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TAM2: It's over.

Girl 6 said:
Cool!! I think I can dig up a dress for that! And, I will start practicing the low Marilyn Monroe breathy voice thing...
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Lemme know what you want to sing and I'll practice up on it.
 
WonderfulWorld said:
Yeah, it was a pretty lousy hotel. The rooms looked good, until you looked closer. I'm not sure how you could "scout out" a problem like that, though, without an experience like this year to inform you. Eventually, you learn enough to create a checklist, or you hire a professional to find and arrange accomodations. That's the way it goes, I suppose.
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Or you just look at a site like this:

http://las-vegas-hotels.tripadvisor...uscany_Hotel_And_Casino-Las_Vegas_Nevada.html

Note that some of the comments here are exactly what people here experienced.
 
Quinn said:

And about the dreadful one-man cover band: the really tragic thing is, there was actually some talent buried under all that cheese. The guy did a better Ray Charles than anyone I've ever heard (and I'm a huge Ray fan), and when I heard him play something other than a synth guitar solo (*shudder*), he played very well. It's unfortunate that it's easier for him to make a living leading drunken tourists through a karaoke version "Brick House" over and over again.
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Dammit, Quinn, now I have "Brick House" in my head. AAaaagghh.

Cheesy he was, but I would have appreciated him more if he didn't repeat his sets all the time... ("it's laaadies night, oh what a night!").

How did I miss your playing, Quinn? Dammit again! I say we need to get a band together next time. I'll play rhythm guitar and rock flute.

---,---'--{@
 
I got dibs on air bass...

...Toronto, in the winter?...why not? h3ll, that's close enough to drive...just slap some snow tires on the Chebby...

...I have got to make it to next year's meeting...
 
Finella said:
How did I miss your playing, Quinn? Dammit again! I say we need to get a band together next time. I'll play rhythm guitar and rock flute.
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I play bass, but I don't trust airport security, so I'll probably only bring it if it's somewhere close enough to drive.
 
I will agree on several of the complaints. You could hear people walking around outside the room and above you, more so than I've heard at other hotels.
And the conference facilities, while nice, were difficult for us. I don't know if anyone in town does theatre type seating, though.
The projector sucked.

Bathroom fans - hey, loudness is a common thing for those in Vegas. You should hear mine (I'm at a type of extended stay apartment).
Dim lights, yes, another common thing, I don't know why.
Rudeness. Well, I don't think that can really be excused...but here I go. Vegas gets so many people in and out, with so many conventions. I've seen a lot of great customer service, but yes, it's better in other towns. I think Vegas is a little stuck up that way, in that while we value the customer, we don't value the customer as much as a hotel in say, Fresno would.

I do want to put in a good word and say that the Tuscany was all right. I've been in nearly every hotel on the strip and I've seen some bad hotels. Tuscany had a great lobby area and restaraunts, a good casino, clean and new and all that other stuff. For it's price, it was pretty great.
 
Originally posted by Patricio Elicer
1) No computer internet service. Personally I find this an unforgivable neglect on a world that is increasingly internet dependant. I bought the internet-through-the-TV service, but I simply couldn't make it work to access my email account (no way to place the cursor in the username and password fields). $10 thrown to the trash.

2) Toilet's fan way too noisy

3) No facility to place the shampoo bottle in the shower compartment.

4) Bathroom's hooks incapable of holding the towels

5) No appropriate bathroom's hooks to hang clothes

6) Shower door didn't close properly, water spilled out
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Same comments, since I was in the same room. A few more though:

The handle to regulate the water temperature had to be spun through the cold part until getting to the hot part, and gravity kept making it go colder again.

At one point one of the main entrance doors to my building (the E building) was stuck. I ended up having to walk to the other side just to get in.

Also the coffee in the room didn't taste very good :rolleyes:

About the conference space, there was only one elevator at one end of the hotel, and an escalator at the other end, so to get up there you had to walk through the entire hotel. At some point I had found a flight of stairs, but someone came chasing after me saying they were off limits to the guests.
:confused:

On the plus side, we were on the top floor, so we didn't have the noise problem from upstairs neighbours (we probably created it though :().


And just as a reference, Vegas is supposed to be rather cheap, but when I stayed at the Motel6 in South Bend for only $30 a night, in a room exactly half the size of this one, it was in excellent condition, my shower worked, had enough space to put soap and shampoo bottles, and had a much easier temperature regulation knob. I also had a king size bed, a lot more channels on TV (including a few paid channels like HBO, for free). Local calls were also free.

Still, I'm not complaining, the hotel was pretty nice, despite all the little shortcomings. How much would we end up paying if we had been in a hotel on the strip for instance?
 
I've stayed at a few Vegas hotels, and Tuscany ranks among the highest. Why?

1) Cheap. I paid only $47 a night through travelaxe.
2) Location. On the strip is nice if you're walking, but it's a nightmare if you're driving. It's so nice to be able to park near your room.
3) You can get to your room WITHOUT going through the casino. This is very very rare in Vegas.
4) Plenty of space.
5) The room had a refrigerator, and many had stoves.
6) Despite the noise from other rooms and the very loud fans, the rooms were pretty quiet compared to hotels on the strip. No casino or late-night band noise.
7) Easy check-in and check-out. I've waited over 30 minutes to do both at Luxor and Imperial Palace.
8) Very little smoke. The casino, while small, was very clean and relatively smoke free as was my room.


This hotel excels at NOTHING, but as a complete package it's a great place to stay. In fact, I'm staying there next week AGAIN because even during Super Bowl week, when things are really expensive, I'm still paying only $47 a night. AND all the comments from others are completely accurate, but I get the sense that many of you don't travel all that often, or only stay at 5 star properties. Also, Vegas is different from most places. TV channels at Vegas hotels are always skimpy, supposedly because they don't want you to stay in your room for long.

