I just got back from there for the first time in about 25 years. When I was there 25 years ago, if you didn't gamble was a great vacation because it was super cheap and fun. As long as you were hanging with someone playing at the casino, you could drink all night for free (you had to be at a table or slot machine) and food was crazy cheap. You could get free breakfast buffet for spending very little at a table.
The pendulum as swung completely to the other side now. It's suuuuuper exspensive. Maybe not so much if you go way off the strip, but I couldn't believe how expensive it's gotten. Instead of a fee breakfast buffet, you paying like $24.00 U.S for bacon and eggs. A mid size bottle of water is like 6 bucks U.S.
That was my second time there and I'll never go back. The only upside to the place these days is the casino's themselves are much quieter with the new machines.
The place is a complete ripoff.
Yes, the changes have been very significant, including the escorts.
When riverboat and Indian casinos started to be more prevalent, and for that matter smartphones allowed escorts to work more freely all over the country, Vegas went upscale.
I thought it was a mistake, but I was wrong.
Lavish hotels, better dining and bars, upscale shows, expensive shopping, and classier escorts.
Everything there costs two, three or four times what it did 15-25 years ago.
The marketing is geared toward wealthy Californians who go regularly and Midwesterners who don’t usually get to have much fun and splurge on their once a year trip to Vegas that is partially subsidized if traveling to a convention.
Many of us liked the often cheesy and sometimes degenerate old days, but the changes seemed to have worked.
And it doesn’t help that Canadians lose 25 percent right off the bat in the currency conversion.
It is a better place than before if you have a huge budget. Los Angeles, Orange County and Silicon Valley have an unlimited source of the wealthy that go there.
America really ain’t a bad place if you are rich, and Vegas is their playground.