

Status matches:

· MGM Resorts/M Life and Hyatt Gold Passport (Las Vegas hotels include Aria, Bellagio, Delano, Excalibur, Luxor, Mandalay Bay, MGM Grand, The Mirage, Monte Carlo, New York-New York)

· Caesars/Total Rewards and Starwood (Las Vegas hotels include Bally’s, Caesars Palace, The
 Cromwell, Flamingo, Harrah’s, The Linq Hotel, Paris, Planet Hollywood, Rio).

· Las Vegas Sands and Intercontinental Hotel Group (IHG) (Las Vegas hotels include The Palazzo and The Venetian)

· Cosmopolitan and Marriott

· SLS Las Vegas and Starwood

· Tropicana and DoubleTree/Hilton

· Casino Royale and Best Western

General Tips:

Water and the summer heat

Don’t mess around with the dry Vegas summer heat. Buy water and drink it wherever you can. It’s the desert. Rooms and Hotels are very dry. Avoid alcohol and caffeine when you can as they dry you out. When you order an alcoholic drink, order water on the side and sip both. Same for coffee. For the uninitiated, note that a lightheaded feeling, headaches and even nosebleeds can be signs of dehydration. Here’s something designed to scare you:

Footwear

Good shoes are essential. The hotels look close together, but distances can be deceiving. And hotels can be surprisingly far from convention room floors, even in the same complex. Also, concrete floors suck the life energy out of your feet. And if you have new shoes, break them in before you get here. And walk outside only at night if the temperature is below 90 — see above.

Grabbing water/food/that thing you forgot to bring/etc.

There are 24 hour CVS and Walgreen’s pharmacies next to CityCenter, and between the Palazzo and the Venetian. They have the essentials — drinks, food, tacky souvenirs, chargers, etc.

Geek Supplies

Vegas has a Fry’s. If you don’t know what that is, it’s an amazing, huge and fairly cheap electronics superstore. If you can’t find it there it probably doesn’t exist in the retail world…..I call it Nerdvana….

Other Shopping

There are two outlets malls here, the North mall is cooler but outdoors, the South mall is older but indoors. Both have pretty much the same stores with the same decent prices. I even see people buying extra luggage to haul stuff home….

After-Tips

When you can get away from the conference and experience a bit of Vegas, here are my tips:

Sights

· Bellagio Fountain and conservatory, and the chocolate fountain behind the conservatory

· Check out the digital art in the lobby of the cosmopolitan.

Very theme-parky fun at the Marvel avengers S.T.A.T.I.O.N. at Treasure Island

· Ride to the top of the Paris Hotel Eiffel tower replica

· For Hemingway (and cigar) fans, a pretty good replica of La Floridita at Casa Fuente in the Forum Shops. Have a Daiquiri and a Faux Cuban.

· Weird, cheesy little robotic show outside the Cheesecake factory in the Caesar’s Palace Forum Shops (Vegas for Mall)

· Wynn hotel’s water show at Parasol down — best at night

· Browsing rock memorabilia at the Hard Rock Hotel

· Walking around the fake Canal at the Venetian. Smells much better than the original. Look close, the “gondoliers” use electric motors controlled by a foot pad to navigate while they pretend to paddle. Nice singing voices though.

· Auto Collection at the Linq hotel — Free coupons all over the place out front. Amazing Cars and all for sale.

· Also for car buffs, the Shelby Museum is south of the hotels near the strip.

· Las Vegas pays a lot of money to import culture. The Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art and the Wynn Collection are good bets, the Smith Center downtown always has something interesting going on. Also there’s a row of Art galleries, cool fountains, and other installations at CityCenter.

· I have STILL successfully avoided riding the Vegas High Roller.

· Just walking up and down the strip and taking it all in (stay indoors in the heat though!).

Farther afield

· Photographers love the Neon Boneyard downtown.

· We have a Mob museum. Don’t ask how. 😊 And a speakeasy there.

