Product Description

America’s #1 bestselling travel series

Written by more than 175 outspoken travelers around the globe, Frommer’s Complete Guides help travelers experience places the way locals do.

• More annually updated guides than any other series
• 16-page color section and foldout map in all annual guides
• Outspoken opinions, exact prices, and suggested itineraries
• Dozens of detailed maps in an easy-to-read, two-color design

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #163508 in Books
• Published on: 2008-11-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780470384312
• Condition: USED - VERY GOOD
• Notes:
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From the Back Cover
Frommer's. The best trips start here.

Experience a place the way the locals do. Enjoy the best it has to offer.

• The lowdown on all the major casino games, including tips to help you play your cards right.

• Outspoken opinions on what's worth your time and what's not.

• Exact prices, so you can plan the perfect trip whatever your budget.

• Off-the-beaten-path experiences and undiscovered gems, plus new takes on top attractions.

Find great deals and book your trip at Frommers.com

Customer Reviews

Not that great, information is out of date.
Let me start by saying I own several guide books from Frommer's and usually really like them.
But I feel this particular guide is rather disappointing.

For one thing a lot of the information is outdated (most of it seems to be from 2008), for example the schedule for several free shows on the Strip (Bellagio fountains, Mirage volcano, statues at Ceasar's Palace...) as well as almost all restaurant and show prices (they are generally higher by about 5-10% than what the guide says).

Three of the "highly recommended" (***) restaurants we tried were unsatisfactory. In one them the food was not nearly as good as Frommer's made it sound, another one had great food but dismal service (it took almost two hours to eat just a main course and split a dessert, and the check was wrong not once but TWICE!) - and the last one was out of business!

I'm aware that Las Vegas is a fast-moving environment, but it was still disappointing.

More sticky points follow:

- Frommer's only includes hotels ON the Strip or downtown. For example the Gold Coast Casino, just 2 blocks from the strip, was not even mentioned.

- The included maps are not very useful. They are either too large of a scale scale, or else cut off right at the Strip (in other words, there is no single map extending to several blocks East and West of the Strip in satisfying detail). There is no fold-out map.

- The guide layout is confusing. It arbitrarily divides the Strip into North, South and Mid sections, but the location of each "section" is not very clear (plus they vary between the "Where to stay" "Where to eat" and "What to see and do" sections!) They also add East and West of the strip to make the confusion complete. Why not have just two sections, East and West and then list the hotels/restaurants/attractions North to South?

- Some attractions are listed in the "What to see and do" section, others (for example the Grand Canal Shoppes in the Venetian) only under "Where to stay". Just from reading the guide, you'd never guess that the Venetian has free attractions inside!

- One thing that would have been hugely useful but was not included is FLOOR PLANS of the big Strip casinos.
Try to navigate for example the Venetian, Caesar's Palace or Paris Las Vegas if you've never set foot there!

- Frommer's devotes a whole chapter on gambling, but it doesn't include much interesting information.

For someone who has never played table games, their directions make them sound much more intimidating than they are. For example craps - the guide lists all possible bet combinations without explaining the odds and completely muddling the issue. Would it have been that hard to put a "hint box" for newbie gamblers directing them how to stick to the Pass Line and Odds bets, which are easy to make and have a low house edge?
Or Blackjack - they helpfully include a strategy table but it's a bad one. Include the true Basic Strategy table already! That would be much more useful than full-color layouts of a roulette and craps table, without explanation of what the various betting fields mean.

There is in general no mention of the different house edges and/or expected player loss values for the games. Frommer's makes it sound as if they were all equally risky or rewarding, from the almost-neutral Baccarat banker and craps pass/odds bets to the sucker bets on the Big Six wheel. A serious odds table like those found at the Wizard of Odds or Vegas Click would have been appreciated.

Are they maybe sponsored by the Casinos?

If you are going to Vegas and don't know anything about gambling, do yourself a favor and read about the basics even if you don't think you'll gamble much. Amazon won't post allow me to post URLs, so just google for example "vegasclick" or "wizardofodds" for some much needed, serious and free advice. In a nutshell: don't be intimidated by the table games, they are much more fun and besides offer often better odds than the slots! I learned that lesson too late...

All in all, a rather confusing and outdated guide. One hopes they will seriously update it for the 2010 edition.

excellent book
I bought this with the unofficial guide to LV. The 2 books together gave me all the information i need for LV. The only other comment I want to make is if you are interested in any hotels you should go to web sites with user ratings and they gave you more up to date information especially in regard to noise and non smoking room availability. If you have problem with smoking you should look for hotels like the Marriott chain that has all non smoking room. Most other hotels have fine prints that said non smoking room is only a request and not a sure thing.

Great reference guide
The book did a good job explaining the basics of Las Vegas. It even explained the different games in the casinos & made suggestions. Has great maps to reference to, that are very beneficial. I went to Vegas when I was 18, so I never gambled; then stayed in Vegas one day back in 2004 because I was flying back to Cleveland (but again never gambled since I had children with me), so I have a general idea of what to expect. We are going to Vegas in early December, but this book has been a great help! I would still do some research online about Vegas, like I did. You can get even more up-to-date information by doing google searches.

A few things missing... there was no information on Imperial Palace, which is a major casino/hotel on mid-strip. Imperial Palace was included in the map in the book, but it is never described. Plus, the author could of given more information about cheap eats in Las Vegas along with a few tips on how to get free alcohol while in the Casinos. All of which, I had to go online to research. But, the book overall was a good reference guide to any newcomers to Vegas.

Things come & go so fast in Vegas, it is a good idea to double-check any information no matter how up-to-date your reference guide is.