When Did Vegas Get So Expensive?

ByLisa Traugott

Two weeks ago I was incredibly excited to attend the Historical Novel Society conference at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas. Holy @#$! when did Las Vegas get so expensive?

The conference was amazing, and I’ll write about that in a separate post, but first I need to vent. It’s been a minute since I went to Vegas. When we lived in California, my husband and I used to go there all the time for a quick getaway and I took my Jersey mom there a few times on vacation. We had a blast! There were tons of things to do at affordable prices.

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In Vegas for the Historical Novel Society conference

My game was roulette ($5 per bet) and I usually went with a pre-determined amount I was willing to gamble (typically $100). I figured I’d spend about the same amount to go to dinner and the movies and as long as I stayed in the game for two hours, it was money well spent on entertainment. Plus, they give you free alcohol while gambling, so that adds value, right?

Guess how much the minimum bet was this time? $25. For one bet! And at night they raised the table rates to $50 per bet, which made me painfully aware that I was gambling away my hard-earned money. It’s not nearly as much fun when you can only make one or two bets and the whole thing’s over in a few minutes. It goes so fast you might not even get a drink.

And speaking of drinks, we went to the room (which was quite lovely) and on the dresser top was a wide variety of snacks and drinks for sale. I expected that. What I didn’t expect, was that the mini fridge was also completely full with drinks you had to pay for, with no space for you to put your leftovers. If you wanted an actual fridge for your food, you had to pay $20/day to rent one.

But no big deal, Vegas is famous for it’s fantastic buffets, right? I remember paying $29.99 for an all-you-can-eat buffet with steak, and lobster, and all things delicious. You can still get a tasty meal but the buffet at Caesar’s Place was like $85 per person plus a built-in gratuity. Yikes!

After that first meal encounter, we decided to go the more economical route. For breakfast we went to Starbucks in the hotel and ordered coffees and two bagels. $50. WTF?

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Standing with Henri at the pool

OK, I guess there’s still inflation. Who needs to eat or gamble when there are five beautiful pools to swim in, right? I only took a carryon bag on the plane, meaning I couldn’t bring suntan lotion because it was more than 3 oz. of liquid and I guess terrorists will make a nuclear weapon out of sunscreen so it’s not allowed. We stopped at the hotel convenience store and (thankfully) the cashier told us to go across the street to the local CVS for sunscreen and water. That saved us some serious cash.

We go back to the hotel, put on our bathing suits, slather on the sunscreen and head to the pool.

It’s closed.

Why? Because the pool is only open 9 am – 6 pm. I mean, I guess I could understand those hours if it was November, but it’s the middle of summer and they can’t even stay open until 8 pm? But whether you used the pool or not, everyone is charged a $65/day resort fee. Call me crazy, but if you pay to stay at a hotel with a pool, isn’t it standard to have access to said pool as part of your stay?

The next day, I did manage to get to the pool, which was lovely. But a significant portion of the chairs had to be rented if you wanted to sit on them. They also had cabanas for rent with drink service. Just for giggles, my friend Deirdre asked how much that would cost. $800.

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Henri, Jenny, Deirdre and me

I should also mention that I multi-tasked this trip. While I was at the conference, two of my BFFs flew out for a girl’s weekend, which was awesome. (They stayed at a different hotel. On the plus side, they had an empty mini-fridge for their use. On the weird side, there was an AI robot vacuuming their halls that spoke in robot-voice for them to step aside.)

What planet am I on?

But I did manage to also market and sell my book while I was there. I made t-shirts with the book cover and QR code for “To Rescue a Witch” and did a book signing at the conference where (thanks to my promoter/husband) I sold out!

My friend Jenny wore one of the t-shirts and we did some guerilla marketing just strolling around town and handing out bookmarks to anyone who asked about it.

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My BFF Jenny

Ultimately, the trip was fun thanks to my friends and the conference, but Vegas is too rich for my blood these days.

How about you? Have you gone to Vegas recently? What did you think? Let me know in the comments below.

Lisa 😉

P.S. – You can pre-order the prequel To Condemn a Witch now! The release date is August 11th.

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Get your copy HERE https://mybook.to/ToCondemnAWitch

 

Copyright (c) Lisa Traugott 2025. All rights reserved.