Leaving Las Vegas

The final blog entry from Vegas, or rather the Virgin Atlantic flight that speeding us back to Blighty; finding ourselves ahead of the game more from prudence than any gambling success we have shouted for an upgrade – or at least succumbed to the canny selling of the exit seats, with their vast legroom, for a mere $110 each.

So with this laptop perched on the ingeniously designed tray that folds out of the armrest, I am brimming with thought on the ‘Bright Light City’ we have left twinkling in the Nevada desert behind us.

I like Vegas. From the gaudy facades to the chiming slot machines, there is actually a rather charming honest dishonesty to the place; it is so off the chart that it creeps back on near the top again.

I had always held Vegas, in all its vulgar glory, as a pinnacle of customer service. When I first visited almost 10 years ago the obsessive pursuit of every spare cent a gambler had – and plenty they didn’t – contributed to making the client king.

From the ever present cocktail waitress who would saunter up with a smile if you so much as slowed near a slot machine or gaming table, through to the universal belief that queues were bad because queuing people don’t spend anything.

However, as surely as the sprawling buffets have been replaced with quality and often gourmet restaurants, customer service has suffered as Vegas has become an entertainment centre as much as it is a gambling Mecca.

What’s more the boasted 98% occupancy rates on the Las Vegas strip and often beyond have further gone to reinforce the arrogance that allow hotels cut corners on customer service safe in the knowledge that starry eyed punters will still keep coming.

Take The Venetian for example; accurately marketed as one of the most luxurious hotels on The Strip, its often shoddy customer service – from the snaking queues to schoolboy errors – we were missing robes for example and asked for some to be brought. The first time we got six new sets of towels and the next we got a new pair of pillows – and each time Priority Room Service would leave a message cheerfully checking we had received the robes! Eventually, a kindly maid sorted it out.

Add to that the day the room was not made up, the surliness of too many staff and it is little wonder that we are confident we will not return to The Venetian.

However, all that said, we would still return to Las Vegas, because for all the diminished fawning over everyone from the lowliest gambler to the record breaching whales, this is still a very entertaining city.

But of course, they clearly know that.

Incidentally, a special mention in dispatches must go to the cheerful air stewardess who sat in the jump seat opposite and kept us entertained throughout the flight: Sophia Moret was a credit to Virgin Atlantic and more chipper than some cabin crew I've encountered. We are particularly indebted to her advice on how to deal with seat stealing bandits who were paying attention to the free $110 seat next to us!

Realty Bites

Our last day with Brad was a monster! Never more evident was it that this three day course must surely be the one that normally lasts for five that he mention in his book ‘Billionaire in Training’.

Not to say it wasn’t good stuff; it was just that there was so much of it and it was a pretty steep curve for someone resting on the lowly, but essential, first rung of the property ladder.
I’m not about to give away the family jewels, or rather the strategies that will have our daughter’s great grandchildren talking about us in reverent tones in he really not so distant future, but make no mistake, just as he did yesterday with businesses, Brad did today with real estate.

Near incredulous figures were amply evidenced and further evidenced by his anecdotes of how he had already done all this. And that is something fundamental about what Brad delivers: this isn’t just theory from someone who went to Business School; he had done it and is still doing it.

Something interesting that emerged during the meal breaks was the relative disparity on the amount that different people had paid. For example the UK price was £4,000 for a pair of tickets with a set of five DVDs included, which were filmed when Brad delivered this course last year in New Zealand.

Australians had pad a similar figure of A$7,500 without receiving any DVDs – what they did reveal was how Brad’s pitch to his various home crowds had whipped the curious up before announcing there were only 20 places – creating a frenzied 10 minutes of signing up. One Aussie thought, although couldn’t be sure, that more than 20 had successfully signed up.

The stunner though was the poor Americans who had apparently paid a whopping US$10,000 each for their tickets to this event. Without any Freebies either!

This isn’t a criticism (although I wonder if my American counterparts would see it this way) and it surely attests to Brad’s undoubted business acumen that he set prices the different markets would sustain.

Action Coach had shouted a free bar to mark the end of the three day course and let’s face it, however close we all might be to our first millions; nobody turns down a free drink! Or three.

We had kinda planned to head out on the town for our last night; however our rather full brains - or perhaps blossoming billionaire wannabe prudence - prompted pizza on Priority Room Service (there is no ordinary room service!) followed by an early night!

