Those everyday average Americans who love to visit Vegas several or more times a year are the ones who will get hit the hardest as the prices continue to climb.

I used to be one of those people.

But funny how things work out.  I'm retired now, wife and I watch our grandson and great-grandson 5 days a week and sometimes on weekends also.  The only time we catch a break and even think about a Vegas trip would be towards the end of the year when both my daughter and grandaughter (teachers) get a winter break.

So if I get lucky I can do a once a year Vegas trip.  I'm ok with that.  My spending and gambling bankrolls actually get larger and I no longer have the "joneses" to visit more often.

I enjoy craps, eating prime rib, going to low and high end buffets, and visiting 24 hr. cafes.  Rinse and repeat.  I'm afraid these are the very aspects of Vegas that are slowly going the way of the dodo bird.

Maybe then I'll change and do vacations to Japan, Okinawa, and Korea.  I heard that North Korea is relaxing it's Tourism industry so maybe I'll pay Kim Jong Un a visit.

I know many people in the past year who went to japan for $600. Compare this to Hawaiian Airlines $700 to go to VEgas.  10hr flight vs 5hr flight.  Which means jack up the price cause HI people want to go.  MOre and more are opting to go to Japan, esp with the better currency rate in our favor.

Precovid, Japan was like $1500 on average.  Right now to Taiwan is about $1K. Precovid it was $1500.

We've been to Japan a while back.  Great experience but it was really hard getting out and about.

What I plan to do differently is sign up for a pkg. tour.  They're expensive but puts less stress on me and I can just enjoy the trip.

We've been to Japan a while back.  Great experience but it was really hard getting out and about.

What I plan to do differently is sign up for a pkg. tour.  They're expensive but puts less stress on me and I can just enjoy the trip.

How long ago?  Like before smart phones?  My cousin went a while ago before American smartphones and said the same. Then went recently and had no issues.  His hardest part was making sure he was able to access the internet in Japan. Once that was set up, easy peasy.


I'm not a fan of tours cause I want to do my own thing on my own time line. My parents go with Kobayashi Travel cause they do more country side tours.

When we go to Japan, I want to take a nap in a capsule hotel if need be.

How long ago?  Like before smart phones?  My cousin went a while ago before American smartphones and said the same. Then went recently and had no issues.  His hardest part was making sure he was able to access the internet in Japan. Once that was set up, easy peasy.


I'm not a fan of tours cause I want to do my own thing on my own time line. My parents go with Kobayashi Travel cause they do more country side tours.

When we go to Japan, I want to take a nap in a capsule hotel if need be.

We went in spring of 2007.  I think I still had a basic flip phone back then.  I agree navigating Japan nowadays is easier due to smartphones.

Yeah, wife and I are more interested in the countryside tours and the festival tours.  I want to participate in festivals and crop harvesting and staying in old taverns and eating traditional old style foods.

What can help with old vegas prices is the Last Vegas Trip Advisor book.  It cost $50 and has coupons. BOGO free or half off for 1 person.

The buffet at the Westgage is $16 a person with this coupon.  This buffet is worth $16 and not $32.  Unfortunately, there aren't many MGM properties in the coupon book. The MGM Grand buffet is $33 and not worth it. At most, I'd pay $12.99 for it like precovid days.

Luxor buffet is shutting down at the end of this month. No one is paying $35 for a crappy buffet. Their buffet at most is worth $9.99.  I can't believe the Bellagio's buffet is $50-60. For a higher end place, their buffet is total crap and at most worth $22.99.

What can help with old vegas prices is the Last Vegas Trip Advisor book.  It cost $50 and has coupons. BOGO free or half off for 1 person.

The buffet at the Westgage is $16 a person with this coupon.  This buffet is worth $16 and not $32.  Unfortunately, there aren't many MGM properties in the coupon book. The MGM Grand buffet is $33 and not worth it. At most, I'd pay $12.99 for it like precovid days.

