Viva Vegas: Part 1

2007.09.08

The Mrs. and myself were thinking it was time for a proper vacation, and it was in my husbandly interest to pick a place that would make Anna happy and have beer on tap at all hours. The idea of Vegas came up, and with a little help from the roaming gnome, we were at Hartsfield Atlanta Airport last Monday for the next flight to Sin City.

Personally, I don't really gamble - it's one less vice to tempt me, and I like it that way. Plus I'm too damn cheap to gamble. My wife Anna fancies herself a poker player, and she was itching to test her skills against a non-computer opponent. In Vegas, she'd get her shot.

Flight to Vegas

On our flight out, we sat next to a fellow who we got to talking to, and he began to tell us about the epic gala that was his wedding. Nine hundred guests. Funny part of it was, he knew 20 of the folks there. I got a kick out of all the details he was sharing, but crazy enough, they made out like bandits from the whole thing. Later on in conversation he had moved to how fortunate he was now and how he began in a humble home.

Then he said he's getting a 9 million dollar H-shaped pool. A $9,000,000.00 "H" shaped pool. That means at some point, he had to say, "OK, so this is how much a really nice pool costs. You know what? I got so much money, how about I pay someone to make this monstrosity in the shape of my name? Sure, it'll cost another $5 million to do, but at least it'll be in the shape of my first initial, and that's important." Nuts.

Other than the $9 million H-shaped pool, the guy was nice. We talked the entire flight, finally landed, got our bags, and walked into the biggest crock of s--t you can encounter on vacation: rental cars.

Screw Budget Car Rental. Go to Thrifty Car Rental.

We got our rental from "Budget" Rental cars weeks in advance, so we were already prepared to pay one arbitrary price. Then we were hit with a $22 a day insurance rate. $22 a day! The lady across the counter at "Budget" was spewing a bunch of unnecessary BS while I was trying to digest this nonsense. "I recommend this fully... I always get this insurance... it's the smartest thing to do... all my clients get this..." I suppressed the urge to shove her pen down her throat, swallowed the bile and signed on the line. Then she offers a full tank of gas at a "discount rate" ($2.64 a gallon) instead of filling up on our way back. The idea is the "discount rate" will be cheaper for a full tank rather than paying the town rate for gas when you fill up on your way back. We hadn't left the airport, and already we're asked to gamble. We politely say bugger off, and of course, the first rate for gas we saw outside the airport was $2.69 a gallon. And of course, the car company stationed next to "Budget" was charging $14 a day for insurance - still usurious, but $8 less. So in Vegas, go with Thrifty auto, and not "Budget".

Screw Budget Car Rental.

We get onto the strip and head north toward our hotel. We pull into Luxor's valet lane, get our bags and enter the big black pyramid. Immediately, we're greeted by a enthusiastic woman who wants a "few moments with us." We oblige, and get offered $50 toward dining or gambling and a free show for just a few hours of their time. It's a sales pitch, but hey, if it's under 4 hours and we get a free show, why not. They take our info and off we go (more later).

Looking through the shows and seeing the billboards posted everywhere imaginable highlighted the first feature of Las Vegas: the shows. Much to my wife's chagrin, Carrot Top was headlining at the Luxor. That meant Carrot Top's crazed face was plastered on walls, ceilings, posters, and even on our "Privacy" sign and room keycard. If you're a prop-comedy aficionado, this is the perfect time to be at the Luxor. Otherwise, if you're part of the 98% of Americans who violently hate Carrot Top, it's not a good time for you. (Ready to lose your lunch? Click here!)

The other show at the Luxor was "Fantasy". The lady selling up her free show for a sales presentation offer was saying this show is very "tasteful." OK. We had already seen a number of "tasteful" shows offered already along the strip, so hearing this latest one given this description got our cynical senses tingling. How do you make a basic booby girl strip show tasteful? Do they sing the National Anthem and recite French philosophy? Do they play Mozart and sculpt famous statues on stage? Hey, call it what you want, but it's a sugarcoated, $70 strip joint. I've seen strippers before, and I know you can give whatever artistic twist you'd like to women, but heterosexual men are going for one reason alone (actually it's more like two reasons).

