I know this may be a bit early to ask, but for those who are going, does anyone want to share a room? (feel free to use this post to find others who might want to as well).
I am looking to split the costs of Friday, Saturday, and possibly Sunday night for room fare (as I may want to spend the extra night there just so I could go out and see the city.)
For those trying to find an airfare, try kayak.com (you can create price alerts, too. Very helpful).
Comments
Hi all,
This is going out to all the players coming to IronCon, as well as the producers on each of the games.
First, to remind everyone, here are the basic details, including the address of the property:
* The party starts at 5 pm on Friday, July 19th at the estate at X. It goes until 2 am that night, and then picks up again on the next day at noon, going again until 2 am Saturday night.
* To remind you, we'll be providing snacks and drinks (alcoholic and non-alcoholic) but not meals, so you'll need to sort out meals. Ordering food to the estate will be easy, and getting cabs to the strip nearby is also easy. Plenty of options there.
* We aren't really getting enough rooms to secure a group rate worth mentioning (I checked) as people are likely going to stay at multiple hotels, but I recommend some hotels below. Where you stay depends on what you're looking for. If you just want a hotel that is as near as possible to the estate, you'll want to pick the Hamptons Inn & Suites hotel, which is where many of the Gods will be staying (as the house can't fit all the producers/volunteers). However, that's not on the strip, and so is not really an interesting option.
IF YOU HAVEN'T BEEN TO VEGAS BEFORE
I'm not going to bore you with a guide to Las Vegas, but will give you enough info to help you decide what hotel you want to stay at.
For the purposes of this, there are only three rough parts of Las Vegas we care about:
* The estate @ 2810 East Quail Avenue
* The airport
* The Strip (which is several miles long). The Strip is a single long road along which 80 or 90% of the major casino-hotels in Las Vegas are. Almost all of the ones you'd recognize from tv/movies are there.
* The airport is directly east of the Strip, and the estate is about 3 blocks east of the airport itself.
* So, both the estate and the airport are close to the Strip, though the estate is not walking distance from the Strip, especially in the intense heat of Vegas in July.
* A cab ride from the airport to the Strip is quick and cheap and presumably not much more expensive to the estate.
* There aren't really many or any restaurants (hard to tell) around the estate itself, though there's a Starbucks a half mile away.
* There are restuarants of every variety on the Strip, but it can take a deceptively long amount of time to get around the Strip due to traffic and the fact that the individual casino-hotels are gigantic. Just walking through them or past one of them can take a few minutes.
WHERE TO STAY
There are some high-end options in Vegas, but given that we've got this amazing estate rented, I wouldn't recommend spending your money on a high-end hotel room. The mid-level ones tend to be pretty good as it is in Las Vegas. Price ranges are for a basic room with 2 queen beds.
Mid-level (on the Strip): MGM Grand. $130-$160/night. http://mgmgrand.com
This is the closest major strip hotel to the estate. It's also one of the closest ones to the airport. I've stayed here multiple times. It's a pretty nice hotel that has had serious money sunk into keeping it feeling fresh and new.
Lower-end (on the Strip): Bally's. $100-$110/night. http://ballys.com
(will redirect you to another site, but it's legit). It's not bad, but it's a hotel in need of being updated. The décor is pretty dated, etc.
Dirt-cheap (on the Strip): Riviera. $50-$60/night. http://rivierahotel.com
This is an old-school Vegas hotel that hasn't been updated in a long time. I can't really recommend it as I haven't even been inside it, but it's cheap! It's got 2000 hotel rooms and hasn't gone out of business yet, so it must not be killing its patrons. One note: This one is at the very north end of the Strip, which will make for a longer cab ride to the estate by maybe 2 or 3 miles vs the MGM or Bally's.
Hampton Inn & Suites - This is where many of the Gods are staying. $85/night.
http://hamptoninn3.hilton.com/en/hotels/nevada/hampton-inn-and-suites-las-vegas-airport-LASETHX/index.html Never been here, but it looks like your standard airport hotel. Totally functional, but nothing special. It's about a 1.3 mile walk from this to the estate, or a slightly longer cab ride due to one-way streets. Because it's off-strip, it's a better value for your money, but it also has none of the fun of being on the Strip.
WHAT TO BRING
* Money for food, cab rides, whatever else you want to do.
* Light /cool clothes, while recognizing that if you're in casinos, they are very strongly air-conditioned. It'll likely be hot and dry outside, probably very hot.
* Comfy walking shoes. Unless you're at the estate most of the time, you'll end up doing a lot of walking in Vegas.
* Swimming attire - the estate has three pools and a couple hot tubs.
* Some nicer clothes if you want to go to a nicer restaurant or, particularly, to one of the hotter night clubs. One thing that many of them are somewhat to very strict about is shoes - no tennis/athletic shoes.
Optional:
* If you have a favorite board game, feel free to bring it! We're likely to have an Xbox 360 and/or PS3 there too, hooked up with rock band or guitar hero, but if you have another multiplayer game that you want to play with other Ironfolk, feel free to bring it.
* Laptop/tablet. Lots of people are likely to have them, though I question whether the estate's wifi will be able to really accommodate everyone. Probably not, realistically, so devices with cell connections are likely to be more reliable.
Any questions, shoot them my way. If they're something other people are also likely to be wondering about, I'll send another email out with the info. There'll also be other emails to all of you between now and then.
166 days until IronCon!
87 people currently confirmed.
Best,
Matt Mihaly
CEO, Iron Realms Entertainment
Plane tickets to IronCon > Presents.
Hnnng, I wanted to go so badly. Just don't think I can afford a move to chicago and a vacation to vegas in the same 6 months.
PS A $50 a night motel sounds terrifying.
I am slightly torn on MGM or Hampton