Luxor buffet is shutting down at the end of this month. No one is paying $35 for a crappy buffet. Their buffet at most is worth $9.99.  I can't believe the Bellagio's buffet is $50-60. For a higher end place, their buffet is total crap and at most worth $22.99.

Everyone used to love the buffets.  They would compare notes on what it cost, the variety and how much they ate for less than the cost of a bucket of KFC chicken.

From my perspective, I can't see paying the buffet prices when most places serve large portions on their regular menu items.  For about what the buffet costs, I get more than I can eat from a regular menu, and i get restaurant service.

Given the quality of the selections at the last 3 buffets I tried there, I don't go to any Vegas buffets unless it's an event of some sort.

And, since I usually got comps for the restaurants anyway, price wasn't as big a factor. 

If I'm there to gamble, I don't eat many meals anyway.  A small snack when I get hungry and a full breakfast is usually plenty.  Of course, Krispy Kreme helps keep the tummy happy, too!

I got the unicorn RSVP for the best buffet in Vegas. Anthony's Steakhouse Brunch at M Resort.

It's hard to book 3-4 months out, so I had to check every few hours every day and got 1.  It's like the RSVP system HPD had during covid. 

Everyone used to love the buffets.  They would compare notes on what it cost, the variety and how much they ate for less than the cost of a bucket of KFC chicken.

From my perspective, I can't see paying the buffet prices when most places serve large portions on their regular menu items.  For about what the buffet costs, I get more than I can eat from a regular menu, and i get restaurant service.

Given the quality of the selections at the last 3 buffets I tried there, I don't go to any Vegas buffets unless it's an event of some sort.

And, since I usually got comps for the restaurants anyway, price wasn't as big a factor. 

If I'm there to gamble, I don't eat many meals anyway.  A small snack when I get hungry and a full breakfast is usually plenty.  Of course, Krispy Kreme helps keep the tummy happy, too!

The only buffets today worth going on the strip are Wynn and Bacchanal. For the new price, Wicked Spoon isn't worth it anymore. 

I got the unicorn RSVP for the best buffet in Vegas. Anthony's Steakhouse Brunch at M Resort.

It's hard to book 3-4 months out, so I had to check every few hours every day and got 1.  It's like the RSVP system HPD had during covid. 

All Right!  Good for You!

I would like to experience this buffet but like you said it is very hard to get into.  I enjoy the YT videos that people post of their experience.

With that being said I miss the buffet they had at the M Resort.  I really liked it and the only thing that was a bummer about it is the wait.  One time we waited a little over 3 hours.  I honestly don't know if I can do that again.

The only buffets today worth going on the strip are Wynn and Bacchanal. For the new price, Wicked Spoon isn't worth it anymore.

I enjoy the Wynn Buffet because of the ambiance and the interior is very pretty.  Also the tables are spaced out where it doesn't seem like you are jammed packed into a small space.

Of course the food is good, fresh, with a lot of varieties.  I also appreciate that when you go up to get another plate the table is cleared away of old plates when you get back.

I've been to the Bacchanal several times and it is an awesome buffet as far as food variety, especially the seafood.

It gets so busy that the experience is diminished somewhat.  Noisy, crowded, tables are close together, and people seem to be in a hurry to eat their food so they can go up and get more.  They should just relax and enjoy.

On our last visit my family was seated at a table that was designed for 3 less people.  We were so jammed together there was no elbow room.  The whole buffet area was jam packed and the food stations started to suffer.  It looked like a pig sty for lack of a better description.  The seafood section looked like Hurricane Andrew just passed by.

And the staff were so overwhelmed that when we came back to our tables with new plates of food the old plates were still there.  Again, the table was designed for 3 less people so you can imagine what we were going through.  At $90 per person this is unacceptable.

I've been to Wicked Spoon only once, when it was fairly new and the talk of the town.  It was ok, I liked that they provided Fiji water at the tables.  I enjoyed the buffet but honestly, if all you could do was rave about the fried chicken it kinda says it all.  But that fried chicken was awesome, LOL!

