So the hotel’s opening was pushed back not once, not twice but three or more times to New Years Eve. Even then it was only opened really for Jay-Z’s new club 40/40 to have its New Year’s event (and suddenly I realize I didn’t even see this club when walking through). The rooms were rumored to not be available until mid-January or later but hey! Come see our casino! And… well that’s about it.

The “grand opening” was last weekend (January 17-19th) and included a star studded event with Diana Ross, Seal and hosted by the Venetian’s Wayne Brady. The rooms (still not all of them) were available for booking and Barney’s New York opened the 19th.

Sometime in the past week I finally got a call to the Palazzo and I was excited! I drove into their underground garage totally forgetting the laws of cells phones and that they don’t work underground. “Ah well”, I thought, “I’ll just go to the casino”. Still no service. I had to walk practically out to the Strip by the lovely statue that looks like three women carved out of ice to make a call and get the information on the clients. That’s annoying. Me and another girl meet the customers to go upstairs and we walk by where an under construction gift shop is being put in… jackhammers pounding away and everything. We go up and both notice how nice the hallways are with etched mirrored glass and had cool blues and browns for the colors. When we were let in the door we both said, “wow looks almost the same as the Venetian main tower remodeled rooms”. The call doesn’t work out for me so I leave and went to wandering around the rest of the place.

So here are the pros to the place:
-The casino is nice and open instead of squished looking like the Venetian. The style is like the Wynn meets the cheaper local’s South Point Casino (which is not a compliment, by the way) but with a different color scheme.
-Love the colors and the original looking chandeliers
-I like how the garage escalators dump you out into the middle of the casino floor but isn’t obtrusive
-Liked the indoor waterfall and how it connects you to the Grand Canal Shops of the Venetian
-Liked the look of the lounge where they have live acts perform at night.

What I didn’t care for:
-Out of 50+ shops there are only about 3 open: Coach, Barney’s, and Farragamo. The rest is empty and … sad. Only the Grand Lux Café and Morel’s Steakhouse are open. It made the place look pathetic and half assed. Hall after hall of shops were closed, half done, or not done at all. When Steve Wynn opened his casino across the road every single high end shop and restaurant that was announced was open the first day the rest of the hotel was open. That’s classy. A half opened hotel just seems cheap.
-Jersey Boys the musical isn’t opening until April and the area around the theater looks like a disaster (which is by the main casino floor)
-The faux sky ceiling is overdone in Las Vegas. Caesars started it in the 90’s and every other casino has done it since… so… move on major resorts. Find something else original and not so cheesy looking.

-I sadly think it’s one of the worst looking buildings to come to the Strip. It looks like a big hospital to me. A big huge monolith with some faux cement blocks that make up the exterior to cover up the huge steel beams that they constructed the building from.

Ok I am done with my rant.

So the conclusion? Save some $ and stay at the Venetian sister property. The rooms are the same and the Palazzo is just a short walk away.

Guess I won’t be going to any calls there tonight.. a 3 alarm fire started early today and the top floors were burned but mostly on the exterior. They said in the article I was reading that people ignored the fire alarm until maids were running down the halls banging on doors. If a fire alarm is being tested or erroring here in Las Vegas usually they have an announcement immediately afterward saying “there is a malfunction” or “this is a test”… if you don’t hear that within a minute, get the hell out of your rooms people! I’d hate to see another horde of people die like in the MGM fire in 1980… 87 people then and 8 people at the Hilton fire the following year.

You can read more here about the story. Craziness

Well I say that but I have only had 2 calls who were actually here for the concrete show (one ended up working out and the other was okay money). I don’t know what happened around town but all of the sudden things started picking up and my phone starting ringing. Most importantly those calls that I went to were actually turning out to be decent money calls instead of a whole bunch of pranksters.

Escorting in Las Vegas is amazing. There is no rhyme or reason to the ebb and flow of this town. One day will be crazy busy and you see HORDES of people on the Strip but yet all of the agencies and my web ads are quiet. Not a peep. Then the next week it will be a huge convention but they just don’t spend money. Then the next week it seems like no one is walking around the Strip but the calls I get will be scarce but huge money. No way of predicting things. I would be better off predicting the weather in Las Vegas than I would predicting how much money I will make a night.

Glad to see things are picking up. I just hope I don’t jinx myself.

Another shot from the same group of photos that I did with this one

So I lied the other day and said it was slow here in Vegas. I just *thought* it was slow then! Friday night proved to be a chorus of crickets chirping and I ended up hanging out with some friends later on in the night which I regret now since I missed Saturday day and night. I also ended up not getting my butt out to the Nevada caucus at 11am due to… well I probably couldn’t drive.  Shame on me. All of the harassing phone calls by Hillary Clinton’s and Barack Obama’s campaign and my local precinct organizer didn’t pay off because really… Saturday morning was a dumb time to have a caucus in Las Vegas. Really. They should have had it at 7pm on a Monday or something. By that time we have all sobered up from the weekend, people who have regular jobs during the daytime can go and the night owls should be awake by then. Simple plan! If that was the time then I am sure 90% of residents would have been there! Make it 100% if you add a cash bar with martini’s poured by our randy Mayor Oscar Goodman and some bar nuts. Bingo! Biggest turn out in *America*

I had actually considered showing up drunken and in slutty clothes but that would have been a $20 cab ride from where I was. I figured that would have been very Vegas and American of me to show up in that condition… but alas, I don’t think I would have been able to stand it. Cast a vote drunk? Yes… Stay for a caucus thing that takes more than 5 minutes? No…. that’s too much drunken effort.  Well I definitely will be present in November.. and with bells on.

Little different… black and white!