Question
What would the ideal 2-night itinerary be for someone's first time in Las Vegas?
Answer
Recently moved here and am starting to get local instincts. Am assuming you have no special velvet rope access to the secret high-life of Vegas and are not a high-roller willing to drop 100k+ gambling. Also assuming (since you mentioned a girlfriend) that this isn't a planned episode of cut-loose debauchery and weirdness a la The Hangover (if you want to that, you're asking the wrong people in the wrong place. You CAN do things nearly as insane as stealing Mike Tyson's pet tiger or getting married to a stripper, but I assume you aren't planning that kind of trip).
Day 1: drive out to Red Rock Canyon and/or Valley of Fire national park. Eat lunch at a good off-strip place. Try something from Freed's bakery.
Night 1: Take in a show. Whole bunch to choose from. Best to let girlfriend pick that. Dine on-strip. More choices than you can imagine, and a lot of it excellent. If you've got vegans/vegetarians in your gang, the Wynn is a good choice, since Steve Wynn is vegan and makes sure all his restaurants have great options.
Day 2: Start with a piggy breakfast buffet. Spend afternoon either hitting Hoover Dam/Lake Mead OR downtown Las Vegas, north of the strip. Leave some slack in the day. Girlfriend and other women in your group may want to schedule spa appointments and things. Make sure you get them to do that before you head out, since you'll inevitably end up scheduling stuff around them.
Night 2: walk the strip end-to-end (can be tiring, take the trolley and monorail for bits of it if you like). Make sure you hit the interior of a few interesting old and new casinos. Look for the secret hidden NY-style pizza place at the Cosmopolitan. Pretend you are in Venice inside the Venetian. Take in the faux-Italian piazza inside Caesar's palace. Allow PLENTY of time as there is a ton of distraction everywhere. You can ride a roller coaster at New York, New York. Play the medieval equivalent of Chucke E. Cheese type games in Excalibur, watch the fountains outside the Bellagio, watch the sad street performers, the random pirate type show outside Treasure Island. Of course there's plenty of food and drink everywhere. Just browse-eat as you go and stop for dinner somewhere randomly.
Gambling: this can take up as little or as much time as you want it to and within city limits, you'll never be very far from somewhere to gamble. At the very least, try a few bucks on slot machines just to complete the experience. Table games require more preparation and time. You can plan on putting in a session after the show on Night 1 or after/before/during the strip walk on night 2. I've only played slots a bit for fun. Any good guidebook will tell you about the variety of games available. If you plan to drop more than $100 - $150 on gambling, you are talking a decent amount of time (though you can easily spend it very fast if all you want is to gamble for possible gains instead of entertainment. If you want entertainment, $100 will last you about an hour on the penny slots, the slowest way to gamble). Tip #1: at most casinos you can sign up for a member card that gets you some freeplay money. Tip #2, no you can't do this at every casino uniquely since many hotels are owned by the same group and share their card system. But yeah, you can get a decent amount of free gambling money.
Drinking: you are allowed to walk around with open alcoholic drinks on the strip and I recommend that over hanging out in bars, especially on your walk-the-strip night. You'll see a lot of people walking around with very long, bong-shaped souvenir drinks. Can be expensive.
Nightlife: I don't do this, but there's obviously several options in all the casinos. The newer, more adult-themed ones are presumably better. The Palms is particularly known for nightlife stuff. George Clooney met his now-ex wife there I believe.
General time-management warning: the buffets are best early in the day. At your own hotel, you can skip the long general-public line and go to the hotel guest line. But if you want to go to one of the other buffets, expect to stand in line for a while unless you are willing to get up real early. Can be hard since you'll likely stay up late at night as well. Overall, I recall planning as little as possible. Vegas is NOT friendly to tightly scheduled visits. Much smarter to schedule a few things, leave plenty of slack, and have several ideas about how how to fill it. You can then fill it, or not.
