User profile: micmac99

Cool! Good looking pies! the next time I come over the Hoover Dam from Phoenix I might check this place out.

Good to see any kind of non-gaming business do well in Las Vegas.

Obama is not running the show.
Obama is not liberal enough.
Obama is not responsible for the national economy's problems.
Obama is not responsible for Las Vegas' problems.

Here's what needs to happen:

Steve Wynn can say whatever he wants. Opinions are worth what you want to make them worth.

Here's the facts:

The middle class feels Las Vegas has spent too much time going after the luxury market and is too expensive and not a value destination any more. This at a time when discretionary incomes are smaller and smaller, and also when other states have more gaming and entertainment options that are in closer proximity to their hometowns.

Here's how to fix Las Vegas: and I am speaking as a Phoenix resident who lived in LV for four months in 2004 but left because Phoenix had more opportunities for employment in my industry:

1. Lower prices across the board. Be the low-price leader in vacation destinations.
2. Lower prices for the upscale stuff.
3. Stop the unnecessary extra fees.
4. Better return/odds on gaming.
5. Encourage the serious and comprehensive development of non-gaming industry and non-gaming business. Become a high-tech, biotech mecca. Light manufacturing. Logistics.
6. Beef up the educational system. Make UNLV a world-class academic school. Establish a "Research Triangle" in Southern Nevada.
7. Build a comprehensive light rail system. Phoenix waited 20 years but they have light rail now and it's great.
8. Build an Interstate between Phoenix and Las Vegas. Two lane roads ain't gonna cut it.
9. Seriously improve Amtrak service to Las Vegas from SoCal and Phoenix.
10. Figure out the water usage/Colorado River situation.

Any story that touches on any aspect of gaming, that is posted on this website, is fair game for general comments from Las Vegas locals and visitors alike, and, in fact, is a primary information source for me as I plan occasional Las Vegas trips.

And I do hope the gaming industry folks read these comments and take heed to the general feeling of lack of value for the gaming fan.

All the new social media "fad" is showing us, and believe me, the industry sees this as a fad, Las Vegas needs to get back to being Las Vegas: fun, friendly, and a great entertainment/dining/lodging value for the middle class. If you build it - and not necessarily a 73-story luxury box that's too expensive to finish - they will come.

Suncoast is probably my favorite place to play slot machines in all of Las Vegas. The place is spacious and at least as friendly as the tribal casinos here in Phoenix. Good location and security that's there but not staring you down when you start winning. Machines vary in tightness and at different times, but I have had the best luck on the Suncoast machines of them all.

However, I won't stay in their hotel any more, because they have the "service fee" for amenities that should be included in the room rate, like wireless Internet, which I can't live without when I'm traveling.

I tried Gold Coast but couldn't win anything (this was 4am which is probably a bad time to play slots anywhere).

One thing I didn't like about the Fiesta Ghetto is the "service fee" added to the room price. The wireless internet, which was supposedly covered in this fee, didn't work (I called the tech support which was someone at Cox who wanted to actually send an engineer up to my room - no thanks), and I used wireless internet in several hotels in Phoenix seamlessly.

I also got a teeny, tiny, measly "fun book" which was nothing more than 2 for 1 offers I could have gotten from the Entertainment coupon book or just clipping coupons from the paper.

Once last year, when I was in LV, I stayed at the Courtyard by Marriott on Rainbow. Non-gaming hotel. Excellent, clean, nicely furnished room - it's Marriott, what do you expect. Close driving distance to Suncoast and Rampart. No extra charge for wireless Internet that I can recall. $40/night on Priceline. If I could get THAT kind of deal again I will come back this coming month.