ponch62
04-15-2008, 05:35 PM
This may answer a lot of "Clubbing" questions that appear on this site, as we hit many of the major clubs on their busy nights. To set the stage, our group consisted of myself, my wife, my sister, and her husband. They are 26 years old, my wife and I are 33.
Day 1-Thursday
We had planned to go to Tryst Thursday night for their 2nd birthday bash, and had heard we needed to get there early because it would be packed. We had planned to be in line at 10:00PM, but ended up not actually getting there until around 11:15PM. Sure enough, the line was huge and we thought we may have blown our chances. We hopped in line and stood for about 20 minutes without moving before my brother-in-law asked one of the hosts if the line was gonna move. He told us it was a private party until 12:00PM, then the line would start to move. A few minutes later, we asked one of the guys if there was any way to get in earlier and the guy responded with "maybe". At that point we offered the guy $40 to let the four of us skip the line and head in which he gladly accepted and escorted us past the line. Inside was beautiful, the waterfall was great music was good, crowd was late 20's to mid 30's. Celebs were all over the place, we stood right next to Randy Jackson, Simon Cowell, Ryan Seacrest, and most unbelieveably of all, Coach K from the Duke Blue Devils. Later we were told many others were there, but those are the only ones we got up close with. We also found out why noone was getting in until 12:00PM, it was an open bar with free drinks until midnight. Talk about finding the holy grail in Vegas, a nightclub with free drinks! That recovered our "grease" money a couple of times over. We packed it in around 2:00AM and went back to Planet Hollywood to get a little rest. I figured things could only get worse after what I considered the highlight, Coach K at a nightclub,but I was wrong...
Day 2-Friday
We got up around 9:00AM got ourselves ready and headed over to the new "ultra pool" at the MGM Grand called "Wet Republic". We got there around 10:30AM, it was free for ladies and it cost me $20 to get in. They were having their "soft opening" and had done no promotion, in fact, there was only one sign we saw on the entire MGM property indicating it existed and the sign was at the back of the property. We figured it would be a nice relaxing place to spend the day, considering the dull nature of the Planet Hollywood pool. It was a beautiful place, two saltwater pools, many cabanas and daybeds, cushioned lounge chairs. There was a DJ and waitresses/hosts that were all beautiful and attentive. Drinks were pricy as you would expect, $12-18 for the most part, but that's the norm for Vegas clubs. The food we ordered was good as well, and wasn't outrageously priced. We had to leave around 2:30PM because my wife was going to the MISS USA pageant that night and had to get ready, but we're told Mike Tyson and Zab Judah showed up shortly after we left. My wife and the other couple went to the pageant while I gambled a bit, I'm told it was fun, I lost about $100 so probably should have gone. That night we went to Prive' for the MISS USA official after party. My brother-in-law got in line around 9:45 and started talking to one of the bouncers. He gave him a $20 tip and asked if we could be the first ones in (Prive' has a little ledge next to the VIP tables right as you walk in that are the some of the only free nightclub seats in Vegas). This was probably our best club experience of the trip, great crowd (many pageant contestants), David Spade, Joey Fatone, it was crowded but not so bad you could not dance, music was great a widely varied. We kept our seats for a good 2 hours then deicded it was time to go dance which meant no more seats, but we had a great time. It wasn't the biggest club, or the best decorated, but definitely had the best time at Prive'. Crashed around 2:30AM.
Day 3-Saturday
Went back to Wet Republic because we had really enjoyed it the day before. This time they through a curveball at us, no cover for me, but a $50 chair rental charge and a $50 food and beverage minimum. Ladies still free, they claimed that after the grand opening it will go up to $100 chair rental. Not sure I believe that, but based on the layout of the place, it is going to be wildly popular, so it might be true. I knew the food and beverage minimum was not going to be an issue, so I looked at it as a $50 cover instead of $20 for me. It was Saturday, so the place filled up quite a bit, but still nothing like what I expect it will be once they start promoting it. That night we switched hotels and went over to the Venetian. After checking in I went to the concierge and asked for me and my party to be put on the Tao guest list. She made sure to tell me to make sure we had at least one girl for every guy in our party or that being on the list would be worthless. We showed up around 10:15, walked to the "hotel guests" line. When we got up front, they asked if we were on the guest list, which we were, which meant free cover for everyone. Walked in and since we were early it was not packed yet. Easily the largest club we had been to and the most elaborately decorated. Definitely worth seeing if you have never been inside this place. After about an hour it started to get really crowded, we had gotten separated for the rest of our party and went to look at the dance floor, but it seemed to be way to crowded. My wife wanted to go do something else since we could not sit down and the dance floor was so packed, so I texted my brother in law telling him we were leaving. We walked out and seconds later got a text message from my brother-in-law saying that he had just gotten us a free table and bottle of liquor. We quickly turned around and went back into the club to find out what had happened. Apparently he had spotted an older couple (in their 50's) having bottle service by themselves. He suspected they would not stay long, so he started up a conversation and asked if he kicked in $100 if they would let his wife sit at their table with them so she could rest. Turns out, this couple thought they were getting a cabana at Tao Beach for the night and they stuck them at a table instead. They were kind of upset and decided they really didn't want to stay around so they said he could have the table and the remaining liquor and they would tell the wait staff we were taking over the table. It looked as though they had one drink a piece and left the remaining bottle for us. Their entire night had been prepaid, tip included. This was the most unbelieveable part of the trip, thank goodness for a brother-in-law with absolutley no fear! The wait staff was great, any time I tried to pour my own drink, three people would rush to the table to stop me so they could pour it. We tipped a little additional at the end of the night, but had a truly outstanding experience. The staff at Tao seemed to be the most customer friendly, from the door hosts to the bartender, to the wait staff, everyone treated us very well. Great evening, and a lot of fun!
