About three months ago, my cousin asked me if I wanted to go to Las Vegas for a weekend in May. Her boyfriend was going to play in a baseball tournament in Vegas and she wanted some company. Well, a few friends and family also agreed to keep her company and all of a sudden, her boyfriend didn't even want to play in the tournament anymore. We had ourselves a mini-vacation planned.

I'm of the opinion that staying at some of the nicer hotels on the strip is fine. But if you wanted to save on the hotels so that you can spend more money doing other things like gambling and going out, more power to you. In fact, it's probably the smarter play. We didn't do that ourselves and chose the Mirage with the idea that it has a great pool, is near Caesar's Forum Shops, and houses a great night club called Jet. All of those reasons were enough for me to put up $300 a night for two nights (shared the room with the terrible Eddy Zucko) and not really worry about the cost. From my past experiences in Las Vegas, you're paying for nicer, larger, and more well kept rooms, as well as more nicer amenities. I've stayed in Paris (Epinions Meet and Greet) and Excalibur (bachelor party with 4 dudes to a room) and you can definitely tell the difference in quality. I thought the Mirage trumped both in room quality and the extra touches the hotel/casino offered.

The room was extremely roomy with a 50 inch LCD TV (though no HD, which begs the question, why do you need an LCD?) and two queen beds. The beds were very comfortable and I was impressed. Though, when you're in Vegas, it's not like you sleep much, but still, for those precious 4 hours a night, having a comfy bed is a nice touch. The room decor was very fashionable and much more fashionable than some of the other rooms I saw. The rooms are being remodeled and the remodeled rooms are a great improvement. One thing that bothered me was the lack of wireless internet. Or maybe it wasn't working when I tried to log in. But I had to go through the old fashioned ethernet cord to get connected. And why do I have to pay $13.99 for hotel internet these days? It was expected, but I'd expect some of the nicer hotels to offer it for free. The mini-bar was sweet, but I wasn't about to touch anything in there because if you moved anything in there, it was wired to charge you, even if you didn't take it out.

I think the original reason we chose the Mirage is because it offered a great pool in addition to large rooms. And when you're hanging out with a bunch of girls, the pools is of major importance. Me? I could go without being at the pool all weekend. But not the girls. There was one flaw in our plan. The weather wasn't great. It even rained a bit. Even as much as we tried to pretend the rain wasn't going to ruin the pool time, it did. It was fun watching people lay out trying to get a tan when there was no sun, and in fact, rain drops were falling out of the sky. At least the hot tub got some action, and when I say action, I don't mean "action". The women were tempted to go into Bare, which was a special private VIP pool, with the hook being that women can go topless if they prefer. It was going to cost extra to get in, and since the weather wasn't great, they decided not to do it. This made Eddy Zucko sad.

We didn't hit the fine dining at the Mirage and didn't spend too much time at the bars in the hotel, but I didn't enjoy their Caribe Cafe at all. It was a cheap diner dressed up as a cafe. It was far too expensive for what they were offering and was an overall disappointment. The rest of the folks I was with also went to Cravings while I was at the UFC event, which is a buffet and they said they enjoyed it. I hung out at the sports book a little bit to place some wagers on the UFC fights and it wasn't that busy so there wasn't much wait time and the staff was very friendly. I also watched the first round of the Ricky Hatton fight at the bar next to the sports book and it was good, though the waitress didn't come my way at all.

Unfortunately, we didn't get to go to a show like The Beatles Love or Danny Gans' comedy act. If I never see Danny Gans' face plastered across a taxi or poster or any type of advertisement ever again, my life wouldn't suffer one bit. Let's just say that I understand very well that someone voted him the number one entertainer in Las Vegas. There's also a comedy show that they have called Headliners. If anything, we should've went to that.

But, when you are with a gambling and dancing crew, your nights don't have much wiggle room. Though the casino isn't as big as say the MGM, it makes up for it with the vibe. The casino vibe was friendly, not pushy. It wasn't all crowded, which I enjoyed. I played a poker machine here and there, but I'm not much of a gambler so that wasn't my focus. Some of the folks I was with did enjoy getting in on some big poker games and Eddy Zucko won $300 playing 3 card poker. It's a clean casino as well, which is a plus for me. One thing that was a bit odd is that the lobby was on the other side of the elevators. When I checked in, I imagined the elevators being near by and then found that I had to walk across the casino to find the elevators to go up to my room. On day two, many of the elevators weren't working and elevator wait times were terrible. There was also construction going on so it wasn't uncommon to hear drilling.

I really enjoyed the Mirage's nightclub Jet a lot. I'd been there before and had a great time, but this time was a little different. Because it was Memorial Day weekend and because we didn't want to wait in line for 3 hours, we decided to splurge a bit and get a table and order bottle service. This was going to be fairly expensive ($180 a head for 13 of us), but it made sure that we had a sectioned off table for our large group, that we didn't have to go back to the bar for drinks, and also that we didn't have to be on the dance floor that was packed with people. I'm usually not a fan of clubs because you rarely have a great DJ and a great atmosphere at the same time. In the Bay Area, there are some good clubs, but many of them become ruined based on who attends. In Vegas, it's different. Everyone is in Vegas to do one thing. And that is to have fun. So when you get a bunch of people who just want to have fun, it makes it a much better experience. Also, the DJ was terrific. He mixed up anything and everything for 5 hours strong and people never stopped dancing. Well, except for me. I didn't dance all that much, but that wasn't the club's fault.

I'm not sure that I would choose The Mirage again if I was going with a big group. It's not because it isn't a great place to stay. It's more that I feel that the things that cause it to be a little more pricey aren't things we actually use. It's not like I have to stay there to go to Jet. But if I were staying in Vegas on a weekend with my significant other, I wouldn't hesitate to stay here again. In that situation, it has everything you'd need.

Recommended: Yes