Returned to Philadelphia from Las Vegas yesterday morning on the red-eye, and after about 18 hours of sleep, I'm ready to write up my trip report. This was my first time back to Las Vegas since 2007 and I had a lot of fun.
I receive email promotions from the MLife casinos, and the one that caught my eye was an offer for a $50 dining credit per night at Aria. Since Aria opened an outpost of
Carbone in November, I read the fine print of the offer to make sure Carbone wasn't excluded from the offer.
Saturday
My flight was delayed and I didn't make it to the hotel until about 1 am. Earlier in the day,
Aria emailed me about online check-in, and I decided to do it just to make sure I'd at least have a place to sleep that night. When I was assigned a room on the eighth floor, I decided to go to the check-in desk to see if I could do better.
I did the $20 sandwich and asked for "anything with an awesome bathroom." The woman who checked me in put me on the 54th floor with a strip view, one room away from the elevator. SCORE.
Because I checked in so late, the front desk attendant credited the third night of my dining credit to the final day of my stay.
Sunday
Slept in and headed directly to my spa appointment at noon for a facial. When I checked in for the facial, I asked if I could be fit in for a mani and pedi too. They scheduled me for a 3 pm appointment.
The Spa at Aria is huge, quiet, tranquil, and relaxing. After the facial, I killed two hours in the spa reading magazines, eating snacks and drinking green tea, napping on vibrating chairs in the salt room (a dark room lined with gently warmed Himalayan salt bricks), and fielding work emails on my iPad by the private outdoor infinity edge pool.
When I returned to my room, I found that housekeeping had come and gone and left me extra towels as I requested along with my nice tip. (I was glad I asked for extra towels, since housekeeping never came back to my room during the rest of my stay. Hmph.)
I ate dinner at the bar at
Julian Serrano Tapas in the Aria lobby (tasty patatas bravas, an uninspired beet salad with commodity Sysco croutons, 6/10). I didn't have plans for Sunday night, so at the last minute, I decided to roll the dice at the concierge and see if they could get me tickets for
Jerry Seinfeld at Caesars.
Let me recognize
Tatiana the concierge at Aria by name here because she was so helpful, friendly, and resourceful. She got me fantastic seats for Jerry Seinfeld for way less than I expected to spend, and found a gift card that had been left for me at the concierge desk under the wrong name. I gave her a tip and called her manager to compliment her.
(Sidebar: Did you know the Society of the Crossed Keys is a real thing? Tatiana was wearing the gold keys pins on her uniform...I thought it was just something Wes Anderson made up for the Grand Budapest Hotel. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)
After Jerry's set, I walked back to Aria from Caesars. I stopped at the Caesars sports book and put $20 on the Panthers to beat Navy...I should have just torn up
that $20 bill. I also stopped at
Olives on the Via Bellagio and sat at the bar and had dessert and a nightcap, and as I was walking back to Aria I watched the fountain show for "Luck be a Lady," my favorite of the fountain shows.
To get back to Aria, I walked through
Crystals and closed down the bar at
Todd English Pub (extensive but confusing beer list, OK fries, talked Coachella and exchanged instagram handles with Channa the sweet bartender and her boyfriend, 8/10.)
The art at Aria and Crystals is kind of banal (Dale Chihuly...yawn) but it was a lot of fun to take a bunch of
drunk Hotline Bling selfies in the James Turrell installation by the tram station on the third floor. Go late and you can dance like Drake to your heart's content!
I wasn't ready for bed yet, so I stopped at
Alibi at Aria for a cocktail and had an excellent chocolate martini garnished with Cocoa Puffs.
Monday
Up early for
Dig This! I had a 10 am appointment to operate
the excavator and after some confusion by the cab driver ("Turn off the meter and let me out, I'll walk the rest of the way because you obviously don't know where you're going!") I made it just in time for the safety briefing.
I cannot talk up Dig This enough--it was ridiculously fun. Junior, the instructor, was patient and upbeat even if he had to tell me "no, your RIGHT hand...no, your OTHER right" fifty times. There were two other people in my group and we all had fun encouraging and zinging each other while operating the excavators. We were welcome to take all the pictures we wanted with our cameras and phones and I actually bought the $30 plaque with a professional photo of me in the excavator afterward. (And tipped Junior, of course.)