· The Ether M Chocolate factory is a little farther from the strip, they have tours, a cool cactus garden and an interesting demo of efficient natural wastewater handling in the desert.

· The Springs preserve is also away from the strip, and houses museums, conservation exhibits, gardens, and events. Great for kids. The Divine Café at the springs preserve is great, but closes early.

· Even farther away, the Hoover Dam is worth a visit. You can drive (the drive takes you through Boulder City along a short part of route 66) or take a bus tour from Vegas. I personally found the artwork to be the most interesting thing on the dam, especially the star map.

· Red Rock Canyon is worth catching at sunrise or sunset.

· The Valley of Fire is an amazing place.

· Vegas has a small but accessible and fun Ski Resort. Bet you didn’t know that. In the summer, it’s a popular hiking destination because temperature. I saw some wild horses there last week (bet you didn’t know we have those too.)

· Helicopter tours of the grand canyon. It’s huge and you can’t get the full picture from the ground. Bus tours or tours that fly you in a small plane then a helicopter and not as good as a helicopter tour that takes off and returns to Vegas. These are expensive but worth it. Maverick is the best operator.

· The Grand Canyon Skywalk is kinda cool. Note that this is hundreds of miles from the main visitor area and the most spectacular part of the grand canyon. That’s how big it is.

Entertainment and Nightlife

Las Vegas has 2 weekly entertainment magazines — check Vegas Seven and the Las Vegas Weekly Web sites for the latest info on concerts, comedy shows, etc. Note that there are a lot of last-minute concerts and comedian shows in Vegas.

About Gambling:
 Please do Gamble. What happens in Vegas…Pays my Taxes!
 Q: How do you make a small fortune in Vegas?
 A: Start with a large one.

About indulging Vegas-style

OH: “Enjoy the entertainment, don’t BE the entertainment.”

Shows

If you can, get in on a Cirque behind the scenes tour. If you see one show, make it “O” at the Bellagio or my second choice, Love at the Mirage. Both are expensive, and worth every penny. And Le Reve at the Wynn is a solid third choice. Pro tip: Cirque show reservations can be canceled with a full refund with 48 hours notice (ask in case the policy changes).

Geeky Bars and things and stuff

There are a few Vegas bars that create some pretty fun and interesting experiences. Some are really nerdy others are so deep into what they are that they demand respect:

· The Luxor hotel has an eSports arena!

· Check out the Robot bar at planet Hollywood.

· A lot of the tech in the clubs is just woven into the experience.

· Minus 5 Bar at the Mandalay Bay Hotel — This is GREAT in the summer. If you don’t want to go though the whole experience of putting on the jacket and sitting in ice chairs at an ice table, you can just have a drink in an ice glass in the bar next door.

· Downtown, the Millenium Fandom Bar and the nerd are fun.

· If you want an authentic Tiki bar, there’s the Golden Tiki bar in Chinatown, or Frankies closer to downtown.

· If you are a fan of Pawn Stars, you can see the shop here, but probably not the guys. Then have a drink next door at Pawn Plaza. Because that’s what you are here 😊.

· Oh, and Dinos for Karaoke.

· There are also some great dive bars — The Huntridge Tavern and the recently no-longer divey Atomic Liquors

· The absolute tackiest bar in the world is the Fireside lounge at the peppermill. Pink fountain with flames. And plastic ferns and an adorable dress code.

Nightclubs

Any bar at the Cosmopolitan is coolest of the cool. You can’t find me at the club. I only see them when they’re full of my fellow geeks for a special conference event, so don’t ask me. Check the magazines above. And watch that tab if you go for bottle service.

Drinks

I like the Nine Fine Irishmen Pub in the New York New York. A great live Celtic band starts at 9, and they have live step dancers on the bar!

The Skyfall Lounge has an unfortunate name but is a cool choice, with a great view of the strip, and free before 10, after that everyone is herded around into standing-only pens unless they want to buy bottle service.

