The Unofficial Guide to Las Vegas 2005 (Unofficial Guides) (Paperback)

~ Bob Sehlinger (Author) "From a visitor's perspective, Las Vegas is more or less a small town that's fairly easy to get around..." (more)
Key Phrases: matchplay chips, host casino, restaurant profiles, Las Vegas, New York, Mandalay Bay (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

The inside scoop on how to plan a winning trip to Las Vegas
* Detailed ratings and rankings of hotels and casinos-including all the newest openings-along with savvy tips on getting the lowest room rates and evaluating package deals
* Complete coverage of the city's hot new restaurants and best buffets, plus the lowdown on where to find shopping bargains and how to get tickets to top shows
* Includes insider strategies for making the most of betting dollars

From the Back Cover

From the publishers of The Unofficial Guide® to Walt Disney World®

"A Tourist’s Best Friend!"
--Chicago Sun-Times

"Indispensable"
--The New York Times

The Top 10 Ways The Unofficial Guide to Las Vegas Can Help You Have the Perfect Trip:

1. Information that’s candid, critical, and totally objective
2. Each casino reviewed in detail and ranked, from the best values to the hottest slots
3. Helpful hints for getting the best room and the lowest possible rate--and the inside story on packages and Internet booking
4. Insider tips on casino gambling, with proven strategies for making the most of your betting dollars
5. Extensive advice on planning a productive and stress-free business or convention trip
6. Where to find the best buffets plus detailed reviews of more than 100 restaurants--a complete dining guide within the book
7. Tips for gaining easy access to the top shows and best evening entertainment, plus reviews of each
8. What to see and do beyond the strip--plus where to play golf and tennis or work out
9. All the details on enjoying Las Vegas with your kids
10. Everything you need to plan the Vegas vacation that’s just right for your needs and interests

Get the unbiased truth on hundreds of hotels, restaurants, attractions, and more in The Unofficial Guide to Las Vegas--the resource that helps you save money, save time, and make your trip the best it can be.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 480 pages
• Publisher: John Wiley & Sons (August 16, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0764559710
• ISBN-13: 978-0764559716
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 4.9 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (35 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #961,239 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

59 of 61 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Only Las Vegas Book You Need!, April 19, 2000

By	Kris Wilder (Greenwood Village, Colorado) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Unofficial Guide to Las Vegas 2000 (Paperback)

The Unofficial Guide to Las Vegas, 2000, is the only book you'll want to read when planning your trip. It goes into great detail about all the hotels and casinos, what their rooms are like, what the hotels offer, what the casinos offer, and lots more. It tells you how to obtain "comps" and how to play the games, with easy to understand rules and diagrams. With their 100+ pages of Dining and Restaurant information, you know where to find the best food and the best prices. The Hotel Information Chart in the back is extremely helpful because you can compare hotels without having to flip through a lot of pages. Chapter 5 talks about shopping and the sights around Nevada, in case you plan on doing more than gambling. The Unofficial Guide gives you the pros and cons of each show so you can decide wether or not it's worth 100.00 a person, to see Siegfried & Roy at the Mirage. There is also a little section that tells you where you have the best odds of winning at each game, and at which casino. Another great thing about this book are the maps of The Strip and of Downtown. It lets you know how far you are from point "A" to point "B", because hotel properties are deceiving in their size. A walk from your room at the Venetian, to Caesars Palace may take 20 minutes or so. All 544 pages are packed full of helpful and accurate information. The Unofficial Guide made planning our trip extremely easy. I highly recommend this book, and only this book, to anyone planning on going to Las Vegas!

44 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent - Buy it if you do not have a recent version, March 6, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Unofficial Guide to Las Vegas 1999 (Serial) (Paperback)

We originally bought the 1996 version of this book before our first trip to Las Vegas. We used it as a bible of sorts. We found its reviews to be on target. The authors are not afraid to give advice on where not to go and what not to see. It rates hotels, casinos, restaurants, shows and about anything else you could want rated. It also provides the basics of gambling and even gives tips for planning your trip. We have since made Las Vegas our adult vacation spot, a place we go without the kids once a year. We always bring the book and read it ahead of time. We decided to get the latest 1999 edition prior to the trip we are taking in about a month. The book has only minor changes since 1996 and does not have much of anything on any new hotels which opened after New York/New York. The shows information is pretty much identical to the 1996 edition, save a few new shows. My suggestion is to buy the book if you do not have a fairly recent edition. It will more than pay for itself with excellent advice. It also helped us save about a hundred dollars by giving suggestions on booking the trip. If you have a 1996 edition or newer, you really don't need it unless you have worn your other copy out.

32 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How to DO Las Vegas, August 16, 2000

By	hyperbolium (Earth, USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)

This review is from: The Unofficial Guide to Las Vegas 2000 (Paperback)

Like the rest of the "Unofficial Guide" line, this book tells you how to visit, rather than just what to visit. That is, in addition to fairly encyclopedic information about transportation, hotels, restaurants and attractions, it provides a good deal of useful information about how to get the most out of your vacation.

For example, rather than just providing a guide to hotels, it prefaces the detailed listing with a section discussing the pros and cons of different accomodations. Motel or hotel? Small casino or megacasino? Downtown, the Strip or further out? Similar help is available for picking what games to play and where to gamble, what shows to see (and where to sit), and so on.

This guide provides the sort of "I wish I'd known that" information you gather on your first trip to use on your next trip. This lets you avoid many of the common mistakes your first time out. Obviously a lot of this is subjective, and you won't agree with their assessments every time, but overall their evaluations are fair, and their tips are exteremely useful.