I Ubered back to the strip to eat lunch at
Hash House a Go Go at the Linq, but the line was so long and the space so grim and uninspiring I ended up eating lunch at
Guy Fieri on the strip. My Mayor of Flavortown burger was fine; I'd eaten at Guy Fieri Chophouse in Atlantic City before so I knew what to expect.
After lunch, I walked back to Aria and put $20 in a Hangover penny machine before taking a nap and getting ready for my 6:30 dinner reservation at
Carbone. Since I read
Pete Wells' review of the original New York location in the Times I'd wanted to eat there.
A word about the space at Carbone:
opulent. It hearkens back to old-timey New York/Las Vegas Italian restaurants--red velvet booths, an enormous crystal chandelier in the dining room, massive fresh flower arrangements in gigantic brass urns on the bar.
The portions at Carbone are famously huge, so I had to order wisely--the clams three ways and the spicy rigatoni were delicious, but the minestrone was thin and weirdly green. For dessert, I ordered the
carrot cake with ginger ice cream and it was the best piece of carrot cake I've ever eaten.
All the reviews of Carbone talk up the service (you get a table captain instead of a server), but I found it to be inattentive and impersonal: The host tried to seat me at the bar instead of a table in the dining room because I was dining alone, I was disappointed that I wasn't offered the complimentary nip of limoncello and rainbow cookies the other tables around me received after the meal...
and nobody said thank you or goodbye when I signed for the bill or walked out of the restaurant! What the hell?! (Not that I was able to take advantage of this, but the women's restrooms at Carbone would make a great place for a quickie.)
Carbone overall: Food 8/10. Service 6/10.
Hopped in a cab after dinner and headed to PH for
Britney. Even on a Monday night, PH was SLAMMED with people. The plexiglas cases with her famous costumes in the lobby (the red leather jumpsuit from Oops I Did it Again, the blue flight attendant costume from the Toxic video, even her dress from when she was on Star Search) were a treat to see.
I received Britney tickets as a Christmas gift, and my seat was awesome, though expensive at almost $300. The seats are raked so even if you stand up to dance you're not blocking someone in front of you. Some of the arrangements of her songs were kind of weird--the crowd didn't know when to get hyped for her big hits. But Britney herself seemed lively and engaged and looked great. I grabbed a few of the custom Britney poker chip confetti that blasted over the crowd at the end of the show.
As I was leaving I noticed I was seated two rows closer to the stage than
Dave Grohl, who was wearing a white crushed velvet dinner jacket and bow tie. (Me: "How's the foot?" Dave: "Healing!")
Tuesday
Tuesday morning, I paid $30 for 3 pm checkout and headed downtown to
The Mob Museum. I've never been to downtown Las Vegas before and I was surprised the cabs cost me around $30 each way after tip--locals, did I get longhauled?
The Mob Museum is very well done, with lots of memorabilia and well-produced exhibits about the history of Las Vegas, law enforcement, gambling, and of course, organized crime. I thought there were WAY too many people in the museum for it to be enjoyable, though. Go early.
Ended my stay with lunch at Crystals at
Cucina Wolfgang Puck (a much better beet salad than at Julian Serrano and a side of meatballs, 7/10) and bought myself a scarf at
Hermés.
When I checked out, the manager credited the $50/night dining credit as a flat $150 to the total bill instead of just to food. I was OK with that. But I learned that at check-in, the woman who checked me in charged my Amex up front for the full balance of my hotel room
plus another $350 for a "security deposit." I have no idea why she did that, and neither did the woman who checked me out.
Headed to the airport early to unwind in
The Centurion Lounge (shoutout to the homies in
/churning), which happened to be right across from my gate. There was a nice buffet and a free full bar to take advantage of, but unfortunately for me I'm a nervous flyer and I didn't want to eat or drink anything other than water before my flight. But I made friends with a showgirl waiting for her flight too!
Finally, I want to thank all of the
/vegas redditors for their advice while I was planning this trip. Your answers to my questions (and
ErnDizzy's well-done trip report) helped me cram as much fun into three days as I did.
TL; DR version: Aria nice but needs to work on the details; The Spa at Aria is a terrific place to chill; good food at Carbone but service was lacking on my visit; Dig This--unforgettable! A must-do; when Britney's on, she's firing on all cylinders; The Mob Museum is well done but go early.
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