I live in Vegas (Henderson actually) and have stayed at a number of the hotels and seen a lot of the shows on the strip. It's pretty common for people living here to have a "staycation" on the strip for anniversary/birthday/etc.

I've tried the $20 trick and the best I've gotten is the resort fee taken off (which they usually do if you're a local anyways) and offered an "upgraded view" or "upgraded floor". Didn't get the double door, two floor suite I was hoping for!

I'm not a big fan of any of the Cirque shows. I always leave saying, what did I just watch? I find it very abstract.

My favorite show, by far, has been Phantom at Venetian. The girlfriend dragged me to it, but I thought it was great. The special effects are amazing, but the story and acting don't disappoint either.

Bodies, Titanic, and Shark Reef are also favorites of mine. You can buy them at a good discount in a 3 pack, I think it's around $60 for all three.

If you have extra time, I highly recommend visiting Red Rock. It's not that far (45 mins to get there from the strip) and it's beautiful scenery.

Many of the locals use house seats (google it) to get tickets to local shows for free. You pay a year subscription and are able to get tickets to shows where they need to fill seats. Probably wouldn't work for visitors unless you came a lot.

Completely off-topic question, but, Tynan, did you teach yourself how to program or learn it through classes? I would love to hear about how you learned it.

Man I love your site but if you can't post 2 per week I will probably just forget about it. Give us something. Anything. I don't care how many words you write, just keep me here. Please.

Nice post Tynan. This is some good info for those that haven't spent much time in Vegas. We (my wife and 2 dogs) are currently living in our RV here in Vegas behind the Venetian (I play poker there almost every day). It's our first stop on our indefinite travel adventure.
Here's a few more tips.
1. They now have 24 hour buffet tickets where you buy in and you can eat at the member buffets for a 24hr period. Get it at dinner time and you can get 4 meals in (including 2 dinners) if you time it right. It's a good value if you like to eat a lot.
2. If you don't really like to gamble or risk money and still want to get free drinks, go the bars inside the casinos that have video poker machines mounted in the bar. Wait for the bartender to come over, put $20 into the machine and order your drink. Drinks are comped if you're playing. Set the limit to 25 cents and slowly play a few hands of video blackjack. Some will require you to play 5 credit max but they almost never police this. We just did this last night the entire way down the strip starting at New York New York and ending at Bellagio hitting every place on the West side of the strip. You'll lose a few bucks sometimes but others you'll win and it almost always evens out and you get $5-$15 drinks for free. Note. Always leave a few bucks for the bartender.
3. If you're an RV'er and boondocking (as we are) there's a Flying J just up the 15 freeway exit Cheyenne - has FREE dump station, cheap gas, cheap propane, and water fill. And a Robertos taco shop inside. Win win win.
4. Always get a players card and use it at every property you go to. Sometimes you will get on a great marketing list and you'll get ridiculous deals on rooms, shows, etc.
5. Befriend a local. Locals get discounts on virtually everything in this city. Our friend here bought $149 La Reve tickets for us at $50 off each, just because she lives here. Yay.
6. Take a spa day. Spas at nice hotels (Aria, Venetian, Green Valley) are rad and if you just pay the entry fee and don't get any special services you get access to all sorts of great stuff. Beverages, fruit, hot teas, steam rooms, sauna, hot tub, salt rooms, gym, herbal rooms, all sorts of stuff. You can stay in there all day and eat and drink and relax. It's amazing, super relaxing, and an amazing value. The entry fees are really reasonable (we just went to Canyon Ranch at the Venetian and it cost us $20 each... awesome).

I couldn't agree more on learning to play poker and second the recommendation that Winning Low Limit Poker by Lee Jones is the hands down best book on the subject.

Hope this has been helpful.

From the back of the Venetian Hotel, Las Vegas, Cheers.

KA is really good. If you stay at MGM and you will get a good discount since KA is located at MGM. KA is an action type Cirque du Soleil with solid plot.

Being a California boy, Vegas is like our back yard. I used to go 3-5 times a year.

Reading your article makes me realize that I haven't been there in over 5 years

Vegas to me was drinking, gambling and women.

I've never done vegas like you suggest, playing a little poker, taking in the sites etc-- sounds cool.

~Mike

Las Vegas - The Mother of Capitalism

Zumanity, Viva Elvis, and Ka are also fantastic! We just saw Mystere, and last year we saw "O" - which really can;t be beat.
We were just there last week and saw Penn and Teller from the front row - we actually saw Penn, his kids Moxie & Zoltan, Teller, and Gilbert Godfried all hanging out looking at the lobsters in the restaurant tanks before dinner before their show. The Lion King was pretty good if you have to take kids along (or not), and The Mirage's Secret Garden was interesting- you get much closer to those cats than you would at a zoo.
We've stayed at New York New York, MGM, Paris, and the Flamingo - all were good, the Flamingo is a bit dated, but all we used the room for was to sleep. (I wouldn't stay in the Hilton - I've known two people who got pneumonia after staying there for a conference!)

Yet another great article Tynan! I didn't know about the poker rates - I may be going there this summer, so I'll have to try that.

And about Blue Man Group - may just be a preference, but when I saw them in New York, I had a blast. I don't know if the Vegas one is different, and who knows - maybe I enjoy blue painted men banging on PVC pipes more than the next person :P

I'm going to check out that poker book. I've never understood the game - maybe I can now.

I can't wait to try the $20 trick when I am there in August, but I am staying at the Orleans.

I have heard the Mac King show at Harrah's is excellent. What have you heard about it?

I've been staying at the MGM Signature for a few years now - best deal for a suite on the strip most of the time (although that's NOT using the $20 trick - I'm also going to try that out next time). The full kitchen is nice. The other bonus is that each tower (there are 3) have private outdoor pools that are never crowded, so you don't have to wade through the masses of people at the MGM pools and you can show up later in the day and still get a chaise lounge. And valet is at the bottom of each tower and you don't have to walk through the casino or wait in crazy lines to get your car.

Treasure Island's rooms are okay (I think they renovated in the last 2-3 years) but stay away from their pool. Disgusting.

There are other great activities off the Strip as well - shooting fully automatic weapons at Las Vegas Gun Range, driving amazing cars at Las Vegas Speedway (Exoticracers.com - expensive but so much fun), or there's a crazy-looking canyon zipline that I haven't tried yet (saw it on that MTV show Rob & Big and it looks ridiculously fun). If you're staying more than a few days (I agree that 3 is about right), you'll definitely need to expand your activities.

I just saw O and it was really good. Love is amazing (I've seen it twice and would go again in a heartbeat). Zumanity was a little disappointing. And the Criss Angel show was terrible.