Hawaii Vegas Connect: Fremont Street

Showing posts with label Fremont Street. Show all posts

Saturday, March 15, 2025

Vegas Trip Diary March 2025

March is a great time to go to Vegas! We visited the first week of March, and the weather never went above 60 degrees (the air was cool and crisp!) and it wasn't crowded at all!

Since we're frequent visitors to the 9th Island, our trips have gone from "go-go-go" to "slow-slow-slow" so it was definitely a relaxing trip. We stayed the Cal, Hawaii's home away from home, and ventured out to the Strip on one day.

Here's how it unfolded . . .

Did you know that if you show your boarding pass at the El Cortzel player's club/rewards desk within 24 hours of arrival you can get some freebies? It includes $10 free slot play, $25 match play and a free drink. This perk is available once a year; multiple if you earn 100 tier credits on your prior trip that year.

I put in my free $10 slot play into this Happy Prosperous slot machine and was lucky to hit a bonus! This was a great way to start our trip!

I started playing video poker on this trip and I had a nice win during this session. Unfortunately I wasn't lucky enough to replicate this. LOL.

Wheel of Fortune remains popular, but there aren't as many machines as before. This was a nice bonus.

We played bingo at the Plaza. I haven't hit bingo yet out of the several times we've played, so on our next trip, I'll still play, but I won't buy as many cards.

There was a two-day Super Bingo Tournament at the Plaza when were there, so we needed to wait until the sessions were over. before we played in the late afternoon. A huge convention hall had tables and tables of bingo players. With your entry, they provide you breakfast and lunch and there are special room rates as well. I think I may do this one day! :-)

Unfortunately, our trip coincided with the week that switched out the conservatory display. One week earlier, we would have experienced the Chinese New Year display; one week later, the Spring display.

It's kinda cool to see them putting everything together.

I'm sure these pictures won't do the actual display justice.

We could still walk around the back portion of the conservatory, so I was able to view this live floral frame.

It was very windy on the day we visited the Strip.

We visited this really cool art installation called Colors of Mexico, showcasing the culture of Mexico. Located at Fashion Show Mall with FREE admission, it consisted of several rooms with displays, including digital ones. It was really cool. Does anyone know how to add video to Blogger? There is an option to upload media, but it never works. I would love to be able to include videos on this blog to show you how cool it was.

Every time I go to Vegas, I get obsessed with something, whether it be a new machine, a new souvenir or things to do. This time it was Silver Strike slot machines that dispenses collector coins.

This one was from the Plaza. Each machine has several different, limited edition coins you can collect.

This one is from Four Queens. The machines are quarter machines and you play three credits per pull. I didn't have to play a lot before I got the coins. It says on the coins that they are worth $10. Not sure if I actually tried to redeem them at the cashier's cage they would give me $10? I looked it up on the internet and a $10 Silver Strike coin are 42mm in diameter, has a .999 pure silver core and a heavey gold electroplated outer brass ring. Total silver content is about .65 oz. There's even a Silver Strike Club where you can buy/sell/trade coins, and they hold meet-ups in Vegas!

There was this really cool racing game that I found at New York New York. It's a slot machine and the bonus rounds allows you to race a car, similar to Mario Cart.

It was super fun! I didn't win a lot on the racing rounds. I only bet the minimum and I didn't do very well (as usual) during the races. I think I raced about 4-5 times and I won less than $2 each time. But it was sure fun! I will definitely be back to play this machine.

On our December 2024 trip to Vegas, we stumbled upon a wrestling match at the Container Park. On this trip, we witnessed the 2025 World Sign Spinning Championship on Fremont Street! Yes! Who knew there was such a thing! We only stayed to watch a few contestants, but we were impressed by their skills. Again, I wish I knew how to upload videos to Blogger!

This post is getting pretty long, so I'll do a food post separately. I'll end here with a congratulations Boyd Gaming who is celebrating their 50th anniversary this year. A lot of the staff were wearing "Cheers to 50 Years" shirts (I asked if customers could buy them, but unfortunately we can't), the table game felts had 50th anniversary branding as well as chips and player's club cards. Happy Birthday Boyd!

Thanks for reading!

Friday, December 15, 2023

Merry Vegas Christmas 2023

Happy Holidays! It really is the best time of the year in Vegas. I enjoy visiting during the holidays because of the weather and all the festive decorations. Temperatures were mostly in the low to mid 50s and I enjoyed every minute of the crisp cool air. In addition, we arrived during the National Rodeo Finals so there where cowboy hats and cowboy boots everywhere. Our Uber driver told us that those attending the events like to stay, drink and hang out in Downtown and he wasn't wrong!

We didn't do too much on this trip -- we ate, we gambled and we did some sightseeing. It was pretty mellow, relaxing trip. Here are some Christmas pics I snapped while there. Be sure to check out my other posts from this trips. Links below!

The tree on Fremont Street is always amazing.