Day 4-Sunday
Could not muster the strength to do a pool party again so we spent a good porion of the day at the Venetian pool. It was ok, nice lounge chairs, but tightly packed together. We were pretty worn down at this point, so I gambled a bit and the wife took a nap. For the evening, we had never been to the Hard Rock Hotel so we decided to go check it out. We were on our own as the other couple had different plans, so we went to dinner at the Pink Taco at Hard Rock on recommendation from a friend. It was reasonably priced and the food was outstanding. We gambled for a bit after dinner then went over to check out the line at Body English. It was a line mostly full of guys and a few couples. Through doing a little research I knew who the head doorman was, so I walked up to the front, called him over and shook his hand with a $20 bill in my hand and asked if there was a way to get myself and my wife in quicker. He immediately pulled open the rope and let us in without waiting in line. Inside was very cool, there is a balcony you can stand on overlooking the dance floor and the disco ball/chandelier is really worth seeing (I hear it cost $250,000). The dance floor was kind of small, but didn't seem overly crowded. The music was more mainstream here, DJ basically just changing songs, not really doing anything interesting to the music, but it was still fun. We didn't stay extremely long, because we were worn out, but thought it was defintiely worth seeing.
Day 5
We went home....nothing else to report, so I'll kind of summarize the clubbing lessons learned.
1. If you have more guys than girls in your party, get a table or don't waste your time. We actually heard 2 guys behind us in line at Tryst offer $100 to get in and they were told no.
2. Don't be afraid to ask for what you want, it's Vegas, anything is possible.
3. Money makes the world go round, and you can multiply this by 100 when it comes to clubbing in Vegas, its the only thing people care about.
4. If you know you are going to drink a lot at a club, do bottle service! I think at Prive' we probably spent about $350 on drinks (trust me, it's not hard to do in Vegas), for $450 we could have had a VIP table and the service that goes along with it. We were lucky we had a place to sit.
That's it, can't wait to go back, but also can't afford to! Hope you enjoyed!
Day 1-Thursday
We had planned to go to Tryst Thursday night for their 2nd birthday bash, and had heard we needed to get there early because it would be packed. We had planned to be in line at 10:00PM, but ended up not actually getting there until around 11:15PM. Sure enough, the line was huge and we thought we may have blown our chances. We hopped in line and stood for about 20 minutes without moving before my brother-in-law asked one of the hosts if the line was gonna move. He told us it was a private party until 12:00PM, then the line would start to move. A few minutes later, we asked one of the guys if there was any way to get in earlier and the guy responded with "maybe". At that point we offered the guy $40 to let the four of us skip the line and head in which he gladly accepted and escorted us past the line. Inside was beautiful, the waterfall was great music was good, crowd was late 20's to mid 30's. Celebs were all over the place, we stood right next to Randy Jackson, Simon Cowell, Ryan Seacrest, and most unbelieveably of all, Coach K from the Duke Blue Devils. Later we were told many others were there, but those are the only ones we got up close with. We also found out why noone was getting in until 12:00PM, it was an open bar with free drinks until midnight. Talk about finding the holy grail in Vegas, a nightclub with free drinks! That recovered our "grease" money a couple of times over. We packed it in around 2:00AM and went back to Planet Hollywood to get a little rest. I figured things could only get worse after what I considered the highlight, Coach K at a nightclub,but I was wrong...
Day 2-Friday
We got up around 9:00AM got ourselves ready and headed over to the new "ultra pool" at the MGM Grand called "Wet Republic". We got there around 10:30AM, it was free for ladies and it cost me $20 to get in. They were having their "soft opening" and had done no promotion, in fact, there was only one sign we saw on the entire MGM property indicating it existed and the sign was at the back of the property. We figured it would be a nice relaxing place to spend the day, considering the dull nature of the Planet Hollywood pool. It was a beautiful place, two saltwater pools, many cabanas and daybeds, cushioned lounge chairs. There was a DJ and waitresses/hosts that were all beautiful and attentive. Drinks were pricy as you would expect, $12-18 for the most part, but that's the norm for Vegas clubs. The food we ordered was good as well, and wasn't outrageously priced. We had to leave around 2:30PM because my wife was going to the MISS USA pageant that night and had to get ready, but we're told Mike Tyson and Zab Judah showed up shortly after we left. My wife and the other couple went to the pageant while I gambled a bit, I'm told it was fun, I lost about $100 so probably should have gone. That night we went to Prive' for the MISS USA official after party. My brother-in-law got in line around 9:45 and started talking to one of the bouncers. He gave him a $20 tip and asked if we could be the first ones in (Prive' has a little ledge next to the VIP tables right as you walk in that are the some of the only free nightclub seats in Vegas). This was probably our best club experience of the trip, great crowd (many pageant contestants), David Spade, Joey Fatone, it was crowded but not so bad you could not dance, music was great a widely varied. We kept our seats for a good 2 hours then deicded it was time to go dance which meant no more seats, but we had a great time. It wasn't the biggest club, or the best decorated, but definitely had the best time at Prive'. Crashed around 2:30AM.
