Review of Flamingo Hotel - Las Vegas, Nevada

Late December/early January we were talking about going to Las Vegas for a few days. Kind of a last minute travel decision, made easy by relatively cheap flights/hotel packages from Allegiant Air who fly out of Bellingham Airport in Washington.

It’s been years since I've been at the Flamingo and I was wavering between one of the newer themed hotels or the Flamingo or Imperial Palace even though I haven't been to either in many years. Neither hotel charges resort fees and both are in great Center Strip locations, across the street or within walking distance to Caesar's Palace, Mirage, Treasure Island, and the Bellagio. I finally decided on the Flamingo.

There were no line ups when we arrived at the Flamingo around 6pm on a Sunday night. Seeing as how I'd booked a package with Allegiant, my hotel was prepaid. Upon check in the clerk asked if I wanted to upgrade to a recently renovated room with a great view for an extra $10/night. Absolutely! Our room was on the 25th floor with excellent views of part of Caesar's Palace, the Mirage, Imperial Palace, and Treasure Island. When the Mirage volcano went off at night we saw it quite clearly. In fact could hear the whoosh from the fires. Very impressive. The view was what made the room. It was a decent, clean room but if this was a renovated room I'd hate to see what it looked like before! The floors were cheap laminate. The bathroom counter had recently been replaced and was nice enough, but the tub and tile area was older, not renovated since the 70’s is my guess. The toilet was running so we had to keep jiggling the handle. My husband used to be an assistant chief engineer at a Whistler resort hotel and worked maintenance for many years at other hotels and the toilet really bugged him so he fixed it! He was a little ticked because he said that housekeeping should have noticed because presumably they would have to scrub the toilet and flush it and should have notified maintenance. The bed was comfortable. No complaints. It was an average room.

The time share people have a desk set up near the guest elevators. They must have paid the Flamingo big bucks to rent that little piece of real estate. There are 3 or 4 of them working and they'll snipe you as you go in or come out of the elevators. You have to walk right past them. They are very persistent. Just tell them you already took the tour and they'll leave you alone and stop
offering you free shows and meals.

The Flamingo has a beautiful garden with flamingos, swans, and other water fowl. If you are a geocacher there is a virtual cache by the plaque to Bugsy Siegel. We didn't spend that much time in the hotel room anyway but all in all it’s a good price for an excellent location and an average room.

The Deuce bus has a pick up spot in front of the Flamingo by the doors to the Margaritaville restaurant. It’s a double decker bus and goes up and down the strip to the downtown Fremont Street experience. Cost is $7 for 24 hours. Definitely worth buying a pass and taking the bus down to the Fremont hotels and casinos where meals are much cheaper than they are on the strip.

Allegiant Air, Bellingham to Las Vegas

For a few years I'd been aware of a discount airline named Allegiant Air flying out of Bellingham, Washington - about 25 miles south of where we live in British Columbia. Its about as easy to get here as it is to get to the Vancouver Airport, barring any delays at the US border crossing that is. Allegian Air offers reasonably priced air or air and hotel packages to several destinations from Bellingham - Phoenix, Las Vegas, and several Southern California airports. The prices are much better than flying out of Vancouver Airport, mostly because Allegiant does not charge hundreds of dollars in taxes that we have to pay if we fly from Vancouver.

It had been many years since I last flew out of Bellingham Airport. I used to work for a company called SilverWing Vacations and staff got 2 free passes each year and I flew to Las Vegas in 1993 I believe, but I don't recall the name of the charter airline the company used. I remember we had to check in at the Alaska Airlines counter because they were affiliated with the charter airline.

The first thing one notices when parking at the Bellingham Airport is that the lot is full of cars with British Columbia license plates! No kidding! Cheap flights and only a few bucks in taxes!

We had prebooked our seats - cost about $9 per seat to do this - and checked in online so when we arrived at the airport all we had to do was go straight to security. Allegiant allowed 2 pieces of hand luggage and that's what we had.

**Note** Allegiant recently announced it now charges $35 per carry on bag. Might as well pay the $35 fee for checking your luggage. That is high end. It might be slightly less for carry on bags.**

Seeing as how we prepaid for our seat selection we were among the first people allowed to board. Allegiant lets all passengers who paid for seat selection board first and then everyone else is allowed on the plane for open seating. Grab a seat.

Then it got interesting. The pilot went to the runway but didn't take off. Then he announced he was returning to the gate to have the mechanic check something and do a reset. I'd rather the pilot find something not quite right with the plane while its still on the ground rather than up in the air. After an hour of being inside the airplane on the Bellingham tarmac the pilot announces we won't be flying this plane to Las Vegas. Fortunately Allegiant had another perfectly good airplane also at the gate and we would be disembarking, waiting inside the Bellingham terminal for the crew to ready the replacement plane, and then embarking again, similar to how we had just done it. Everyone in the open call seating were to take note of their seat numbers and take the same seat on the replacement plane.

We finally left Bellingham two hours late. This particular plane/crew were scheduled to fly from Las Vegas to Fresno, then back again, then the final flight Las Vegas back to Bellingham. So that meant everyone down the line would now be delayed and it was a longer day than anticipated for the crew.

When we arrived in Las Vegas, due to the delay there was no open gate to receive the plane. We were on the tarmac for 45 minutes before the plane was cleared to take a gate. So 3 hours late we finally arrived in Las Vegas.

No complaints about Allegiant Air. These things happen. The main thing is we all arrived safely. And yes, I will definitely fly with them again. Even with the baggage fees its still cheaper than flying from Vancouver.

I'm back!

I know its been awhile since I've blogged about anything.

Stay tuned for some posts about Las Vegas!