The Stratosphere Hotel in Las Vegas: Come here, just don't stay here

I haven't posted in a while, and I just came back from a trip to Vegas so come, sit.  Let me tell you a tale (or scroll down for a synopsis).

When I first stayed at the Stratosphere eight years ago, it was my first vacation with my now husband, my first time in Vegas, and I was in that stage of pregnancy where everything is awesome *cue Lego Movie song*, so it was hard to go wrong with me.  This time around, I came here with my best friend to celebrate her 30th birthday.  She and I were tight on cash, and I had a great experience at the Strat last time, so I figured this would be the best place to stay this time.  

Oh how wrong I was.  

When we checked in, I slipped the front desk clerk $20 thinking it would give us a good upgrade and he made a good show about that being the case. Depending on how you define upgrade, I suppose it was.  We were "upgraded" to the top floor, but he claimed we were in the newly renovated rooms (which I had booked and paid for in the reservation), but we had one of the older rooms.  So, I'm thinking I got jobbed there. 

The room we had was nice enough.  As standard hotels go, there really wasn’t anything to complain about there.  If you’ve stayed in Vegas, and on The Strip (which the Strat technically is a part of.  It’s closer to Freemont though, in my estimation) enough times though, you come to expect a certain standard with your room and the Strat just doesn’t live up to it.  The Select Rooms were recently renovated, however, and they’re quite a bit nicer.  If you must stay here, make sure you get a Select Room.  Seriously, don’t budge on this one at all. 

The casino floor is poorly lit and reeks of old cigarette and cigars.  I know you have to expect a certain amount of stench on casino floors, but the more main stream casinos at least have the decency to try to mask the stench with their own unique perfume they add to the AC.  The Strat doesn’t bother with such niceties.

The overall appearance of the hotel seems to have taken a consistent downswing over the years.  Recently they've made some improvements (McCall's is an AWESOME restaurant, you must eat there at least once!), but they fall much too short of enticing me to ever stay here again.  Everything just had a feeling of desolation and sadness.  I probably would have had a better experience staying at the Nugget or some other sad little hotel in Freemont.  

My husband had the desk fall apart on him – literally ON him – and they didn’t even bother to report it to facilities.  They just left this GIANT piece of desk continue to rest where my husband had left it. When he phoned to address this issue, the front desk clerk told him he’d send security up to prove my husband didn’t break the desk himself.  After an hour or so later, security came by and actually sorted things out.  A concierge came by too and was suuuper magnanimous and offer him two buffet passes, totalling a whopping $15.  That’s right.  The room fell apart on him, he was accused of being a vandal, an hour+ of our night was wasted, and for that, my husband was offered a pretty lame $15 buffet.

I will, however, tell you about some things they do well (or at least don’t completely mess up). 

Club 107 is pretty decent.  There are GREAT views, but overpriced drinks and a teeny tiny dance floor keep me from getting super excited about this place.  If you go, don’t go when there’s an event up there, and if you want to drink while you’re up there, go after 1am.  They have a 2-for-1 drink special.  The drinks are $15.  FIFTEEN DOLLARS!  It’s not like you’re getting top shelf hard bar, either.  So definitely wait until the drink specials come into effect before you imbibe there.  Better yet, don’t drink there. Don’t go there if you don’t want to dance in Vegas’ smallest dance floor, and dance with strippers either.  Because that’s a thing that happens... apparently.  (It happened to me). 

Roxy’s is a 24 hour 50s diner that’s pretty good and well priced. Sometimes some of the servers will break out into song.  That’s always a nice touch.  Keep in mind, however, that they shut down every Wednesday morning for cleaning.  So if you’re there on a Tuesday night/Wednesday morning, and you get a hankering for their brisket burger at midnight, you’re just going to have to wait for another night.

McCall’s is their pièce de résistance.  Do yourself a favour and order their garlic rubbed steak.  You can thank me later.  Easily the best steak I’ve had in my life, and I’ve had a lot of steak in my lifetime.  If Willie is your server, you’ll be in terrific hands.  He has the class and elegance of a server at a very formal restaurant, with just enough charm and wit to make you feel like you’re at your favourite neighbourhood restaurant.  The bread they serve you is varied and interesting, and their sweet butter is different, but not at all unpleasant.  If you’re with a group, and/or VERY hungry, order the Sampler Platter.  Again, you’re welcome.  You get two jalapeño and bacon wrapped prawns, a half pound of chicken wings, and four smoked cheddar and steak potato skins.   Good grief, it is good!  If you’re a fan of mojitos, make sure you also order their Black and Blue Mojito.  If you prefer the sweeter cocktails, the Heartland Peach is the drink for you.

