On Friday 29 Feb 2008, we have breakfast in the Monterey room at the Gold Coast Hotel, which is great value for money, then check out and load up the car for our trip from Las Vegas to the Grand Canyon.

It takes a while to set up the GPS system because the gadget has difficulty recognising “Grand Canyon” and eventually we type in the name of the Holiday Inn hotel where we will be staying in Tusayan for a couple of days.

Getting out of the city wasn’t as much of a hassle as we thought it would be, thanks to having the GPS system for our rental car. We found it to be invaluable although at times it would have been a bit more helpful if the voice instructions were given a little sooner so that we could move to a particular lane ready for turning a bit earlier.

We headed south through Boulder City and on through to Hoover Dam. The scenery was pretty spectacular to start with but after driving for hundreds of miles we were a bit over the scenery. We wanted to get to the Grand Canyon before dark so we only stopped for a short time at Hoover Dam to take a couple of photos.

The road is pretty good and the speed limit varies between 65-75 miles per hour.

As we got closer to the Grand Canyon the scenery changed and we were surprised to see that there was ice all over the ground. For some reason we thought the Grand Canyon area would be hot during the day and cold at night. However, we never expected to see snow.

Paula takes over the driving just outside of the Lake Mead National Park turnoff; this is her first stint at driving in the US although she has driven on the wrong side of the road in Italy. There are lots of rest stops on the way and we finally pull over at Ash Fork to fill up the gas tank.

Of course the pump doesn’t take our Australian credit cards so Paula heads into the store to prepay for the gas. The store owner holds the credit card until the gas has been put into the car. We know from our last driving experience in the States the there is no automatic gas tank lever in the car and the gas tank has to be opened manually, so I am not sitting in the car trying to find the gas tank lever this time.

Once the gas tank is full we go in to pay for the gas and pick up some drinks and nibbles for the rest of the trip. Paula had been talking to a gentleman who resembles ‘Grizzly Adams’ about where we were from and where we were off to. His advice was to go and see the Grand Canyon movie at the IMAX theatre in Tusayan. He reckoned we will look at canyon and say “Yep that’s an impressive hole in the ground and yep that’s an impressive pile of rocks”. However, we are sure that we are going to enjoy our experience here.

We continue on and we finally arrive at our hotel after a trip that has taken approximately 5 hours from Las Vegas. After checking in and dropping off our bags we head off to check out the surrounding area.

Tusayan is a quaint little village of rather impressive looking hotels and stores that are reminiscent of a bygone western era. There is a McDonalds, Wendy’s, a few other restaurants, a mini market and a general store with a Post Office which unfortunately is closed. I have some stuff to post home to Australia and have been waiting to find a post office, looks like I will still be waiting for a while.

The air is quite cool and although we have jackets on, we don’t hang around outside for too long plus it is starting to get dark.

After picking up the car from the Alamo car rental company near the airport we drove back to the Gold Coast Hotel and Casino which we had just checked into that morning.  We drove into the Self Parking area of the hotel which is free. Anyone bringing their car will find it easy to park. The car park is large, with plenty of space to maneuver. There is also valet parking which the attendent told us was free although a tip would be expected.

The hotel is situated at:

4000 W Flamingo Rd
Las Vegas NV 89103

Although the hotel is not on the strip it is not too far from it and there are always the shuttle buses which run every 20 minutes.

Check-in was quick and the gentleman behind the counter was friendly. We were given the keys to room 857 which was on the eigth floor.

Our first impression of the hotel lobby and casino was positive. We did notice that a good majority of the clientele were mature aged or couples with children.  This hotel is definitely not as up market as the Rio Hotel which we stayed in earlier in the week.

The decor is Spanish/Mexican. I personally found the carpet which runs through most of the casino to be a little gaudy, however Wanda found it fitted well with the theme. The carpet in the hotel area was much more appealing in my opinion.

Our hotel room was a long way down the hall. It seemed to take us forever to get to our room especially after a long day of walking. Las Vegas hotels are just huge!

On the way to the room we pass an ice machine and a drink machine with Pepsi, Mountain Dew and other soda drinks.

Our room has quite a nice decor. It’s slightly outdated with it’s wood veneer finish but overall in excellent condition. The room is not huge but has plenty of space and is a comfortable size.

The room has a view of the the Palms Hotel and at night there is quite a spectacular view of the lights of the city. You can also see the surrounding mountain range from the window.

