Take the Hotel or the $1,000

[MicroBob]

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Why is everyone talking about taxi fares? Doesn't the monorail work pretty well for getting from one hotel to another, at least on the strip? Is the Rio near a monorail stop?

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To address some of the car/monorail/walking Q's.


Yes, you can do the walk from Bellagio to Rio.
It's about 40 minutes I think. You walk across a long bridge over the interstate. And you breathe in a lot of car-exhaust fumes.

It's super-hot and super-annoying and you smell like exhaust afterwards.

I did this walk once because of the optical illusion from the huge casinos that have you thinking, "well, it can't be THAT freaking far."
It really IS that far.
I definitely don't recommend doing this.


there's almost no way you would want to walk from the Monte Carlo to the Rio. My estimate on this is that would take you at least an hour just 1-way.
Especially ridiculous in LV summer-heat.

Last year when I was there the high temp in the afternoon was 115 freaking degrees on most of the days.
I'm not exaggerating. It was really 115.

At 11pm or midight or so it 'cooled-down' to 98.


Monorail - I hate the monorail. And it costs $5 each way now.
It's also not THAT near where you want to go at a lot of the stops.
You can mess your way around over to the Harrah's shuttle from their monorail stop.
But imo this is a really PITA and will take awhile.

The fact that you are paying $5 each way on the monorail anyway just do this means that it REALLY isn't worth the hassle.


I know this is all just a matter of opinion so YMMV.
Just relating my experience there.


Took taxi's everywhere last year during the WSOP: fares add-up fast.
Tried walking from Rio to Bellagio once: hated-it.
Tried the monorail thing once or twice (and it was only $3/trip at the time): kind of a hassle imo.


Last April went back to LV. Stayed at the Hilton where my GF's convention was taking place.
We got a rental.
Man was I glad I did.
GF agreed that it was much easier just hopping back and forth in our own car like that.


Valet park at a couple of places (tip a couple bucks, no biggie).
Hit the parking-garage ourselves at a couple others (sometimes it's a pretty long walk from the garage to wherever you're going though).



I will definitely be getting the rental again the next time I head out there.

Again, that's just my experience. Maybe doing the monorail and then the Harrah's shuttle will work just fine for you and you'll think I'm nitty for referring to it as 'a hassle'.
I don't promise that my opinions on this stuff will be the same as yours.

[renodoc]

Won on Bodog 3 weeks ago- haven't heard about my starting day yet.

They just give you $2500 so no choice is involved. I booked Rio a looooong time ago.