Appropriate attitude: Vegas can upset sensitive people. You'll react to it on a spectrum that is between campy fun and an aghast "this is the end of civilization." Whatever your response, try not to take it too seriously. Vegas is primarily a place where farce rules. You need to be either incredibly stupid, extremely rich and/or famous and/or sexy or intelligently ironic to enjoy the place. For most normally smart average people, intelligent irony is really the only option.
Day 1: drive out to Red Rock Canyon and/or Valley of Fire national park. Eat lunch at a good off-strip place. Try something from Freed's bakery.
Night 1: Take in a show. Whole bunch to choose from. Best to let girlfriend pick that. Dine on-strip. More choices than you can imagine, and a lot of it excellent. If you've got vegans/vegetarians in your gang, the Wynn is a good choice, since Steve Wynn is vegan and makes sure all his restaurants have great options.
Day 2: Start with a piggy breakfast buffet. Spend afternoon either hitting Hoover Dam/Lake Mead OR downtown Las Vegas, north of the strip. Leave some slack in the day. Girlfriend and other women in your group may want to schedule spa appointments and things. Make sure you get them to do that before you head out, since you'll inevitably end up scheduling stuff around them.
Night 2: walk the strip end-to-end (can be tiring, take the trolley and monorail for bits of it if you like). Make sure you hit the interior of a few interesting old and new casinos. Look for the secret hidden NY-style pizza place at the Cosmopolitan. Pretend you are in Venice inside the Venetian. Take in the faux-Italian piazza inside Caesar's palace. Allow PLENTY of time as there is a ton of distraction everywhere. You can ride a roller coaster at New York, New York. Play the medieval equivalent of Chucke E. Cheese type games in Excalibur, watch the fountains outside the Bellagio, watch the sad street performers, the random pirate type show outside Treasure Island. Of course there's plenty of food and drink everywhere. Just browse-eat as you go and stop for dinner somewhere randomly.
Gambling: this can take up as little or as much time as you want it to and within city limits, you'll never be very far from somewhere to gamble. At the very least, try a few bucks on slot machines just to complete the experience. Table games require more preparation and time. You can plan on putting in a session after the show on Night 1 or after/before/during the strip walk on night 2. I've only played slots a bit for fun. Any good guidebook will tell you about the variety of games available. If you plan to drop more than $100 - $150 on gambling, you are talking a decent amount of time (though you can easily spend it very fast if all you want is to gamble for possible gains instead of entertainment. If you want entertainment, $100 will last you about an hour on the penny slots, the slowest way to gamble). Tip #1: at most casinos you can sign up for a member card that gets you some freeplay money. Tip #2, no you can't do this at every casino uniquely since many hotels are owned by the same group and share their card system. But yeah, you can get a decent amount of free gambling money.
Drinking: you are allowed to walk around with open alcoholic drinks on the strip and I recommend that over hanging out in bars, especially on your walk-the-strip night. You'll see a lot of people walking around with very long, bong-shaped souvenir drinks. Can be expensive.
Nightlife: I don't do this, but there's obviously several options in all the casinos. The newer, more adult-themed ones are presumably better. The Palms is particularly known for nightlife stuff. George Clooney met his now-ex wife there I believe.
General time-management warning: the buffets are best early in the day. At your own hotel, you can skip the long general-public line and go to the hotel guest line. But if you want to go to one of the other buffets, expect to stand in line for a while unless you are willing to get up real early. Can be hard since you'll likely stay up late at night as well. Overall, I recall planning as little as possible. Vegas is NOT friendly to tightly scheduled visits. Much smarter to schedule a few things, leave plenty of slack, and have several ideas about how how to fill it. You can then fill it, or not.
Appropriate attitude: Vegas can upset sensitive people. You'll react to it on a spectrum that is between campy fun and an aghast "this is the end of civilization." Whatever your response, try not to take it too seriously. Vegas is primarily a place where farce rules. You need to be either incredibly stupid, extremely rich and/or famous and/or sexy or intelligently ironic to enjoy the place. For most normally smart average people, intelligent irony is really the only option.