Another fun Vegas trip — possibly my last for a few years. We stayed well within budget and had the usual rounds of sight-seeing, eating, show-watching and gambling.

This trip mostly was notable for a huge four-hour-plus delay at the Delta hub in Cincinnati, when the airline couldn’t get a just-out-of-maintenance 757 to operate properly and had no equipment available (at a hub airport?!?) to replace it, and because we stayed at an unusual place — Bill’s Gambling Hall.

We went with a group of friends, all of whom but us stayed across Flamingo Road at Bally’s. But we picked Bill’s — at first because we got a mail offer for super-cheap rooms, but then, when rates everywhere dropped appreciably, because we wanted to try the place. It’s the old Barbary Coast, a small hotel and casino sandwiched between the Flamingo and Bally’s on the Strip (and the last remaining small Strip hotel, unless you count the motel-like Casino Royale). Between the positive reviews on TripAdvisor, our longtime enjoyment of the rowdy casino under the hotel, and the great views it offers from certain rooms (see left for the view from ours), we decided to give it a shot.

It was fine, although the rooms were very noisy from traffic, and we’d probably stay there again — particularly if we got a deal. Overall, it made a great base of operations, particulary since it took approximately two minutes to get from room to the Strip.