The lighting in the room is quite dark, however we found the same problem at the Rio Hotel across the road. There are no ceiling lights but instead a series of lamps located around the room. This makes the room a little dark for working in.

The room has two double beds with wood veneer headboards. The beds are quite high off the ground so if you are short, like Wanda, you may find yourself having a little difficulty climbing into bed. The beds are comfortable with a nice padded mattress topper. What we found annoying was the fact that there were only two pillows per bed, which is not a major issue, however the pillows were about three quarters the size of normal pillows. We heard someone else mention this in the lift.

There is plenty of storage space including a six drawer cabinet, a luggage rest which will hold one large suitcase or two small and an open wardrobe in the dressing room area.

In the corner of the room is a table with two chairs which holds the one cup coffee making machine.

Facing the beds is a flat wide screen tv. We don’t the size of the tv exaclty. Wanda thinks its a 32in but I think it might be a 26in. The picture is excellent and there are something like 32 channels to choose from. In-house movies are also available for $10.99 each.

The room has an air conditioning unit that is a little noisy. We found that we really didn’t need to have it on much at all anyway, as the room had a comfortable temperature.

As with most US hotels, there are no facilities for making tea so we have to use the coffee maker to boil water. Tea bags are not usually available unless you specifically ask for them. It took a long time for us to clean the coffee grains from the machine so that the water was drinkable for tea.

The room has a dressing room area which is quite small. It contains a sink which is separate from the bathroom and an open wardrobe to hang clothes. It also includes a hair dryer and a iron and ironing board.

The bathroom is quite small and includes the toilet. The bathtub itself is a moulded plastic unit with a shower. The water pressure in the shower is quite strong and it was easy to control the water temperature. The bathroom doesn’t have a fan but instead has a small window that opens out.

The toiletries in the bathroom included Ecoessential products including a massage bar of soap, nourishing shampoo, conditioner, body lotion and a shower cap.

What I didn’t like was the fact that the sink is separated from the bathroom. The bathtub and toilet are in one room which has a lockable door. The sink on the other hand is in the dressing room area and does not have door.

The bathroom lighting was very dark and once the shower curtain was pulled across it got even darker.

There is no safe in the room. We carry a laptop and like to store it during the day while we are out so we missed having this feature. There is also no mini-bar or fridge if you have any food or drinks that you want to keep cool.

The room has both wired and wireless interent connections. We went for the wired connection which was $11.99 for a 24hr period. Connecting was a little confusing. We plugged in the laptop to the cable and it came up with a page that said ‘You will be charged $11.99′ and after we confirmed payment it went to another page that said ‘you have been granted access to the internet’. However when we tried to open up google.com, a page was returned linking to the Cheetah network which asked us to register again for $10.99. This process was confusing as we thought we had already paid and connected so had we continued to complete the Cheetah registration we would have paid twice for this service. A quick call to the service desk resolved the issue. Apparently we were automatically connecting to the wireless service so we had to disconnect the wireless connection and then everything worked fine.

The sign on the table states that the wired internet connection has five times faster speed. We found the speed to be excellent with no time-outs.

We ate a number of times in the casino restaurants. The buffet is fantastic value at $7.95 for lunch and $11.95 for dinner. These rates are for if you stay at the hotel or are a member. We signed up for the membership rewards card which was free and it took less than 5 minutes to register.

We also ate at the Monteray Restaurant for breakfast which cost us only $5.95 for two eggs, bacon, 2 sausages and two flapjacks which were huge. They came with syrup and creamery butter. It was way too much for us to eat.

The hotel also has a bowling alley and a pool although we didn’t get the chance to see either of these.

Our overall view of this hotel is that it is great value for money. We paid $59 per night online via Expedia.com. The food at the hotel is the cheapest we found during our stay in Las Vegas and there is excellent variety and quality for the money. This hotel is rated 3 stars and we would agree with this rating.

We would definitely stay here again.

Our Rating of the the Gold Coast Hotel and Casino:

Checking in and out 5/5
Room 3/5
Position 3.5/5
Price 4/5
Cleanliness 5/5

Booking this hotel is easy through: Expedia.com!