Away from the strip — Downtown Las Vegas — Nightlife,Sights and Startups

Downtown Las Vegas is the truly seedy part of Vegas. Let’s just start with that. It’s also more human-scale than the big hotels and casinos on the strip. This is where you go for the dive bars, and also for the somewhat-successful Vegas startup scene. It’s a pretty interesting part of town, with a recent backstory:

In 2012, Las Vegas Resident Tony Hsieh sold zappos.com, an online clothing and shoe retailer, to Amazon. He then took $350 million of that windfall to create the Downtown Project, a revitalization effort to turn the neighborhood into a mecca for startups. The goal was for Vegas to become “the co-learning and co-working capital of the world.” In 2013, zappos relocated to the building that was once city hall in the rundown area north of the Strip. It’s had “mixed” success.

So now it’s a mix of the seedy and the hipsters and the startups, with abandoned motels mixed in with art installations purchased from the burning man festival. The container park is the starting point, with shops, restaurants, events, etc. Heading West on Fremont street until you get to the covered part are cool bars and restaurants. Or peddle away the calories on the Vegas Pub Crawler.

Food

The Las Vegas Strip is a great case study on the meaning of expensive vs. overpriced. However, there are some diamonds in the rough…..If you’re on expenses or just want to splash out, I recommend Bouchon at the Venetian or Nobu at Caesar’s palace. Bouchon is also best for breakfast/brunch. The Aria also has 2 good options — Julian Serrano Tapas and Javier’s for Mexican. Also anything by Michael Mina, especially great seafood like the lobster pie at Michael Mina restaurant at the Bellagio. Noodle Asia in the Venetian has great wonton soup and Singapore noodles. Vegas does power lunch at the Wynn Country Club. There’s also a really great prix-fixe lunch menu at Estiatorio Milos in the Cosmopolitan.

Also, there’s an in-n-out burger now on the strip, near the big wheel. try it if you haven’t. Also, Pollo Campero just opened in the burbs.

The Vegas 24 hour greasy spoon experience is the peppermill.

Special Dietary Needs

The Wynn Hotel restaurants (Wynn and Encore) now all have Vegan options, since Steve Wynn famously converted to a Vegan diet.

Also, there seems to be a great contest among restaurants for the best veggie burger in town. Wynn hotels has the Impossible Burger, vege-way has a pretty good in-n-out burger clone, and Panacea has brought their veggie burger to the burbs of Vegas.

Other than that, lots of healthy food at the several Trader Joe’s and two Whole Foods Markets in town. Also many products for special diets: Parve, Halal, Vegetarian, you name it….There is a new Whole Foods Market on the Strip, at the new Town Square Marketplace, a 10–15 minute drive from most hotels on the strip. Lots of very good, healthy, reasonably priced (for Vegas anyway) prepared foods. The closest regular grocery store is Albertsons on Flamingo 5–10 minutes drive in normal traffic from the strip.

Dessert

The best dessert in Vegas is probably the flower pot cake at the Wynn. The Jean Philippe Patisserie in the Aria and the Bellagio are great too. And the floor-to-ceiling chocolate fountain is worth a visit. The second best is in the Bouchon Bakery in the Venetian. Also great gelato in the food court nearby.

Spas

The spas here are unlike anywhere else in the world. And you don’t have to buy a massage or treatment to experience a Vegas Spa. All Vegas Spas have reasonably priced day passes, which include access to all Spa facilities, usually including the hotel’s gym and outdoor pool, robes, slippers/sandals, lockers, refreshments, and are well worth the experience. Most are open late. I personally love stepping out of a warm pool outside at night and feeling the chill as the hot desert air evaporates the water from my body before I get to the lounge chair.

Qua at Caesars palace is the best. It has a snow room! I also like the small but very good Drift Spa and Hammam at the Palms Place Tower. Other well rated Spas are at the Wynn Encore, Mandalay Bay, and the Canyon Ranch Spa at the Venetian.

Have Fun and see you around!