Day 3-Saturday
Went back to Wet Republic because we had really enjoyed it the day before. This time they through a curveball at us, no cover for me, but a $50 chair rental charge and a $50 food and beverage minimum. Ladies still free, they claimed that after the grand opening it will go up to $100 chair rental. Not sure I believe that, but based on the layout of the place, it is going to be wildly popular, so it might be true. I knew the food and beverage minimum was not going to be an issue, so I looked at it as a $50 cover instead of $20 for me. It was Saturday, so the place filled up quite a bit, but still nothing like what I expect it will be once they start promoting it. That night we switched hotels and went over to the Venetian. After checking in I went to the concierge and asked for me and my party to be put on the Tao guest list. She made sure to tell me to make sure we had at least one girl for every guy in our party or that being on the list would be worthless. We showed up around 10:15, walked to the "hotel guests" line. When we got up front, they asked if we were on the guest list, which we were, which meant free cover for everyone. Walked in and since we were early it was not packed yet. Easily the largest club we had been to and the most elaborately decorated. Definitely worth seeing if you have never been inside this place. After about an hour it started to get really crowded, we had gotten separated for the rest of our party and went to look at the dance floor, but it seemed to be way to crowded. My wife wanted to go do something else since we could not sit down and the dance floor was so packed, so I texted my brother in law telling him we were leaving. We walked out and seconds later got a text message from my brother-in-law saying that he had just gotten us a free table and bottle of liquor. We quickly turned around and went back into the club to find out what had happened. Apparently he had spotted an older couple (in their 50's) having bottle service by themselves. He suspected they would not stay long, so he started up a conversation and asked if he kicked in $100 if they would let his wife sit at their table with them so she could rest. Turns out, this couple thought they were getting a cabana at Tao Beach for the night and they stuck them at a table instead. They were kind of upset and decided they really didn't want to stay around so they said he could have the table and the remaining liquor and they would tell the wait staff we were taking over the table. It looked as though they had one drink a piece and left the remaining bottle for us. Their entire night had been prepaid, tip included. This was the most unbelieveable part of the trip, thank goodness for a brother-in-law with absolutley no fear! The wait staff was great, any time I tried to pour my own drink, three people would rush to the table to stop me so they could pour it. We tipped a little additional at the end of the night, but had a truly outstanding experience. The staff at Tao seemed to be the most customer friendly, from the door hosts to the bartender, to the wait staff, everyone treated us very well. Great evening, and a lot of fun!
Day 4-Sunday
Could not muster the strength to do a pool party again so we spent a good porion of the day at the Venetian pool. It was ok, nice lounge chairs, but tightly packed together. We were pretty worn down at this point, so I gambled a bit and the wife took a nap. For the evening, we had never been to the Hard Rock Hotel so we decided to go check it out. We were on our own as the other couple had different plans, so we went to dinner at the Pink Taco at Hard Rock on recommendation from a friend. It was reasonably priced and the food was outstanding. We gambled for a bit after dinner then went over to check out the line at Body English. It was a line mostly full of guys and a few couples. Through doing a little research I knew who the head doorman was, so I walked up to the front, called him over and shook his hand with a $20 bill in my hand and asked if there was a way to get myself and my wife in quicker. He immediately pulled open the rope and let us in without waiting in line. Inside was very cool, there is a balcony you can stand on overlooking the dance floor and the disco ball/chandelier is really worth seeing (I hear it cost $250,000). The dance floor was kind of small, but didn't seem overly crowded. The music was more mainstream here, DJ basically just changing songs, not really doing anything interesting to the music, but it was still fun. We didn't stay extremely long, because we were worn out, but thought it was defintiely worth seeing.
Day 5
We went home....nothing else to report, so I'll kind of summarize the clubbing lessons learned.
1. If you have more guys than girls in your party, get a table or don't waste your time. We actually heard 2 guys behind us in line at Tryst offer $100 to get in and they were told no.
2. Don't be afraid to ask for what you want, it's Vegas, anything is possible.
3. Money makes the world go round, and you can multiply this by 100 when it comes to clubbing in Vegas, its the only thing people care about.
4. If you know you are going to drink a lot at a club, do bottle service! I think at Prive' we probably spent about $350 on drinks (trust me, it's not hard to do in Vegas), for $450 we could have had a VIP table and the service that goes along with it. We were lucky we had a place to sit.
That's it, can't wait to go back, but also can't afford to! Hope you enjoyed!