- The biggest waste of time in Las Vegas.
The first huge waste of time when visiting Las Vegas,
is waiting in long lines to eat at the buffet.
The lines, particularly on holiday weekends,
for Vegas's classic buffets,
can reach hours in length,
where you stand there
feeling like cattle
inching ever so slowly
to that feed barrel
where you can get some food.
Don't do it.
You will feel your life,
and your Vegas time,
just wasting away.
Instead, if you do want to eat at a buffet
on a busy holiday weekend,
make a reservation.
There are three buffets currently in Vegas
that take reservations,
Caesars Palace, the Wynn, and at The Cosmopolitan.
You do have to make them in advance,
like a month or two,
to get the time and the day that you want,
but you will thank yourself,
and maybe me,
after watching this video,
for not wasting hours of your trip
in a really awful buffet line.
The second huge waste of time happens
when visitors don't make reservations
to eat at their sit down restaurants,
and, instead,
just show up at the front podium
hoping to grab a table at 6:00 PM when they arrive,
which is when everybody else arrives
to Vegas' popular restaurants,
particularly the celebrity chef restaurants.
You will want to make a reservation there, too.
Vegas has really become a reservation town.
If for some reason you can't make a reservation,
or you're eating in a restaurant
that doesn't take reservations,
consider eating dinner early.
4:30 pm is a great time to eat to avoid the lines.
8:30 pm is also another great time to eat,
particularly, if you're a bit of a night owl.
You usually won't find much of a wait at those hours.
Number three, is renting a car at Las Vegas Airport.
You will spend hours
picking up and renting a car from Las Vegas airport,
because they aren't just right by the terminals,
or easy to get to.
All of the rental cars
are in a consolidated rental car facility
that you have to take a shuttle to.
So first you gotta wait for the shuttle.
There's often long lines for the shuttles.
You might not get on the first one.
Then when you do get on,
and it's a 10 minute ride over to the rental car facility,
you then have to stand in line for your rental car company,
which those lines can often be really long, too.
Then you can get to your car.
You gotta, like, check it out.
Then you gotta wait in line with your car again,
to actually get out of the rental car facility.
Oh, by the way,
did I mention there are some rental car facilities
that in order to get to them,
they're not in that consolidated rental car facility,
but you have to take a second shuttle from that one to them?
Oh, my gosh. Don't do it.
And then once you finally got your car,
and you're in it,
you gotta drive to your hotel,
which you would've had to anyway,
but the rental car facility
is in the complete wrong direction from the Las Vegas strip.
So your drive is now longer.
You get to your hotel,
you don't get dropped off in front,
because you're parking.
You're parking in some parking garage,
that isn't actually nowhere near the lobby
or the check-in area,
that maybe ends up being full,
and you have to circle down to, like, basement level three.
You finally park your car,
and then you find it's a 10 minute walk
from where you parked your car,
just to get to the lobby to check in.
And then you have to do all of this in reverse
when you're leaving Las Vegas.
You have to, not leave to the airport three hours early,
but five hours early,
because you have to leave two hours for getting to your car,
finding your car, returning your car,
taking the rental car shuttle back to the airport.
If you're just gonna be on the strip, or downtown,
you're not taking any big day trips,
or going out into suburban Vegas,
then just taxi, Uber, Lyft,
you will spend a lot less time,
be a lot less frustrated
about all the time you wasted on your rental car experience.
But what you definitely don't want to do
getting from the airport to your hotel,
is huge waste of time number four,
and that is to take one of the shared ride shuttles.
You'll see these companies when you get to the airport.
They offer cheap prices
for getting in a van with a whole bunch of people,
to go to a whole bunch of different hotels,
make a whole bunch of stops on the way,
before getting to your hotel.
It is simply not worth the waste of time
to save $5 or $10,
to spend another hour getting to your hotel.
Sure, you might be lucky,
and you might be the first one that gets dropped off,
but you might also be unlucky,
and you're the last one that gets dropped off.
Just take your taxi, Uber, or Lyft, to get to your hotel.
Number five, is getting so wasted on your first night,
partying so hard,
that you're hungover for the rest of your trip.
You'll either have to spend the rest of it in bed,
you'll have to spend your head over the toilet,
or you're just in such a daze
that you don't enjoy the rest of Vegas.
Instead, pace yourself.
You've got a few more nights to go out, enjoy, and party.
If you want to have a big blowout,
maybe save that one for your last night.
Number six, is switching hotels.
And yes, Vegas has a ton of hotels,
and you want to experience them all,
but checking out of one and into another
is a huge waste of time.
Particularly, when checkout time is 11:00 am,
and then check-in at your next hotel
isn't until 3:00 pm.
'Cause you gotta get you, and your luggage,
over to the new hotel.
You've often gotta wait in a long line to check in.
Then you gotta wait in another line
to store your luggage,
because you find out your room isn't ready.