Synopsis: McCall’s will keep me coming back to the Strat, but just about everything else will keep me from staying here.  Spend the extra $20 - $50 and stay anywhere else on The Strip.

Grey Mode

As I mentioned in my last post, my family on occasion goes into Grey Mode.  My partner was awesome enough to ghost write another post that explains what that is all about.  Enjoy!

Simply put, grey mode is the low power mode from Star Trek: Voyager. Now, I’m not one to quote or refer to Voyager so this must be a pretty serviceable metaphor for me to call back to that train wreck of a show.

For my family grey mode refers to a different way of approaching spending, resources, and entertainment.

On the spending front we don’t buy anything frivolous and are efficient with every penny we spend. This means if there’s an essential we need we get the best per unit price – sometimes this means buying half a decade’s worth of bar soap at once resulting in a high short term expenditure that saves money in the long term and sometimes it means just getting the no name brand. For things like food that we will need eventually we use what we call trigger prices. For example we won’t buy a certain size bag of chips for more than $2.50 but if we see it below that price we buy it regardless of whether we need it now or not, we’ll use it eventually and a good price may be a long time away from returning.

Family resources are used in a similarly pragmatic way – we avoid waste and use things into the ground.
Squeeze every last drop of dish soap from the bottle, use that towel until it has a hole in it even if the colour is faded, that kind of thing.

Thus far, this probably just sounds like simple austerity measures and that’s true but you’d be surprised how many people find this hard to do whether in the short or long term.

The third category, entertainment, is where you really see some benefits during the process that don’t just involve your bank account. Entertainment during grey mode focuses on one thing: enjoying what we already have. Never finished that video game? Well now you have the time. How about that blu-ray you bought years ago, watched once, and forgot most of? What about that book you really enjoyed? That board game that was fun but you only played once? The list goes on. If you’re anything like my family your house contains untold entertainment treasures waiting to be enjoyed more fully than before. Sure, you could spend $10 on another new blu-ray but will you ever fully get all the enjoyment or value out of that if you watch it once and forget about it? Your entertainment collection was built by you, you’re going to enjoy it and you’ll very likely be quite surprised by how much.

And then once that injury is healed, new job found, or debt paid off and grey mode ends you’ll more fully appreciate it when you can spend money more freely again and you’ll still realize further savings from those bulk purchases. And maybe if you’re very lucky you’ll be able to experience the opposite of grey mode – gopher mode.


Blogger's Note: The Mario Marathon starts in just over two days.  Please consider donating through my blog to raise money for children's hospitals around the globe.
 

Summer Fun (without breaking the bank)

"Summertime is finally here
That old ballpark, man, is back in gear
Out on 49
Man I can see the lights

School's out and the nights roll in
Man, just like a long lost friend
You ain't seen in a while
And can't help but smile..." - Summertime, Kenny Chesney

In my last post, I asked readers to provide me with some suggestions on what to write about next.  While the requests didn't exactly come flooding in (I got all of one, haha!), the request I did get is well in my list of interests that I didn't waste any time getting to it.

The requested topic is <drum roll> (pause for dramatic emphasis) </drum roll>:

Free or cost effective activities to do with your kids during the summer.

With my kiddo (who will be referred to as Mini Moo from here on out) starting summer vacation soon, and my family currently in grey mode* I'm all about having a fun, skint season.  Mini Moo has a 9 week summer break, so I figured I'd list off 45 things (5 activities per week for 9 weeks) that we'll have fun attempting to do over the next couple of months. Here goes:

