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A panoramic view of Hotels Paris and Planet Hollywood and the famous Bellagio Fountains on the Las Vegas Strip.

Flash! Get 5-Star Hotel Rooms in Las Vegas for Less than Cheap Motel Prices!

November 18, 2017/3 Comments/in Uncategorized /by Donna

This post is sponsored by Hotwire®, and I am so excited to be able to
share this great opportunity with you all.

The iconic Welcome to Las Vegas sign welcomes visitors on the north end of The Strip. Photo by James Walsh.

Hotwire Announces “The Million Dollar Sale” in Las Vegas!

Do you love Las Vegas like I do? Or have you always wanted to visit “Sin City” but thought there was no way you could afford it? Well, I’ve just learned about a special Million Dollar Flash Sale on 5-star luxury rooms at some of the top Vegas hotels that will allow you to give yourself the Christmas gift of a quick holiday luxury getaway for less than the price of an off-Strip motel chain.

How much will one of these luxe rooms cost you if you’re quick? How about…wait for it…$50US! FIFTY DOLLARS! I know it sounds too good to be true, but it’s not. I double-checked with Hotwire to get all the details for you. This is a genuine deal.

But you have to act Fast! This special one-time promotion is likely to end in just a few days.

You can virtually travel the world on the Las Vegas Strip, from Paris, to Luxor in Egypt, to New York, New York or Mandalay Bay. Photo by Aldric Rivat

Why is Hotwire Doing This?

So, what exactly is Hotwire, and why are they spending a million bucks to make it easy for you to chill out from Christmas stress with a holiday from the holidays, and to do it in style?

Hotwire®, an operating company within the Expedia brand, is a major discount travel site designed to inspire spontaneous travel through their “Hot Rate®” deals. To get you those deals, they negotiate deep discounts from travel suppliers for unsold airline seats, hotel rooms and rental cars. Then they pass those savings on to you.

But even one of their usual Hot Rate deals isn’t going to get you this amazing kind of bargain on a 5-star room in Las Vegas, luxury rooms that carry an average holiday-season retail price tag of a whopping $432 a night. So they decided to take the extra step to get you there. The company is investing One Million Dollars to cover the price difference for anything more than 50 bucks over their usual Hot Rates prices. Why? Because they want you to see for yourself what Hotwire offers.

As company President Neha Parikh explains, “I know it might sound too good to be true, so you may ask yourself, ‘what’s the catch?’ But it’s real. I believe Hotwire is a different kind of travel site, a different kind of company. I am putting my money where my mouth is in terms of showing the incredible value we bring to people who love to travel, and inviting everyone to experience our amazing Hot Rate deals—and luxury five-star travel—for themselves.”

And here’s a point to remember: WE, NomadWomen travelers of a certain age, deserve that kind of break. A survey conducted recently shows that millennials are much more likely than people in our age group to stay at a 5-star hotel. Only 13 percent of people over 55 in the US have spent one or more nights in this kind of luxury room. But why should the kids have all the fun and pampering? In my opinion, it’s definitely our turn!

The sale is running NOW. As soon as available room inventory is exhausted or the company investment hits it’s million dollar mark, it will end. And that is very likely to happen in a matter of days.

With the Hotwire Million Dollar Sale, you’ll definitely hit the jackpot on a luxury hotel room price in Las Vegas, IF you act fast.
Photo by beckyb on Flickr.

The Specifics:

• The Million Dollar Sale is good for bookings between December 8-28, 2017.
• Bookings are for a double room for a maximum two-night stay for two people at $50/night.
• These rates do not include taxes or any additional hotel fees that might apply. But your total cost will be shown to you at check-out so you won’t be surprised by hidden fees.
• During the booking process, you’ll be given details of the participating hotels, such as amenities, general location and access to Hotwire and Trip Advisor reviews.
• BUT, as usual with Hotwire’s booking process, you won’t know the name of your actual hotel until you finish the checkout process on the Hotwire site and your booking is complete. But don’t worry, because nearly all of Vegas’ premiere luxury properties are participating in the sale.

How to Book Your 5-Star Las Vegas Christmas Getaway for $50

• Visit Hotwire.com and look for hotels in the search box.
• Select Las Vegas as your destination.
• Choose up to two-nights between December 8-December 28.
• Select your number of guests and push “find hotel.”
• Select your hotel from the list of properties by location and amenities—make sure you select a five-star property to get the best deal.
• Check out to find out which property you’ll be staying at.

Why You Should Visit Las Vegas for the Holidays

Bellagio Hotel's dancing fountains at night - Las Vegas

Watch the ethereal dancing fountains at the Bellagio Hotel on your Las Vegas getaway. Photo by Sean MacEntee on Flickr.

Anyone who’s been reading NomadWomen for a while already knows I love Las Vegas. I’ve shared some of my childhood memories of this one-of-a-kind desert town while visiting the Neon Museum. I’ve shown you my favorite downtown neon sign on Fremont Street. I’ve even told you where to find my favorite thing to eat in Las Vegas (yum yum for real frozen custard!).

It’s an exciting place to visit at any time of year. (Well, maybe not so much during the summer, when temps can easily top 100F.)