I enjoy the Wynn Buffet because of the ambiance and the interior is very pretty.  Also the tables are spaced out where it doesn't seem like you are jammed packed into a small space.

Of course the food is good, fresh, with a lot of varieties.  I also appreciate that when you go up to get another plate the table is cleared away of old plates when you get back.

I've been to the Bacchanal several times and it is an awesome buffet as far as food variety, especially the seafood.

It gets so busy that the experience is diminished somewhat.  Noisy, crowded, tables are close together, and people seem to be in a hurry to eat their food so they can go up and get more.  They should just relax and enjoy.

On our last visit my family was seated at a table that was designed for 3 less people.  We were so jammed together there was no elbow room.  The whole buffet area was jam packed and the food stations started to suffer.  It looked like a pig sty for lack of a better description.  The seafood section looked like Hurricane Andrew just passed by.

And the staff were so overwhelmed that when we came back to our tables with new plates of food the old plates were still there.  Again, the table was designed for 3 less people so you can imagine what we were going through.  At $90 per person this is unacceptable.

I've been to Wicked Spoon only once, when it was fairly new and the talk of the town.  It was ok, I liked that they provided Fiji water at the tables.  I enjoyed the buffet but honestly, if all you could do was rave about the fried chicken it kinda says it all.  But that fried chicken was awesome, LOL!

Wicked Spoon hasn't changed much at all, so you're not missing anything if you were to go today.  Comapre this to Wynn and Bacch, they update their menu's enough and like every 6 months.  THis is why I don't mind spending the money there.

Funny cause we only eat at Wynn buffet and play like $200 worth of slots and I get 1 comp offer every 5 months or so. But nothing from Bellagio.

I need to try the Bellagio again because the last time (and only time) I went there it was the talk of the town, before Bacchanal and Wicke d spoon came into play.

I really enjoyed it.  But now it seems it really went from fantastic to just regular.  Some people even say it borders on mediocre.  I need to see for myself.

Does anyone remember the Rio buffets in all it's glory?  The Rio had 2 buffets: one was called the Carnival World Buffet and it boasted foods from around the world.  The other buffet on the property was a smaller buffet called the Rio Seafood buffet.

I went to the Seafood Buffet and really enjoyed it.  This was back in 2009 when the Rio was a popular off-strip resort and the 2 buffets were also very popular.

The fresh oysters on the half shell were amazing and besides the crab legs, I pigged out on the shrimp and for the first time ever I was able to have dungeness crab clusters in an all you can eat setting.  I still remember that great dining experience as if it was yesterday.

Sadly, just like yesterday, it is gone for good.

I need to try the Bellagio again because the last time (and only time) I went there it was the talk of the town, before Bacchanal and Wicke d spoon came into play.

I really enjoyed it.  But now it seems it really went from fantastic to just regular.  Some people even say it borders on mediocre.  I need to see for myself.

Does anyone remember the Rio buffets in all it's glory?  The Rio had 2 buffets: one was called the Carnival World Buffet and it boasted foods from around the world.  The other buffet on the property was a smaller buffet called the Rio Seafood buffet.

I went to the Seafood Buffet and really enjoyed it.  This was back in 2009 when the Rio was a popular off-strip resort and the 2 buffets were also very popular.

The fresh oysters on the half shell were amazing and besides the crab legs, I pigged out on the shrimp and for the first time ever I was able to have dungeness crab clusters in an all you can eat setting.  I still remember that great dining experience as if it was yesterday.

Sadly, just like yesterday, it is gone for good.

Youtube has Bellagio buffet walk throughts. It's wort $19.99 at most cause it's the Bellagio. But if you were to solely base it on food and not location, then it's worth $9.99. That's how average it is.

Rio shut down since covid and never re-opened. Same with all the Station Casino buffets like Green Valley and Red Rock.  Mrs. CMO used to like Rio buffet when they had beef ribs, but they did away with that a year before Covid, so we never went back. Rio buffet also would give locals discount.

Now the Rio just made their new Food Hall, which is below average.  As in it's not worth the special trip there to eat at it.  They also renovated their hotel and rooms, but it's empty.