The Nutcracker's mouse king holds court at the Bellagio Conservatory. More pictures here.

Nutcrackers on display at the Bellagio.

The Aria lobby was a candy wonderland.

Tree at Crystals shopping mall.

Not a Christmas picture per se, but it was very pretty. This is located outside the Absinthe circus top at Caesar's Palace.

At Caesar's Palace.

Nutcrackers at Aria.

Christmas trees at Crystals mall.

Thanks for stopping by! What do you like to do in Vegas during the holidays? Comment below!

Thursday, June 9, 2022

My Honest Review of the Golden Nugget Las Vegas

The Golden Nugget, before the opening of Circa in 2021, was probably the nicest property in Downtown Las Vegas.

It had a “Strip” vibe with its contemporary decor, an amazing pool, the newly added Rush Tower and amenities such as a spa, beauty salon and fitness room.

I was excited to stay here during our last trip, but I came away with some very mixed feelings.

We had a standard King and Twin room in the Carson Tower, which is one of the older Towers. (Pictures of the King room at the end of this post.)

Here are my impressions:

The Carson Tower is the furthest Tower from the Fremont Street Experience. The plus side is you can’t hear any noise from the Fremont Street Experience, making it very relaxing. The downside is it can be a quite a walk to Fremont Street or even to just the casino area, especially if you’re making that trek a few times a day.
Each room had four complimentary bottles of water, and you could order more for free. That was nice.
There is a Chick-Fil-A right near the elevators to the Carson Tower. Don't hate me, but I honestly think Chick-Fil-A is over rated.
Near the elevators to the Carson Tower is a timeshare desk. So every time we passed by, the salespeople would always try to engage you, which can be annoying.
Both rooms were a very nice size; they didn’t feel crowded.
The rooms, although very clean, was a bit worn — a little peeling wall paper and outdated furniture.
There is no mini refrigerator or coffee maker in the room. However, I read a review that someone stayed on a higher floor in the Carson Tower and that room had a refrigerator and coffee maker. You can also rent one, if you want. I believe the rooms in the Rush Tower has the refrigerator and coffee maker as standard amenities.
Both rooms did not have a desk. There was a small round table with chairs, but it's more for lounging vs. work or eating.
The King room bathroom was a nice size, but it had a stand-alone sink and a vanity shelf above the toilet, which I thought was a little weird. There was no hair dryer in the King room. Not sure if it was an oversight.
Both rooms had a little vanity area where you could do your makeup. There was an outlet there, so I suppose you would dry your hair here if there was a blow dryer (there is no outlet in the King bathroom.)
Both rooms did not have any tissue boxes.
The Twin room’s bathroom was very small. The door swung inward, so you had to step inside and shut the door to step into the shower (in the King room, the door swung outward). But it did have a sink with a vanity, plus a hair dryer.
There was a very odd smell in both rooms when we first entered. I saw a review of a Rush Tower room, and the same comment was made. The reviewer said is was a slight "sewer" smell, which I'd agree with it. Not quite sure what that was, but the smell went away after a few minutes.
Overall, the hotel and the casino are very crowded. Not a negative, but just an observation. We did find a Crazy Rich Asian slot machine game and that was super fun; we kept coming back to that slot machine.
The biggest plus is The Tank and Hide Out, Golden Nugget's pool complex. The showcase is a 200,000 gallon shark tank and aquarium, with a slide slicing through it.. There are free chairs as well as areas you can rent, including day beds, gazebos and cabanas over three separate floors. The actual pool is quite large, and it didn't feel crowded at all. The slide was a lot of fun, but my favorite part was just parking myself in front of the tank and watch the marine life. It was so relaxing.

All in all, none of the “negative” things mentioned above would have really swayed me to not stay here again, but here’s what is tipping me to that side: Our room keys just would not work. We had to go back several times to get new keys for both rooms (and pass by those timeshare sales people each time — did you not remember I said I was not interested the last three times?). The front desk staff said that the keys wouldn’t work if the deadbolt of the room was locked (the rooms were unoccupied, so this was not a reason for the keys not working) and also advised us to store it away from our cell phones. I had the keys in a separate compartment of my purse, but my purse is not that big, so maybe that was the issue? But I stored the keys to The Cal in the same way and I didn't have any issues with those keys. After the fourth set of keys, it was consistently working.

So would I go back? Try staying at the Rush Tower instead? The pool was definitely amazing. Not sure.

Do you have any experiences to share about the Golden Nugget? Any tips?

View of The D.

Standard King room. Pretty roomy.

Nice size tv.

Vanity area. They provided four bottles of water, and you could order more for free.

Bathroom. I didn't like the stand-alone sink.

Partial view of the pool complex from the Carson Tower. On the left is the pool for the Rush Tower guests only. On the right is the second and third floors of the Tank pool.

I wish I took more pictures of the pool area. Here is the slide from the back side of the aquarium. I liked sitting right up to the glass to observe the fish.

Here's the Hubz coming out of the slide. :-)