The young female bartender at the reception was exceptionally rude.
 
It all sounds like such a wonderful time.

My plans at this stage are to work here in the UK for the rest of this year, and then return home through the US to attend next year's TAM. What a way to end a year's travelling!

Athon
 
Jeff Wagg said:
I've stayed at a few Vegas hotels, and Tuscany ranks among the highest. Why?

1) Cheap. I paid only $47 a night through travelaxe.
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Whoa!!! How did you end up paying $47/night???? I paid more for my room! :eek:

G6
 
Damn, I'm glad I went to the meeting. I haven't had that much fun standing up since... well... ever.

Unfortunately I missed Thursday. My flight did not arrive in Vegas until 10:00 PM. It was cool to finally meet so many of the people I have become friends with here.

I especially have to thank Paul Anagnostopoulos, without whose help I would not have been able to attend.

It was also cool to meet people like James Randi, Penn, Julia Sweeney, and Dean Cameron. And of course, all of the presentations were amazing. Not to mention the Penn and Teller show...

By far the coolest thing was just hanging out with people. Sunday evening I had the pleasure of touring the strip with Doubt, The Central Scrutinizer, Renata, and Luciana. All very cool people, and I think Luciana is even more beautiful in person than in the pictures I have seen. What really knocked my socks off was Renata, though. The people who have been commenting on how gorgeous she is were not kidding, and I think her smile is going to be burnt into my memory for the rest of my life (if I'm lucky). I was kind of depressed that I had to bug out early Sunday night, but in retrospect, it was probably for the best. Any longer and I am afraid I would have given in to the overwhelming compulsion to drop to me knees and pledge my undying devotion to her.

Anyway, it was a great meeting. Thanks to everyone who was there for making it so great. Special thanks to the organizers for the immense effort I am sure they put into it, and extra-special thanks to Paul for allowing me to be there.


Dr. Stupid
 
My pleasure, Stimpy.

And folks, his signature is correct: He is stupid. His persona on the forum is a complete fake. How does he do it?

~~ Paul
 
I didn't stay at the Tuscany (my brother had never been to Vegas before, and I thought he would enjoy staying on the Strip), so can't comment about the rooms--they looked clean and spacious, if ill laid out and noisy.

Regarding the conference and catering services, I can speak from my years of conference planning: The A/V service on Thursday was unconscionably bad. There is no excuse for that lack of responsiveness from a hotel's conference services staff.

I think that Omar and his colleague were responsive enough to Linda and Karl to make things happen better on subsequent days, but the fact that the A/V folks were so unprepared for Thursday doesn't give me a high level of confidence in the Tuscany conference staff as a whole.

The food was fine, but the catering staff were inattentive and sloppy. There were only two conferences in the hotel, and the catering staff should have been able to handle breaks, etc., more flexibly and efficiently.

The general room set-up, etc., was lax. To me, the fact that the tablecloths weren't clipped to the tables in the conference room and kept sliding off demonstrated a lack of professionalism and care by the conference services department. I know that sounds bizarrely nitpicky, but screwing up something that basic just doesn't augur well!

As to the bartender at the reception being rude: if folks are talking about the dark-haired young woman at the back left of the room, my brother and I were hanging out by her station, and I was appalled by how offensively some conference attendees were treating her. Admittedly, one needs to get used to that sort of thing as a bartender, but I would definitely have lost my temper in her shoes. Of course, she didn't have any excuse for taking it out on other attendees!
 
Originally posted by Sidhedevil
As to the bartender at the reception being rude: if folks are talking about the dark-haired young woman at the back left of the room, my brother and I were hanging out by her station, and I was appalled by how offensively some conference attendees were treating her. Admittedly, one needs to get used to that sort of thing as a bartender, but I would definitely have lost my temper in her shoes. Of course, she didn't have any excuse for taking it out on other attendees!
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I didn't notice that. I did go over to get an MGD, to which she replied she didn't have any. so I said I had seen people walk around with them, so she went through the trouble of going over to the other bar and get one for me, which I thought was really thoughtful. Although this might have given other people who joined the line while she was away the impression that she was slacking or something. You can't please everyone :rolleyes:
 
The (dyed) blonde waitress with the nice boobs and the belly ring, while inattentive enough that I hit the bar myself was cute enough for me to overlook that fact.
 
UnrepentantSinner said:
The (dyed) blonde waitress with the nice boobs and the belly ring, while inattentive enough that I hit the bar myself was cute enough for me to overlook that fact.
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You are correct, sir. I didn't get one drink from her, but she was delightful.
 
Stimpson J. Cat said:
What really knocked my socks off was Renata, though. The people who have been commenting on how gorgeous she is were not kidding, and I think her smile is going to be burnt into my memory for the rest of my life (if I'm lucky).
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Same impression to me Stimpy. I'm still thrilled by her intelligence, beauty and kindness.

BTW, it was nice to meet you IRL, though it was just a handshake.
 
edited to fix formatting typo
As to the bartender at the reception being rude: if folks are talking about the dark-haired young woman at the back left of the room, my brother and I were hanging out by her station, and I was appalled by how offensively some conference attendees were treating her. Admittedly, one needs to get used to that sort of thing as a bartender, but I would definitely have lost my temper in her shoes. Of course, she didn't have any excuse for taking it out on other attendees! [/B]
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Enlighten me...how were attendees being rude? (I have no doubt that they were...I saw other instances of cheap-skatedry and general self-centeredness.) I must have gotten to her after that, because all she said to me was "This is a weird conference." When I pressed her on why she thought it was weird, she wouldn't answer me and hurredly handed me a watered down drink.

I'm just trying to understand what happened.
 
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