My friend hasn't been to Vegas in a while. He asked if players cards are still a thing and asked if he should bring his Stardust one. 

My friend hasn't been to Vegas in a while. He asked if players cards are still a thing and asked if he should bring his Stardust one.

I used to frequent Binion's Horseshoe.  I showed them my player's card I first got made out of business card type paper.  Since then, I've had 3 more made as the casino kept changing hands.  My comp points never transferred from the previous system, so I guess that was a way for the casino to save money.

So update on the fact that casinos are trying to squeeze every penny out of you;

Recap
Precovid, downtown was known for their $5 tables for all games.  After covid, they 1 by 1 went to $15 tables with Golden Nugget being the last to increase.

The strip, $10 tables were the norm, but you could find a $5 table hear and there.  Excluding the fancy places like Wynn/Bellagio.  But even those fancy places had $15 tables often.  Now the strip is $15 is the norm and $25 for the higher end casinos.

The strip has introduced triple zero roulette slowly over the past 2 years or so.  And since Covid, most 3:2 Blackjack tables for non-high limit are all 6:5 now.

Palms was the first to guarantee at least 1 $5 craps and BJ table.  Prior to this, their tables were $15.

All high limit rooms have single zero roulette aka European roulette.  But since it's in high limit, the min is often $50 and even $100 at times.  Compare to the double or triple zero roulette on the regular casino floor can be $15 min.  Single zero on the regular casino floors have disappeared post covid.


Update:

Palazzo has single zero roulette that isn't high limit.  This is huge as Palazzo is a fancy place. I wonder if others will follow to go back to single zero.

There's an IG guy named Pauly C who does casino news and reviews.  He was banned from Resorts World, but the new CEO brought him back to talk on what they need to do to get people to come.  This is like the 3rd CEO in recent and what the prior ones were doing wasn't working. So at least this guy is thinking outside the box.  I'm sure he's also talking to other social media influencers to get ideas.

I hope this means RW will go old school and bring back old Vegas.  More comps, free parking/valet, lower table mins, etc...

For those who don't know, RW opened just before Covid. They marketed to Chinese as the design of the casino shows this, even though it's not super obvious like Lucky Dragon Casino taht closed. The problem with 1 demographic is you alienate others like how Lucky Dragon did.  RW isn't too obvious, but if you know about this, then you see it.  Other hotels do this too. Most slot machines that have a culture theme are Chinese themed. 

Since the Chinese aren't coming still, they need to branch out to new markets.  Half their food hall is closed to due to being super slow. IMO, they had the best food hall in Vegas.  I was there last year and the gaming floor was empty.  I'm not 100% sure on this, but since they are combined with multiple hotel brands, I think that the hotels are separate from the casino. So giving comps isn't just free, the casino has to pay the hotels for the room.  Because each has it's own revenue stream.  This is 1 huge flaw if it's true.

RW still allows influencers to fill table games, comapred to the other higher end places that banned it.

So much Chinese themed slot machines in almost every casino, whether they cater to the Asian demographic or not.

Never been to RW, and don't feel I'm missing anything.

If the Downtown properties are smart, they shouldn't mirror what the Strip is doing.

And Plaza and El Cortez should open a mid-tier Buffet.

And Golden Nugget should re-open their Buffet, make it a premium Buffet.

My opinion, of course.

You know, Vegas used to be only 1 of 2 locations in the country with legal casinos.  Since at least the 1970s, many states and Indian reservations have legalized gambling in one form or another: horse racing, card rooms, Indian Casinos, Riverboat Casinos, sports betting, online gambling, lotteries, bingo, etc., etc.  Add to that the number of foreign-based online gaming sites that draw American gamblers, and it's obvious Vegas and Atlantic City are not the monopoly they once were.

When looking at the Vegas experience, it's obvious the business model has had to change in order to remain as profitable as it has been in the past.  I'm sure buffets of the past will continue to die off as inflation continues to drive food prices higher and higher, causing wasted food to become an even bigger drain on their expense sheet.  Left-over buffet food is usually thrown in the garbage.