Then you need to come back when your room is actually ready.
You gotta wait for them
to deliver your luggage to your room.
And in Vegas, rooms often aren't ready at check-in time,
at 3:00 pm.
They might not be ready till later
'cause people are checking in and out a lot,
and they're big hotels, and so.
Really, if you don't wanna waste your time,
just pick one hotel, enjoy that one for your stay,
and experience the next hotel on your next trip to Vegas.
Number seven, is staying in a hotel
that is too far away from the action.
Most everything that tourists want to do in Vegas
is on the strip, or downtown,
and so, those hotels can be kind of expensive.
Hotels that are further away from the strip and downtown,
can often be cheaper.
Why? Because you gotta spend a bunch of time and money
transiting back and forth every day.
It's a huge waste of time waiting for your taxi,
waiting for your Uber, waiting for your Lyft,
from your hotel to the place you want to go.
And then the same thing on the reverse,
especially, with the horrendous traffic in Vegas.
Rolling down the strip, or the Interstate 15,
can take a lot longer than it may seem
just based on the distance.
So, if most of the things you wanna do
are either on the strip or downtown,
stay in one of those places.
Number eight, is waiting in line for the club,
whether it's a day club,
whether it's a nightclub,
whether it's a pool club,
these things can have a lot of lines in Vegas.
When do they get lines? When they're full.
How do you avoid that? Arrive early.
If it's a pool club, arrive early.
If it's a nightclub, arrive early.
Then you don't have to wait in the lines.
Or if you've got special connections,
get yourself on the V-I-P guest list.
But, you know what?
Is it really worth two hours to wait in line
to get into that club?
I don't know.
That's up to you. Not for me.
Number nine, is driving down the strip on a busy weekend.
You know what?
It's a "must do" once for your visit,
driving down the Las Vegas strip at night
to see all the flashing lights,
and all the big hotels,
and the fountains,
but don't expect the drive to be quick.
The strip proper,
from Mandalay Bay to the stratosphere,
is just a little over four miles,
and without traffic that can be 15 minutes,
but on a busy weekend at night,
that drive can be over an hour.
Which is fine if you're just there to do some sightseeing,
but really can be a waste of time
if you're trying to get someplace, like dinner,
or to the club early.
Number 10, is taking the Las Vegas monorail for short trips.
The stops on the monorail
really aren't convenient for most destinations.
The stops are way in the back of the hotels
on the east side of the strip.
And when I say way in the back,
like, the stop at the M-G-M Grand
is nearly a 15 minute walk
from the front of the hotel on the strip
to the monorail station that's in the back.
When is the monorail useful?
It's useful if you're going long distances,
like from the M-G-M to the convention center,
but it's not great, particularly, for the West Strip hotels,
like, if you're going from Aria to Caesar's Palace.
So don't waste your time trying to take the monorail,
when it really would've just been faster to walk.
Number 11, is valeting your car at the big strip hotels.
You know, this seems like a great plan at first,
particularly, 'cause I already told you
that the self-parking garages
are often really far away from the lobby and the casinos.
And if you valet,
there's no need to drive around the parking garage
looking for a parking spot.
Right? Wrong.
Well, you won't be looking around for a parking spot,
but there's often a long line
just to drop off your car at the valet at busy times,
and then, there's an even longer wait to pick it up.
Many hotels don't let you call to pick up your car anymore.
Instead, you have to scan the barcode on your ticket
at the valet.
On our recent trip to Vegas,
when we checked out of the Bellagio Hotel,
we waited 30 minutes
from the time we scanned our parking ticket,
to the time when the Bellagio valet
actually brought our car out to us.
The 12th big waste of time
that visitors do in Las Vegas,
is they sit in timeshare presentations.
You're gonna spend at least an hour
in the actual presentation,
and many people report being trapped there
for nearly the entire day,
just to get what?
Some free show tickets, or some free buffet coupons,
and usually they aren't the greatest shows,
or the best buffets,
because that's why they have free tickets.
How much is your time worth on vacation?
And if the answer is, it's not worth much,
then by all means,
dive into the timeshare presentation.
But to me,
there's nothing they can offer
to suck up an entire day of my Vegas trip.
Number 13, is driving out of Las Vegas to Los Angeles
at the end of a holiday weekend.
What's usually a four hour drive,
Vegas to L-A,
can easily become an eight hour drive,
with all of the people returning back home to L-A
after a big party in Vegas.
Because the Interstate 15,
as it crosses the Nevada to California border,
drops from four, to three, to two lanes,
and that can be backed up for hours
from that Nevada, California border.
What I recommend to avoid this,
either drive out in the morning of the last day
like, 9:00 am.
Get up before everybody else is,
'cause they were up partying late.
They're not up that early in the morning.
Or spend one more night in Vegas,
and then drive back early the next morning.