Affordable Vegas Strip Hotels & Websites Deals
Affordable Vegas Strip Hotels & Websites Deals. First of all, we always say ‘book flights and Vegas rooms separately, for reasons highlighted in many of our other pages. There are however flight and room package deals worth exploring; more on this further down.
Going for affordable Vegas Strip hotels does not mean settling to stay in bad lodgings. In fact, Las Vegas is one of the few places on Earth where you can stay in a great hotel on a low budget; this is why we return over and over! When you are on a budget, you’ll probably have to dismiss choices like Wynn, Encore or Bellagio, unlike for some reason you have received a ‘comped’ room offer, of course. If you want to skip to the best and cheapest downtown Vegas options, go to this page. If you are interested in the most affordable Vegas Strip hotels, keep reading.
Best websites for Vegas hotel deals?
If you are in a hurry and need a fast Vegas deal (and you’ve never been to Vegas before), you may wonder which websites offer the best and most reliable Vegas hotel deals. We have written a quick guide at the bottom of Vegas Website Deals.
• Value & Deals on the Strip: if you want to spend up to about 25 to 45 dollars a night (+ the pesky resort fee, which on the Strip is getting higher and higher) you still can, midweek of course. Weekends are a bit more expensive but you can still find great deals (the best weekends deals are of course off-Strip, as listed below) which may in fact turn out to be completely free (because of the frequent special offers accompanying the basic room rate, such as free play or food credit). Your budget options on the Strip include:
Excalibur on the Strip; the location is good enough (you may have to walk a little to get to the sought-after mid Strip but it’s a very do-able walk and, if you want to skip the modern city center – where Aria, Vdara, Crystals shopping center and Mandarin Oriental are – all you have to do is cross the road and walk from MGM Grand to Paris to reach the heart of mid Strip) and their resort amenities are absolutely fine. They have a really good gym with good equipment (included in their resort fee, which is however, becoming increasingly expensive at 15 dollars per night, though it also includes free Internet and not just for one device, unlike Caesars’ Entertainment resorts), a very large pool area, a good (but noisy and smoke-filled) casino and….. decent rooms. You can often find a room here for around 25 dollars (plus the increased resort fee and taxes) but it often accompanies some resort credit (which you can use for food or drinks, for example) and some free-play (not much, but enough to at least hope to win something!). Their remodeled rooms are from good enough to very comfortable with good views (all offering flat screen TV, good mattresses, nice pillows, granite counter-top in the bathroom/shower room); the Tower 1 rooms (which have just been ‘remodeled’ somewhat) are definitely ‘cheaper-looking’ but good enough, with flat screen TVs and better furniture than previously (it used to be awful), though it’s still relatively basic of course (however, we just stayed in one of these rooms and it was fine). This aforementioned rate is often weekdays only; weekends are expensive in Las Vegas pretty much anywhere but especially on the Strip, because of all the young, want-to-be-drunk weekenders coming from nearby states. So, on weekends you will have to opt to go off-Strip (see below), but there are still very good options, so don’t despair and read on.
The Luxor in the South Strip area. These days Luxor offers great deals too through its website, mostly because they haven’t really remodeled all their rooms yet and also probably due to the South-Strip location; the Luxor tower rooms are the really beautiful in our opinion, with very comfortable beds, very well-appointed rooms, huge flat screen TVs and an overall clean and comfortable environment, as well as rather beautiful. Their resort fee is becoming excessive, at 18+ dollars per night (!), though it includes the use of the gym and Internet.
A note on the Luxor buffet. It used to be average but it has now decreased in desirability. The hot dishes are just what you would find at a ‘cheap buffet’, only the Luxor’s is not that affordable. Their buffet is pretty bad if you appreciate well prepared, good food, but then the whole South Strip offers no real decent buffet with a the mild exception of MGM Grand. If you are South and you have a car, it’s always much better to drive to Studio B for a fantastic buffet experience (lunch is their most affordable meal). Luxor LAX nightclub is becoming popular with the young-and-fashionable, and its pool area is very popular, and you can get free VIP passes for it at the concierge, reception and exit areas of the Luxor on weekdays (not weekends or on popular dates).
Circus Circus is extremely cheap and it’s improving a lot. Their casino is no longer ‘sad’ (it’s been remodeled) and overall, it’s a great place for families. If you don’t like kids playing everywhere, don’t come to Circus Circus, because here kids are everywhere! However, lately we found that Circus Circus is attracting all types of guests, even those traveling without kids; the atmosphere was actually very pleasant during our most recent trip. Even their buffet has greatly improved, by far surpassing several on the Strip. The location is not the best, being the far-end side of North Strip, a little before the Stratosphere.
The Stratosphere always offers cheap rooms and it’s decent enough all-around for it to be worth it, if you don’t mind the Northern location. These days you will however enjoy the service of the ACE bus (a fabulous, electric, comfortable express bus – you must hold a valid pass before boarding this fabulous bus), which is a hybrid, quiet, comfortable, peaceful, very fast bus which connects downtown with the Stratosphere, the Las Vegas Hotel (former Las Vegas Hilton) and the three major stops on the Strip, continuing onto the fashion mall further South. So, these days you can stay at the Stratosphere without having to endure the Deuce bus, which is the slowest service one can find, with their pay-on-the-bus scheme and the huge number of stops everywhere (but of course the Deuce is great because it stops everywhere and runs 24 hours!).
Flamingo. This resort is now aiming to offer nice, modern enough rooms (though read our review on this page). It’s not for everybody by far, but the location is great. You can read more about this on Flamingo or Luxor?, or Flamingo or Excalibur?