Around 42 million tourists flock to Vegas each year, many patronizing the city's
dozens of buffets. The Bacchanal Buffet at Caesars Palace alone offers 500
different food items to 3,500 daily guests, and a good amount of this goes uneaten.

It's estimated that The Strip's MGM properties generate about 160,000 pounds of
food waste on their own per day, and overall, Vegas ends up with about five billion
pounds of waste annually; a lot of that is food.

So what to do with buffet leftovers? Feed it to pigs, of course. A pig farm may be
far from your mental image of Sin City, but R.C. Farms, now Las Vegas Livestock,
is a major local operation. Hotels and casinos like those MGM properties give their
leftovers to the farm to feed the animals sustainably and find an eco-friendly food-
waste solution.

The best place for leftover food to go is naturally to hungry people — the
Environmental Protection Agency places this at the top of their food recovery
hierarchy right under reducing the amount of food ordered in the first place. But
leftovers aren't always in good enough condition to donate, so the next best option
is to feed it to animals. Las Vegas Livestock has around 4,000 pigs that eat up to
20 tons of food scraps per day, helping with a good chunk of buffet leftovers.

The city, however, is always working on better ways to make use of the rest. In
studies, Nevada has proven to be one of the most wasteful states in the country,
with food waste a major contributor. To combat this, many resorts are looking to stay
ahead of the problem by more carefully tracking consumption so they order food
more efficiently. Of the leftovers they still end up with, once the pigs of the city have
been fed, many buffets engage in composting practices. MGM dries its oyster shells
out and sends them to Maryland to aid in restoring oyster beds, and uses a high-tech
system to freeze buffet leftovers that haven't been touched so they are in sufficient
shape to donate to food banks.

It's fun to think about pigs enjoying fancy buffet food, but you can also help when at
Vegas buffets by only taking what you think you can eat.

https://www.tastingtable.com/1827701/vegas-buffet-leftovers-revealed/

That's just one Vegas amenity -- the all-you-can-eat buffet -- being reworked to keep waste down, profits up and keeping visitors coming back.  It's a difficult thing to balance when in the past food wasn't nearly as expensive, nobody really worried about the waste, and a full & happy customer was a gambling customer after paying next to nothing for a world-class meal.

We now see YT channels with people ordering 20, 30, or more all-you-can-eat lobsters just to get clicks.  Complete waste of food for no good reason, which causes everyone's prices to go up.

No wonder the casinos are trying to increase prices on parking, buffets and room fees.

It's difficult to advertise Vegas as an over-indulgent get-away if nobody can afford to go.

I don't like it when people waste food also.  I make an effort when at buffets to sample first and if I like it then I will go back for more.  I also don't subscribe to the "eat my money's worth" at buffets.  I like buffets for the variety, especially when they touch on foods I don't normally eat.  They might not be as great as if you were to go to a restaurant but at least I get some idea of that type of food.

24 hr. Cafes, Graveyard specials, and buffets are what I enjoy about Vegas.

Sadly I think those 3 will disappear for all the reasons you brought up, Flapp.

I remember watching a documentary type program highlighting how the Vegas pig farmers gather the food from the resorts then process them at their farm, getting it ready to feed the pigs.  I remember them showing stuff like forks, plastics, and other foreign materials that needed to be carefully screened out from the food.

As far as waste I remember one family I saw at the buffet with huge plates of food leftover.  I would say more than 50% of the food they took were not touched and these were items like crab legs and prime rib.  My heart sank when I saw this.  As much as I enjoy watching people enjoy their food I don't like to see waste.

And the YT Influencers, agree that some of them are wasting food.  One of those YT vloggers took 8 whole lobsters to do his video.  I commented on his channel if he ate all 8 of those lobsters besides all the other foods he took.  I told him not to be wasteful and scolded him that him and people like him are the reason buffets are going away and prices are going up.

He usually leaves a Heart emojii after people's comments but he never leaves one for me.