This brought the second feature of Vegas to light: "tasteful" has an entirely different meaning in Vegas. A "tasteful" strip show just means tickets are about $100 each.

The Casino Format

After walking around for an hour, you realize every Casino, no matter how modern or extravagant, is following the same format of every other Casino. Each one has the same basic elements:

• Casino (obviously)
• Hotel
• Buffet
• Ritzy Steakhouse / Rib House
• 24 hour Cafe
• Coffee shops
• Pool
• Some Wacky Theme
• No Clocks anywhere
• B-rate actors from old TV sitcoms headlining in overpriced shows

The only one we saw along the strip the defied the format was Bill's Gamblin' Hall and Saloon. We had to give the place props just for having the balls to break the mold. It's very straight-foward: come here to gamble and drink. Plain and simple.

Day 2: Dam those timeshares

Bad pun. We went to see the dam, which was nice. That's my kind of vacation - seeing feats of human achievement at a relatively cheap price. Again, I'm cheap.

There's not a lot to say about the damn, other than it's really incredible. No spin here - seeing it is pretty neat.

Afterward, we headed back for some pool time before hitting our sales presentation. We got to the lobby and started talking over our gameplan. I told Anna to say little to nothing about ourselves, don't be friendly, and for God's sake, don't ask follow-up questions. It would turn out later, I broke my own rules first and paid the price (extending an already excruciating sales pitch).

We get on the timeshare bus to take us to the timeshare meat market headquarters. It was a lot like going into the DMV - a bland room of chairs where unfocused couples waited for their names to be called. Lisa from New Jersey would greet us, and we headed off. First, it's not timeshares anymore, it's "vacation ownership". This is to differentiate from the old market of timeshares that was torn up by the government for taking advantage of consumers through unscrupulous sales practices. Apparently Vacation Ownership is totally different - it's 2 words, instead of a single compound word.

Lisa, who loves to talk, shows us the room we could possible own for 5 weeks a year, replete with dishes in it's dish cabinets and bedsheets on it's beds (ooh lah lah!), and we subdue any outward emotion through continuous headnods and mindless affirmations. "Yeah? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah? Yeah." OK lady, just give us our free tickets already.

Finally, we head back to the Lion's Den: a large floor of tables bustling with people and their assigned sales reps, chewing on free sandwiches and droning on about the vast benefits of "vacation ownership". After three hours of talking (Lisa talking, us listening and nodding), we learned more about Lisa's venture into selling timeshares and the $40,000 kitchen it paid for than the timeshare she was supposed to be selling (we had to wonder what a $40 grand kitchen would look like next to a $9 million H-shaped pool). But, we did get this much from her:

• If you want to vacation in Las Vegas for a 6 weeks every year at the same exact time each year for the next 40 years, buy a timeshare from Grandview Resorts and you're total expenses will end up being about $50 a day. This is the only scenario you make out in - we actually paid $60 a night for our room at the Luxor.
• Every year you have to pay a maintenance fee on your timeshare anywhere from $200 - $800.
• You buy your timeshare using the company's financing, which means %17 APR. That's Seventeen Percent. That's worse than a subprime credit card.
• If you want to vacation outside of your designated week or in another resort other than the one you own, you pay a fee of about $100-$200.

We looked thoughtful when we said no, but the sales pitch kept coming. After Lisa, we spoke to her manager for the "final offer" - he comes up with smaller packages equally usurious and uninteresting, and we readily say "no thank you." Then, almost into our fourth hour, we're finally released into the gift acceptance area. On the way we pass another large floor of people chewing on food and sales pitches - the facility was probably holding about 200 possible clients at that point. We were debriefed by some French guy who tried to sell us one last time a property that had been foreclosed. We almost said "f--k you, Jacque - give us our tickets now", but we remained polite.

He led us to the last room - the green room for the resistant - where we all waited for our tickets. I saw an opportunity for a good laugh, so I turned to one of the fellow disgruntled couples and asked, "Ma'am, excuse me, but is there any chance I can sell you a timeshare?" She laughed - it was only the fifth time she was asked.

Unfortunately, the rest of the day was kind of a wash - we were still pissed that their "2-3 hour" presentation took 4 full hours of our day. But, with tickets in hand, we had a free show to look forward to that next day.

- GK