But Las Vegas for the holidays is really something special. The over-the-top Christmas decorations everywhere, like the 600,000 lights at Ethel M Chocolate’s Holiday Cactus Garden. Like the ethereally lovely holiday botanical displays at the Hotel Bellagio’s atrium Conservatory and Gardens. Like the special holiday-themed shows. Like the Food! And the Shopping! Or how about just relaxing poolside in 90 degree weather while your friends back home are freezing and stressing out?

A span of the beautiful Red Rock Canyon near Vegas. Left - A woman does a tandem sky dive over the desert.

Just outside Las Vegas, you can hike amid the striking colors of Red Rock Canyon. Or the more adventurous can go sky-diving over the desesrt! Photos by Olenka Kotyk (left) and Sky Dive Andes on Flickr with CC license (right).

And you really don’t need to confine yourself to the Strip. If you love the outdoors, head out to Red Rock Canyon, just 30 minutes away, for a beautiful hike. Or drive 30 minutes in the other direction for the quaint antique stores of Boulder City and the grandeur of Hoover Dam. Visit one of several museums. Speed along Fremont Street downtown on the zipline (and no, you’re not too old for a zipline. If I can do it, so can you.) Get a massage or other spa treatment. Or even go sky-diving over the desert!

Las Vegas really is a place like other, a sort of giant theme park for grown-ups; and you owe it to yourself to see it at least once, especially during the Christmas season.

Get your $50 luxury 5-star hotel room in Las Vegas NOW on Hotwire®,. Because these amazing deals will be gone in a few days.

The Neon Museum in Las Vegas: A Gift of Memory to Baby Boomers

September 12, 2017/43 Comments/in Destinations /by Donna

At the Neon Museum in Las Vegas, the “Boneyard” is stuffed full of the faded glory of Las Vegas’ Golden Age. Beyond all the new LED bling of the Strip, this is where the neon of the city’s past went to die. Let the magic of these old signs and markers bring memory alive and remind us of what was once there.

A yellow crown with neon and flashing bulbs that once lit up the desert sky in Las Vegas, back in the day. Now at the Boneyard of the Neon Museum in Las Vegas.

In my memories, I can still see the neon and flashing bulbs lighting up the desesrt horizon as my family neared Las Vegas.

It’s 1959. My sister and I have piled into the back of the family’s white ’55 Mercury station wagon. We are off on the annual family summer vacation, a road trip to Somewhere, USA.

The metal cooler full of tuna sandwiches and thick-bottled Cokes has been stowed. The coated burlap water bag is hanging from the Merc’s hood ornament, ready in case the radiator overheats in the scorching California sun. Later, I’ll plead thirst at a rest stop and ask for a swallow of that water, brackish, hot, and tasting like you’d been chewing on dry straw. Disgusting really, but I always beg for it. It’s part of the road trip experience I crave. It’s a built-in part of my happiest childhood memories.

Of course, everyone in the car knows where the first night’s stop will be. It’s always the same. No matter where we’re headed out to from our Southern California home, that first night is the same. Whether we’re heading east to the Grand Canyon, north to our favorite fishing spot on Clear Lake, northwest to the Canyonlands of Utah, there is one constant.

Las Vegas is on the way there.

Because my mom loves Vegas and pulling for hours on the “One-Armed Bandit” at a nickel a pull. And my dad loves my mom and loves giving her what she wants. So Vegas is always on the way.

An old family photo taken at some US National Park, daddy and his girls.

On a family vacation at some U.S. National Park, my sister her always pretty self in her saddle shoes, and me with the dreadful hair and Brownie T-shirt, flanking my dad… where he most loved to be.

Vintage photo of my mom at a slot machine in the 1950s

My mom at a slot machine in downtown Las Vegas, probably The Mint, in the 1950s, playing till her hand was black from the nickels and her arm was sore… where she most loved to be.

Memories That Don’t Fade

Of course, it’s no longer 1959. The white Mercury station wagon went to auto heaven decades ago. Both my parents are gone too. Las Vegas has changed and grown and gotten way more sophisticated. But memory is a funny thing. It fades and shapeshifts but refuses to give up entirely. I can still taste that burlap-y swallow of desert-hot water. I can still feel the shock of cannonballing into a cold Las Vegas motel pool on a 110 degree desert day.

And I remember the neon. I remember all that gleaming, glittering, enticing neon.

The neon was always how we knew we had arrived in Las Vegas. The neon made my mom sit up and smile. It made my sister and me wake up from the flattened back of the station wagon to shake out our hair and pull on our tennis shoes. It roused my dad from the highway-induced stupor of driving an endless road through the desert.

The neon shouted to us: “Welcome back, Meyer family. Let’s have some fun!”

Revisiting the Icons of Old Las Vegas at The Neon Museum

Worn and broken neon sign for the old Silver Slipper Gaming House, Las Vegas Neon Museum.

Almost 60 years later, I loved seeing the old neon signs at the Neon Boneyard in Las Vegas.