Yesterday we discussed what we were going to do as at this stage we still had nothing booked for the next two days. We eventually decided to remain in Las Vegas and found a great deal online through Expedia.com at the Gold Coast Hotel which is right across the road from the Rio Hotel. This meant that we only needed to walk across the road with our luggage to change hotels.

The hotel cost us $59US a night which is a bargain as although the hotel is not to the same standard as the Rio Hotel it is real value for money.

Once we checked in to the Gold Coast Hotel and dropped off our bags we immediately set off in a taxi to pick up the car. In Las Vegas you don’t pick up a rental at the airport but instead you get on a free bus from the terminal that takes you to a centralized area in Arby Ave which is nearby.

When we got to the Alamo rental counter the customer service officer asked us continually if we would like an upgrade to a  bigger vehicle. Her reasons were better security and more power for our trip to the Grand Canyon. At first we thought this might be a good idea but the $120 extra fee for this upgrade plus the extra couple hundred dollars for insurance, roadside assistance, 2nd driver free, taxes and the GPS brought the cost for eight days to $790. We then declined the upgrade so she then offered it to us for only $80. We suddenly caught on that Alamo probably didn’t have a small car available anyway which is why she kept insisting on an upgrade. So we still declined the upgrade offer as we were used to a small car anyway and knew it would do the job we wanted. She finally realised that we wouldn’t upgrade and as we walked upstairs we said to each other – “I bet we get the bigger car” and sure enough we did!

Once we got in the car we sat there for about 10 minutes trying to set up the GPS. This was an extra cost but as we found out later well worth it!!!

Wanda was brave enough to take the first drive out. We drove to the security check out and the lady in the booth took our paperwork and looked at us funny and asked us where Robert was. Since we didn’t have anyone that even looked like a Robert in the car she realised that there was an error in our paperwork. This meant us going back to Customer Service to get it all sorted out which took about an hour.

Getting back to our hotel was an experience since we took the wrong off ramp but thank god for the GPS as it directed us back onto the correct road and we got back to our hotel in one piece.

By this time we were starving as we didn’t have any breakfast and it was now 12.30pm. We headed to the hotel buffet which cost only $8 each and was excellent value for money. Beautiful food and plenty of it. We wish we had discovered it earlier.

After lunch we spent the rest of the day in our hotel room working on our laptop catching on some work.

One of the major reasons for our trip to the US was to attend the Affiliate Summit convention in Las Vegas. For those who would like to know what the Affiliate Summit is all about can click here for more info.

The Summit is held twice a year and we attended the last one in Miami in July 2007 which was our first time at one of these conventions. At that time, we were nervous and weren’t entirely sure how to even approach the various exhibitors so we didn’t get quite as much out of it as we should have. This Summit was a different story altogether. We were way more confident and didn’t have any problem talking and networking with the merchants and networks.

Attending an Affiliate Summit is a great motivational experience for anyone involved in internet marketing. We got to talk to a variety of people in the business including merchants such as ACLens, Expedia.com, Popshops.com and 1and1 Hosting and major affiliate networks such as Commission Junction and ShareaSale.

This was an extra special occasion for us as we got to meet James and Arlene Martell. James is a well respected Super Affiliate and teacher of Affiliate Marketing. We attend his Super Bootcamp and amongst other things have learnt from him how to rank naturally in the search engines.

We also met a number of fellow students and it was great to see them in person for the first time. As James Martell’s training is conducted online, this means that his students can come from anywhere in the world so it was interesting to hear where each of them hailed from.

We met for lunch at he convention centre and discussed how we each came into Affilite Marketing as well as problems we have faced and at what stage we are at in the business.

After lunch, James introduced us all to various exhibitors as being well known in the industry he has many contacts. Amongst the people we met were Linda Woods from PartnerCentric, Joshua Sloan from 1&1 Hosting and Greg Shepard from AffiliateTraction.

Wanda managed to find a stash of goodies amongst the exhibitors including pens, notepads, hats, t-shirts and even a remote controlled Mercedes Benz model car.

The official hotel for the conference was the Rio Hotel in Las Vegas. This was a great hotel and obviously really convenient as the convention centre for the Summit was right in the hotel itself.

There were a number of parties hosted by various networks and merchants during the course of the convention. The biggest being the ShareaSale party at The Palms Hotel. We were unable to attend as the tickets had run out but we were still feeling jet lagged anyway and were ready to hit the sack by this point.

All-in-all, it was well worth attending and we will definitely be coming back again.