I have something very exciting to announce to my readers….five days from today I will be in fabulous LAS VEGAS, NEVADA!!! I have never been to Vegas before and am dyyying from excitement because it seems like a place tailor made for me. It’s high energy, sparkly, and warm. What’s not to love?
I’ve been planning this trip as a surprise for Ollie’s 24th birthday since December-and it has been KILLING me to keep it a secret from him. My poor co-workers and friends are already so sick of hearing about the trip and I haven’t even gone yet. But it’s OK, I have officially told Ollie (details about that later) about the trip so it is out in the open! YAY!
I have had SO MUCH fun planning this trip-I feel like it has been a success already. I am seriously thinking of a career switch and becoming a travel agent, that’s how much fun I have been having. Not only have I planned every last moment of our three days in Vegas but I was able to get AMAZING deals to make this trip practically free! Seriously people, I like coupons, but I have taken it to a whole new deal-finding level with this trip. This isn’t an advertisement or anything; I’m just so pumped by all the great deals I found that I have to share them with you!
This trip wouldn’t be possible without:
- Groupon. (www.groupon.com). Seriously, Groupon is the whole reason we are taking this trip. For those of you who don’t know Groupon is a website that offers daily deals in your area (discounts on clothes, spas, food, etc.) as well as destination deals. I check their website daily for all the new discounts and they also send a daily email with a featured deal. Well, one day in December I got an email from Groupon with a deal for a 2 night stay in a king suite in the Hard Rock Hotel Las Vegas for only $200!!!!!!! I looked it up and these suites usually go for $250+ a night- HOW COULD I RESIST THAT DEAL!? Not to mention the fact that you get a bottle of alcohol upon check in and a $40 dining credit to one of the hotel restaurants. That email is what really jump started this whole vacation idea so a BIG thank you to Groupon! Seriously people, subscribe to their emails. Totally worth it.
Not only did Groupon get us a great deal on the hotel room, but they’re providing us with roundtrip car service to and from Logan airport. I had originally planned on us taking the 3 am bus from Pease to Boston, and the 8 am bus home upon our arrival (which my parents graciously agreed to pay for as a birthday present to Ollie-THANK YOU!) when Groupon swooped in and saved me! I was not looking forward to riding a bus a 3 am! Groupon had a deal for round trip car service from your home to the airport FOR LESS THAN THE BUS TICKETS WOULD HAVE COSTED! Hmmm…have a sedan pick me up at my apartment at 3:15 am, or have to ride a bus at 3am? Ya. Pretty easy choice.
- Bing Travel. (www.bingtravel.com) I 100% recommend this website for anyone planning a vacation that involves a plane ride (shout out to Nick for introducing me to this!) It is like Travelocity, Orbitz, and Expedia combined + more. Not only does this site list the prices for all the flights from all the airlines, but it also includes a “price predictor” which tells you if you should buy your tickets now because prices will rise, or if you should wait because they will drop. The price predictor is THE BEST THING EVER. When I looked at tickets to Vegas in Early December the price predictor told me not to buy because prices were dropping. This was REALLY hard for me because I like to have things finished and planned months in advance. But I waited. And a short week later plane tickets had dropped by $100. Price predictor said buy-so I bought! Although I must note I am flying in on Delta and out on Virgin America, so I’m probably on some sort of Delta watch list for buying a one way ticket to Vegas…eh. Oh well.
- Restaurant.com (www.reastaurant.com). This is great for vacations and when you want to go out to eat at some local spots. Simply go to restaurant.com type in the zip code of where you would like to search for restaurants and voila! You are presented with a myriad of restaurants for which you can buy discounted gift certificates. I am on their mailing list so I get fun emails from them with discounts codes so I was able to buy a $25 gift certificate to every restaurant in the Hard Rock Hotel, as well as a bunch of others FOR ONE DOLLAR EACH! Who cares if I don’t use them all? THEY WERE ONE DOLLAR EACH. No joke. Greatest thing ever.
- Ebay (www.ebay.com). Ebay, yes Ebay. Want to know something wonderful about Ebay? YOU CAN BUY COUPONS ON EBAY! Hello? Greatest thing ever? Ya, I think so. I know, I know, coupons are free…but to get the coupons I bought off ebay I would have had to traipse all over Vegas collecting them, and there’s no guarantee I would have found them all. So to save myself the trouble I paid the bargain price of $1.50 and purchased the following coupons off ebay
- Free shots at the Mandalay Bay Ice Bar (a bar made completely out of ice!)
- Discounted admission to the Luxor Titanic exhibit
- Buy one get one free Eiffel tower ride at Paris
- 20% off of any Hard Rock store purchase
- A bunch of other ones I don’t feel like listing
How perfect is it that I was already planning to go to the ice bar, titanic exhibit, and Eiffel tower,
and was then able to find coupons for all these things!?
- Etsy. (www.etsy.com). Etsy (special shout out to midwestdesign) was instrumental in this trip planning process because it gave me the inspiration for the big reveal! I was able to purchase off of Etsy (an awesome site where people around the country sell their handmade/vintage crafts/jewelry/clothes/art) an AWESOME print of the Las Vegas skyline, which I presented to Ollie at his big birthday dinner last night! It was PERFECT! His mom made us (we were out to dinner celebrating his brother and sister in-law’s birthdays as well) go around the table and say something great that happened to us this year. When it got to me (I was last) I said “I think something pretty great is about to happen!” I handed Ollie his card (which fit the situation perfectly!) and the wrapped Vegas skyline print. The smile on his face when he opened the card and print was priceless-I wish I had a camera with me! (Although Ollie hates having his photo taken, so I’m not sure that would have gone over well!)
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Above are the card and print I gave to Ollie…my phone takes terrible photos, so sorry about that. If its really bugging you please feel free to buy me an iphone.
So, now he knows and we can get excited about the trip together. I barely slept last night I was so excited and the trip is still 5 days away! Yikes-I’m going to go crazy before then!!!! Can’t wait to tell you all about everything (well almost everything-some things do stay in Vegas) that happens!
Thanks for reading! Xo Whitney
