What was the Actual Cost of a resort in Las Vegas? Couple weeks ago, I shared about our trip pre-travel. I talked about how I had set a budget, our flight and hotel costs and the overall budget of $1348 for the entire trip. Now is for me to share the actual cost of staying at a resort in Las Vegas- complete with my insights and blunders.

Budget at a Glance

  • Hotel in Vegas: $388 + fees and tax
  • Flights + Carryon: $234
  • Food Budget: $300
  • Recreation/Travel Budget: $300

The Actual Cost of Las Vegas

Resort Hotel in Vegas: $564

$388 prepaid to Costco, + $176 for Resort Tax and a Resort Fee, I had estimated that it would be an additional $144 ($39/night but there was a $5.22 nightly Resort Fee)

Flights + Carryon: $234

View of New York New York Casino/Hotel

Actual Food/Drink Cost: $334

What I did not account for was the tax, the tips, and the fact that we were on The Strip. I am not sure why that slipped my mind- being on The Strip automatically made meals more expensive than off The Strip. Even if we tried to save money by eating elsewhere and taking a Lyft, that adds to the price of the meal and so you might as well stay on The Strip.

June 6: $62 (dinner menu items, taxes, tips)

Kyler and I at the Mandala Bay Aquarium

June 7: Exploring on The Strip Day 1

  • Hard Rock Cafe for “breakfast and lunch” $49 (menu items + tax and tips)
  • $9 water bottles- We walked The Strip and forgot our water bottle! It was 95 degrees out, we couldn’t walk The Strip without water
  • Slice of Vegas in Mandala Shoppes $24- 12″ pepperoni pizza Every casino hotel has a Shoppes section- or a few share 1-2 Shoppes. There are places to buy overpriced clothing, food, and do activities. For the money and atmosphere, I do recommend this place. We got great food and it was a short walk through the hotel/casino.
  • Auntie Ann’s Hot Pretzels $6.49 for a cup of pretzel bites. After all the walking we did that day (10 miles!) I really wanted those soft, buttery hot pretzels.
Cost of Las Vegas Activity
Mandala Bay Aquarium

June 8- Pool Day

  • I ate hot cereal in our room with my coffee, Kyler waited for lunch at the pool
  • Mandala Bay Pool- $51 Menu Items + Taxes + Tips
  • Ri Ra Pub $18.69 “Fancy spinach salad” to go, tax and tip
  • Market in Mandala Bay- $13 for whatever Kyler got. There are ZERO price tags! in that place so we had no way of budgeting!

June 9- Exploring on The Strip Day 2

  • Starbucks Coffee $6 and had a couple bites of Kyler’s donuts as we walked 😉 The k-pod coffee maker was ruining my coffee- made it taste so acidic. So I folded and bought coffee.
  • Krispie Kreme Donuts– $$6.50- as you can tell, Kyler doesn’t eat very healthy
  • Chipotle $4.71 for a healthy taco with several sources of protein for me. Taco + Taxes
  • Slice of Vegas– $49- 2 individual dishes + Taxes/Tips We were sooo hungry after a day of walking The Strip
Slice of Vegas Chicken Parm

June 10- Airport

  • Starbucks coffee +egg sandwich at Mandala Bay $15.39
  • Airport lunch for Kyler: $17

Actual Recreation/Travel Cost: $335

  • M&Ms store $16 for a cup of mixed M&Ms, we paid cash with Kyler’s tip money. The place is really cool- 4 floors like a museum, merchandise and an entire wall of M&Ms to choose from!

Hilarious Moment- We’re riding an escalator in the store and Kyler is holding his M&Ms cup as he says “This is a tourist trap for kids,”

  • Lyft Ride to and from the Airport and 1 ride from the Cosmopolitan back to Mandala Bay (actually got me almost 6% cash back with my Chase card) $49 total for 2 rides, our ride from the Cosmo got canceled so we got it for free… would have been $12
  • Monorail $10 to get from our end of the Strip to the other side
  • $20 Slots Machine… Kyler wanted to both try it and see the look of absolute boredom as as I tapped the button to roll the slot machine
  • Mandala Bay Aquarium $40 awesome and worth the money!
  • Mandala Bay Pool $200 Included unlimited free water bottles, an attendant, taxes and reserved chairs
  • Hat- I forgot my hat so we got me one with cash at American Eagle
FREE activity for Las Vegas Strip
Fountain of the Gods at Caesars Palace

Final Cost of a Resort in Las Vegas

The final cost of our trip to Vegas was $1468- so we only went over $120! Not bad for randomly deciding to eat hot pretzels, start buying Starbucks, buying a hat and M&Ms candy; and for not being certain of the additional costs of staying at a Resort. I think my biggest blunder about budgeting for the costs of staying at a resort (especially a newer resort) were taxes and tips. We don’t have sales taxes here in Montana and I guess I take that for granted sometimes. However, the actual cost for our budget earned us about $35 in cash back.

Up Next: Free Things to do in Las Vegas!

dinner at Slice of Vegas
Last Night in Las Vegas

And there is a great way to do it for way cheaper! Check out this other blogger’s article about how she spent 3 days in Vegas for only $300. The key differences between our posts is that we opted to splurge on a hotel (she stayed at the Flamingo and that costs less than the hotel Ky picked). We also did a pool day this time around, there are 2 of us, and we stayed 1 day longer than she did, and she magically was able to book a cheaper flight than us because we’re out in Montana. But still! Kuddos to her!