Start Spreading the News... It's Graham's Birthday Today

After a day yomping up and down the strip and marvelling at the host of clever marketing ploys that are designed to part a fool and his money in the briefest of time frames, we headed to New York, New York for a celebration...

Graham Chapple, of Garden4You, notched up a birthday here in Las Vegas and with his focus set on a juicy steak we headed for New York, New York where we correctly surmised you could probably find a convincing facsimile of a New York steakhouse - this is the casino with a third size Statue of Liberty outside - alongside the Brooklyn Bridge and Coney Island roller coaster!

However, blissfully there was a wait for a table at Gallagher's Steakhouse (a good sign on a Tuesday in a city as accommodating as Las Vegas!) so we looked for alternative entertainment... and stumbled into perhaps my favourite place in this crazy place: The Bar at Times Square - or more specifically that should be The Piano Bar at Times Square!

For this is the home of the globally renown duelling pianos. I first saw them in 1998 and it was fabulous to see that the pianos were still duelling, the crowd still whooping and a host of crowd pleasing tunes were belted out.

You can nominate tunes with a crisp dollar or five and they will encourage more people to chip in before the chosen tune is played - however if you step up with a $20 they will do pretty much anything - such as help Graham celebrate his birthday.

More specifically they invited him up to sit on the piano while they improvised a smutty ditty to the tune of Itsy Witsy Teeny Weeny Little Polka Dot Bikini! Graham was a good sport, the crowd loved it and a complete stranger bought him a beer. Gotta love this city!

Once at Gallagher's were were positively drooling over the menu and were quite dehydrated by time the food eventually came; and then we were left stunned! I had a sirloin steak that would have fed our family for Sunday lunch! However Graham had a monster hunk of meet that was possibly a fairly mature calf going on size alone. The flavours were fabulous by I was defeated by mine, although the birthday boy did his real justice!

Here we are at the optimistic part of the meal:

Bright Light City...

Morgan PR is working the other side of the Atlantic this week; a seminar with Action Coach founder Brad Sugars has tempted us to the neon-lit delights of Las Vegas.

Actually this blog post has begun life somewhere over the mid west United States on a laptop, but could only be posted from the luxury of The Venetian Casino and Hotel, as apparently if my laptop so much as sniffs for a wireless connection at 32,000 feet... well, that height might diminish somewhat sharply!

We had been sat neatly in a row, but discretion being the better part of valour we moved forward mid flight into a pair of empty seats where we are allowed to use the recline function. A rather thick-necked Daily Mail reader behind my original seat made it quite clear he did not want his interaction with news of illegal immigration, single mums and gypsies complicated by my seat reclining. I believe that Lady Luck is related to Karma, so I am sure he will have a fruitful trip to Vegas!

We are flying with Virgin Atlantic and the staff are consistently charming and friendly and the seats – when permitted to recline – are comfortable with good legroom. Actually, it is nicer on board, even for what was 10 hours, than it was for nearly three at Terminal 3 Gatwick.

Seriously, what is it about British airports that makes them so damn depressing? They are cramped and dirty, with a limited range of overpriced goods being sold by charmless staff who are already looking through you to the next captive customer. Compare what we offer air travellers with the likes of Kuala Lumpur’s airport in Malaysia and well, it is embarrassing.

Anyway, that gruesome experience is behind us – and thankfully when you fly home there is not normally any need to hang around in the airport.

Naturally, it is the business insight of a billionaire that will be the highlight of this week in Las Vegas, however, if we break it down into further categories then the gourmet delights of this entertainment capital will surely win our hearts, minds and stomachs!

The British chef Gordon Ramsey has whetted our appetites with the US version of Hell’s Kitchen, which while based in Los Angeles, features Vegas quite heavily as two previous winners have ended up at restaurants there.

Courtesy of Google, I found an interview with Ramsey in the Las Vegas Sun, which has set me salivating sooner.

“Las Vegas is the Monte Carlo of America. I have never been in a city like it that houses so many top international chefs,” Ramsay said. “It’s not a playground with a few casinos. It’s a culinary capital of talent from around the world.”

Ramsay said he would one day like to join that talent.

“It would be an extraordinary opportunity. I would love to get to Vegas.”

Well he might love to get to Vegas, but we are already here!