I am planning a weeks trip to Vegas either 5-11 or 12-18 of December.
Which week is best to come? I hear things are really slow at this time of year.
Should I book myself or look for some packaged deal with a casino?
Is there any big conventions in town during that time?
Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.
Radar
> I am planning a weeks trip to Vegas either
> 5-11 or 12-18 of December.
The National Finals Rodeo is Dec 3-12. This is like, one of the biggest rodeos in the world.
> Which week is best to come? I hear things
> are really slow at this time of year.
Once the rodeo leaves town, Vegas is a ghost town until after Christmas, when the buildup to New Year's Eve starts.
> Should I book myself or look for some
> packaged deal with a casino?
Check the casino websites. Also download Travelaxe (www.travelaxe.com), install it and use it. It queries about a dozen online booking agencies at once. It is also free.
> Is there any big conventions in town during
> that time?
Just the aforementioned rodeo.
Depends upon your play and strategy.
I happen to love rodeo week. Never been near a rodeo in my life, but everyone in Vegas is a cowboy/girl, places can be crowded and higher bet spreads are pretty common. Get yourself a Stetson, cover up that NY accent (I did), making casual friends is easy and just join the crowd at the table.
In other words cover is easier than the following week where places will be emptier and the bets lower.
That is my blackjack point of view. If you are redchipping at places where cover is not that important, you may want the slow week when betting limits will be lower.
Now if you are planning on spending time at the finest restaurants and shows. They will all be going on during Rodeo but after that week many showrooms close for renovation for the Christmas season and so do some of the restaurants. It is a popular time to give employees vacations because things are slower.
I play mostly red, with occasional sessions of green.
Probably the week after sounds better for me, eh?
Probably be easier getting a room, as well.
Thanks...
After the prior post I installed travelaxe from travelaxe.com
The next day the PC was running very slowly. While actually using travelaxe, the pc slowed down markedly -- about the decrease in speed you'd get if you were doing some heaving printing. But such slowdowns usually indicate something is wrong, Trojan Horse, virus, malware.
Further, while actually using travelaxe online, it appeared that its program caused the PC to power its search rather than having the travel search powered by its own online server.
Finally, I used No-Adware to take a look. Travelaxe had installed TechTwain, dangerous malware, into the PC's registry. (Of course, I then fixed it, first by removing Travelaxe entirely, and then by running Spybot and several different anti-virus/anti-malware programs.)
In short, better avoid travelaxe.com
There is, however, a good alternative which is sidestep.com, certified spyware/malware free, and which I have used in the past year several times with happy results, quick results, and no spyware/malware. Downloading their small 102K file for connectivity is safe.
Travelaxe was developed by an advantage player who also happens to be a personal friend. It is true that the search originates from your computer. However, it is not particularly resource-intensive.
I e-mailed the developer and, within minutes, received the following response:
Hi Parker,
Of course Travelaxe does not install any kind of spyware! We have over
220,000 users now, and this is the 1st time anyone has accused us of this.
Clearly he had this on his system already from something else, but feels he
must blame it on us.
He is correct in that the Travelaxe does the searching from his machine,
otherwise we would need to create a massive multi-million dollar server
infrastructure, something we couldn't do and keep Travelaxe a free service.
Feel free to have this person contact me directly. I guarantee Travelaxe is
completely free of spyware, adware or any other malicious thing. Have him
look at my background of developing NCSA Mosaic in the early days of the
Web.
http://www.travelaxe.com/NewSite/Help_About.asp
-Carl Samos
President and CEO
Travelaxe, Inc.
I can only relate what happened on my PC.
The attribution of spyware as a result of use of travelaxe may have been an error of post hoc ergo proster hoc. [A fault of logic, assuming that one event in time followed by another event is necessarily caused by the first event.] That is, it could have been a coincidence caused by something else online, I certainly admit.
I wish your friend and his company only the best.
that someone poison the installer. It's no uncommon for fake "shareware" sites to take existing downloads and alter the installer to include spyware.
That may not be the case here, but it's a consideration.
Good Bits,
V
As a fellow advantage player and privacy/security fanatic, I guarantee that Travelaxe is absolutely free of spyware, adware or any other malicious software code. I should know, as I developed it from the ground up, as a program to use for myself to find rooms in Las Vegas. The system has grown over the past few years to where it is now through our 220,000+ users using it to find and book rooms.
The spyware/adware on your computer came from some other source, not from Travelaxe. I would never put my business in jeopardy by including spyware or adware in Travelaxe.
You are correct in that Travelaxe does use your computer to run the searches, otherwise we would need to build a massive, multi-million dollar server infrastructure to host the searches, and it wouldn't be nearly as efficient or powerful as it is today as a distributed system. You can actually lower the number of simultaneous searches being performed through the Options-Network Connections menu, if you have a limited amount of RAM or bandwidth.
Regarding Sidestep, sure it's an alternative, but not nearly as good frankly. It doesn't show a side-by-side comparison of hotel results like Travelaxe, and Travelaxe provides far more pricing options than Sidestep does for hotels, as well as better features for filtering results, maps, etc.
Feel free to contact me directly, as I rarely read this group these days.
-Carl
> After the prior post I installed travelaxe
> from travelaxe.com
> The next day the PC was running very slowly.
> While actually using travelaxe, the pc
> slowed down markedly -- about the decrease
> in speed you'd get if you were doing some
> heaving printing. But such slowdowns usually
> indicate something is wrong, Trojan Horse,
> virus, malware.
> Further, while actually using travelaxe
> online, it appeared that its program caused
> the PC to power its search rather than
> having the travel search powered by its own
> online server.
> Finally, I used No-Adware to take a look.
> Travelaxe had installed TechTwain, dangerous
> malware, into the PC's registry. (Of course,
> I then fixed it, first by removing Travelaxe
> entirely, and then by running Spybot and
> several different anti-virus/anti-malware
> programs.)
> In short, better avoid travelaxe.com
> There is, however, a good alternative which
> is sidestep.com, certified spyware/malware
> free, and which I have used in the past year
> several times with happy results, quick
> results, and no spyware/malware. Downloading
> their small 102K file for connectivity is
> safe.
>The spyware/adware on your computer came from some other source, not from Travelaxe<
If you say so I believe it.
It takes great effort to develop software as you did. I'm sorry it didn't work out for me; but obviously you do have 220,000+ other fans.
I was just sharing my own one experience; sorry.
I am coming to Vegas mid-December, before Christmas. Does anyone know if it gets busy on the Christmas weekend? I have been searching for and found some great hotel rates:
Harrah's ($40), Riviera ($34), Imperial Palace ($40) all have the cheapest rooms right there on their websites. San Remo is dirt cheap, something like thirty bucks.
Friday/Saturdays are more expensive.
Anything downtown is a total bargain at this time.
> I am coming to Vegas mid-December, before
> Christmas. Does anyone know if it gets busy
> on the Christmas weekend?
Not really. Christmas in not a big holiday in Las Vegas. Too family oriented, I guess. It is generally no busier than a non-holiday weekend. And of course, there are no conventions in town.
After Christmas, the excitement level begins to build toward New Year's Eve, which is one of the biggest holidays in Las Vegas. The other biggest holiday weekend isn't even a holiday: Superbowl weekend.
Christmas in Las Vegas is a little, well, weird. Christmas carols over casino PA systems, dealers wearing Santa caps, a huge Christmas tree in the middle of the Fremont St. Experience, . . . . it all seems kind of twisted to me. But hey, this is Vegas, baby.
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