These kinds of memories have their own special magic. And they can be spurred by many things—sights, smells, a sound, a curve of light. I wrote this memory of our early trips to Las Vegas shortly after visiting The Boneyard at the Neon Museum in Las Vegas. I’d like to take you there, to re-visit a bit of my own childhood, and maybe yours too. And if you never visited Vegas during its Golden Age, let yourself imagine how it looked back then—when The Stardust sign could be seen from 60 miles away, when The Mint façade undulated, when the neon lights gleamed and glittered and invited.

Come with me to see the bones of old Las Vegas now on display in the more than 200 old neon signs set out at The Boneyard of The Neon Museum. And see why maybe you’ll want to make that trip to the Nevada desert to see these memories of Old Las Vegas for yourself.

The entrance sign to the Neon Museum and Boneyard is itself a part of the display. The lettering on old Vegas neon signs was often the most important part, and typography styles became instantly recognizable. This sign copies some iconic neon typography. The first “N” is classic Golden Nugget style. The “E” is from the famous Caesar’s Palace font. The “O” is copied from downtown’s Binion’s Horseshoe casino. And the final “N” celebrates the Desert Inn of the Rat Pack days.

The Neon Museum entry and Visitor Center is housed in the renovated lobby of the La Concha Motel, which stood on the southern Strip. It was dismantled, moved and rebuilt for the Neon Museum after the motel closed in 2004. The lobby, its shape mirrored in this sign, was a curvilinear concrete shell designed in the “Googie” style of architecture. The style was enormously popular in Las Vegas and Southern California and later came to be called “Mid-Century Modern.” It is sometimes also referred to as “Space Age” or “Atomic” design.

The jagged galaxy of the Stardust Resorts sign, done in Googie atomic lettering, was built by the Young Electric Sign Company, the premier neon sign company in Las Vegas. It played firmly into the country’s fascination with all things atomic, nuclear and space related in the 1950s and ’60s. It’s one of the larger signs at the Neon Museum.

The Sahara Hotel and Casino, on the Las Vegas Strip, was one of the famous “Rat Pack” casinos, a hang-out for Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Joey Bishop and Peter Lawford. The sign is one of the better-preserved examples in the Neon Museum’s Boneyard.

The Yucca Motel was built around 1950. It sat on the northern Strip, in the wedding chapel area. It was demolished in 2010.

I’m not sure where this sign came from, but it is exactly representative of the look of many downtown Las Vegas casinos in the 1950s and ’60s. This Old Western/Circus look was very popular, adding to the theme park feel of the area.

The Silver Slipper Gambling Hall opened in 1950. This giant revolving and blinking shoe sat on a post atop the casino. In 1968, the property was purchased by Howard Hughes. The paranoid millionaire apparently was afraid of the shoe. He thought someone would put a camera in the toe, which stopped and reversed its revolutions when it was pointed directly into his penthouse at the Desert Inn. He had the revolving mechanism dismantled and then turned the lights off.

Some of the pieces at the Neon Museum and Boneyard are still in pretty good condition. Others, like these peeling letters, are sad reminders of how many years have passed since my family drove into Las Vegas every summer.

There is a huge Paris hotel/casino/resort now on the Las Vegas Strip, complete with a replica of the Eiffel Tower, sidewalk cafes and a giant Montgolfier balloon. But earlier, there was this Paris, now nothing but a relic and a memory at the Neon Museum.

In my mind, I can still see those lights flashing and blinking and lighting up the desert sky. The Mint, shown on this vintage matchbook cover, was my mom’s favorite place to play the slots until her arm, as she said, “was like to fall off.”

Visit the Neon Museum for Yourself

If you go to Las Vegas, do plan to visit the Neon Museum and Boneyard. Your memories are not mine, and perhaps you didn’t travel to Las Vegas as a child. But I think most of our generation can relate to the era of neon and the mid-century modern look that so many of these pieces display. It’s one of the most fun things to do in Las Vegas.

Let yourself walk through the Boneyard. Listen to the stories these signs tell of a past Golden Age. Look and imagine. And remember.

The Neon Museum and Boneyard is located at 770 Las Vegas Blvd. North, not far from Downtown Las Vegas and The Fremont Street Experience. There is free parking available.

When visiting the Neon Museum, you used to have to sign up for the one-hour docent-guided tour, which I recommend because the docents are very knowledgeable about the history of each sign. It is now also possible to walk through the Boneyard on your own, without joining a tour. The grounds are approximately two acres with well laid-out paths.

General admission at the Neon Museum and Boneyard without a tour is available from 9am to 4pm on most days. Docent-led tours can be booked seven days a week. They are offered several times a day, both day tours and night tours, with hours varying by the season. Tours often sell out, so booking in advance online is highly recommended. There is also a 30-minute film that includes a light show of many of the signs and their history. Ticket prices range from $20-42, depending on what level of experience you want to book.

You can book a tour on the Neon Museum’s website here.

Are you planning a trip to Las Vegas? You should! To find your best flight alternatives, check out Kiwi.com to book cheap flights.

To find a great room at a great price in Las Vegas, you can compare the best prices on Vegas hotel rooms here.

Yes, these are affiliate links. That means that if you click the link and book a flight or a hotel, NomadWomen will get a small commission. This costs you nothing extra at all. And thanks!

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