1. Pack a picnic.  Take it with you to the park, have it in your backyard, or suprise a loved one during their lunch break and bring the picnic to them.
2. Teach your kiddos to ride a bike (if they don't already know how to ride a bike.  If/when they know how, go bike riding)
3. Camp in your backyard, or inside on rainy days.
4. Create a treasure hunt for the kiddos. Do it on your own property or around town.
5. Water fight!!  Who doesn't love a great water fight?  I've been wanted to make sponge bombs for ages, so this is happening this year.  If you don't have these, or want to make them, bring out your water guns, water balloons, or simply grap some empty, cleaned out plastic containers and use those.  
6. Board games are big deal in our house.  This is an ideal way to play on those rainy days.
7. Go swimming.  See if there's a free outdoor pool nearby, and go there.  If there isn't a free one, there's bound to be one that's not too expensive, or just fill up the kiddie pool (if you have one) early in the morning so that the water's not too cold by mid morning, early afternoon.
8. Make your own tie dye tshirt.  Or, if you're not into the tie dye look, design a tshirt however you want to.  Again, a good indoor, rainy day activity.
9. Learn a new word every day. Open a children's dictionary, then have your kiddo close their eyes and point to a word. That word becomes the word of the day. Encourage her to use the word as many times as she can.
10. Have a dance party.  Turn on the tunes, and dance to your hearts content.  This is something that can be both indoors or outdoors.  If you decide to have an outdoor dance party, I would recommend making a cool-off necklace to ward off the summer heat.
11. Visit a fire department.  Most fire hourses will have an open house at least once throughout the summer.  Your kiddos will love being able to climb all over the engines and talking to real live heroes.
12. Build a fort.  Indoor or outdoor, this is a classic kid friendly activity.
13. Take an  "alphabet tour".  With camera(s) and journals in hand, go to the park, local attraction, or mall and begin with the letter A(Apple store), B (bakery), C (City Hall), etc.  When you're done your kiddo has a personal and creative alphabet memory book.
14. Take a nature walk. take along a journal, bring a camera, then go home, identify everything your photographed, create a nature book.
15. Go hiking (tie this in with a nature walk if you want, or do this seperate to the walk)
16. Check out free days at your local museums.
17. Go to the beach.
18. Check out your local hardware store - they offer free kids club building projects.
19. Cook with your kids, but let them plan it, be a part of the shopping, table setting - make dessert!
20. Go fly a kite.
21. Play jacks.  
22. Go to a neighbourhood festival.
23. Blow up Diet coke with mentos.
24. Make sillouettes.
25. Gather friends and have a "clean" the park day - celebrate your good deed with a picnic and play time.
26. Make school related activities fun - create your own matching cards. Use maccaroni for math reinforcement, make a clock with a paper plate, help with geometry by giving building tasks, etc.
27. Have a pajama day, enjoy movies and popcorn (great for a rainy day).
28. Play tennis, soccer, kickball, football, etc.
29. Write a short novel with your child, taking turns writing a chapter (for the older kids).
30. Master the jump rope.  My kidlet is not proficient with the jump rope, I think we'll be working on that a bit this summer.
31. Pick your own fruit (berries, cherries, apples, etc).  We live close to a very rural area where we canpick our own fruit for very little money.  Locally sourced food, ftw!
32. Have a puzzle race. Use 100-piece puzzles and see who finishes first.  I can tell you right now, my kidlet is winning this race.
33. Host the kids' friends for a sleepover. And the maybe your kids will be invited next, giving you a free evening
34. Take road trip to a nearby city. Spend the night if you can or just make it a day trip.
35. Go to the drive-in. If there isn't one nearby, look for one near your vacation spot. Every kid should go to the drive-in at least once!
36. Find a free concert near you.
37. Make paper airplanes. See whose goes the farthest.
38. Climb trees together. Of course, only if the kids are big enough, and you are brave enough.
39. Play croquet on the lawn. And try bocci too.
40. Go to a matinee. Find a bargain movie houses and pay less.
41. Make a lemonade stand (some cities have by-laws about this, so investigate this idea before you present it to your kid(s))
42. Race your Hotwheels
43. Blow bubbles.  Have some creative bubble play outside, like making rainbow bubble snakes
44. Make some sidewalk chalk paint, and go paint your sidewalk.  Mix equal parts cornstarch and water, and add generous amounts of food colouring.  This is dirty play, so make sure your kiddos aren't wearing their Sunday bests.
45. Go to a parade.  No matter where you live in the world, there's bound to be a parade of some sort during the summer months.  See what's happening around town, and talk to your kiddos about what they want to go to.

I'm going to make it my mission to check off at least a dozen things off this list before school starts in fall.  I know, mom of the year award won't be going to me for aspiring for such an uninspiring goal, but hey, at least I'm talking to my kid, right?

I'll report back to you in September to let you know which activities we did, and what I'll be adding to/removing from the list.  If you have any ideas, please do let me know.  If you want me to write about something else, shoot a comment my way, and I'll see about writing it as soon as I get the chance.

Have a great summer everyone, and don't forget, the Mario Marathon starts June 21st at 11 am (EST).  Tune in, donate, and support the chil'ns! 

 * For those who don't know us personally, you're probably unaware of this phrase.  My partner will be writing another post explaining this paradigm at some point.  Stay tuned!