Q: We went in for an oil change on day one and there were very dissatisfied customers in there making waiting uncomfortable and ultimately it was taking too long so we left after waiting over an hour, totally okay with that. We decided to come back and try again with another 40min+ wait. (No problem.) We got decided to make things easy on ourselves and brought an extra car and told them to call us when the oil change was done. We get a phone call later saying my car had a broken head gasket and that oil was leaking into my coolant and my radiator took a hit because of it. So we head back to Meineke to assess the problem. They showed us the coolant and yes it was mucked up pretty bad and had a brown color, as opposed to the original dex-cool orange, it was also solidified in parts leading to the radiator. So all together they said we needed an all new head gasket, a flush, and a new radiator. At the time we agreed. They were going to charge us $3000 worth of work on a car valued at roughly that. Our first red flag was the price. I know other mechanics who charge $2500 for the same work. We ultimately decided to take my car home and double check the diagnosis. Sure enough, it took us less than 10min to find out that when coolant is way overdue to be flushed it will turn into a mucky substance. My car is 14 years old and the coolant was unfortunately never changed. If the coolant had oil in it, it would smell and feel like oil. There was NO oil smell or feel present. And as for the radiator, yes, when you open it up all you see is a floating mass that leads you to believe the radiator is done for (we agreed at Meineke, it looked bad), but it takes two seconds to dip your finger in there and remove the mass to find out there is a perfectly clean functioning radiator under there. It cost us roughly $50 to flush the system and replace the coolant ourselves. We also had a friend's mechanics double check the head gaskets and they concluded there was no engine knocking or loss of power felt when driving and that if it were broken my car would be struggling and there would be a presence of white smoke. My cost went from $3000.... to $50. My car is running great and we definitely will never be back. Also, funny side note, the front desk called my husband today to offer us a 30% discount on our service because business is slow. If they can drop the price of this job 30% on a whim, what else are they overcharging everyone on? I'm not sure if they were rushing the process, or if they thought we didn't know a lick about cars? But either way, it's worth a review. I'm assuming they rushed the service and didn't thoroughly diagnose the problem. That mediocrity would have cost us $3000 of unnecessary work. We had three friends, one mechanic and two car enthusiasts, prove them wrong and they still insisted that my husband and our friends were incorrect and the gaskets were cracked. Make sure you know your car well if you decide to take business here. Save yourself some money. I'm not one to write awful reviews and the workers were very polite and I wish I didn't have to write this, but three grand is A LOT of money and I cannot let that go unnoticed. OPTIONS:
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- positive

A: negative

Q: When we walked through the indisputably sharply appointed Cosmopolitan, we thought, "Look at this pretentious nightmare of douche-bag hipster gloriousness! We must stay here!" And so this year, we did. The problem was: It IS a pretentious nightmare of douchebag hipsters. Douchebag trust-fund hipsters, to be precise. What we had enjoyed briefly, thinking for some reason that everyone was in on the irony, was quickly revealed to be entirely literal. The simplest way to describe it: Bellagio is old money. Cosmo is new money. The Marquee Day Club is modeled after South Beach clubs, with beds and bottle service and fake boobs perched on anorexic ribs and tanning bed tans and life-of-leisure abs. The "attitude" is as thick as the Pour Homme. Basically, douchebag mating grounds. Our wrap-around terrace suite was absolutely lovely (1887) with a commanding view of the Strip and the Bellagio fountains. Yet little things were...off. The towels were rough. The washcloths worn. There was no trashcan in the kitchen, nor a coffee maker. The bedroom phone cord had been ripped out. The robes were cuddly soft, though. My husband was genuinely freaked out by the uber-attitude, to the point where I think he was actually spoiling for a fight (you can take the boy outta da Bronx....). I reminded him that we were in THEIR world, that it was WE who had to adapt or die, that they were all behaving in exactly the appropriate manner for who they are. Please, thank you, excuse me...all as foreign to them as thrift stores and coupons. Next year? Back to Bellagio, where pretention is the frosting on a classy, moist cake, not the acai berry in the small-batch vodka of the month cocktail. OPTIONS:
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A: negative

Q: Meh is a great way to summarize Foxtail. Its like a much smaller, lamer version of Surrender but acts like its better. With how overpriced the drinks are and how snobby the promoters are you would think Foxtail would have a A-list DJ line up. But nope... the likes of Calvin Harris or Hardwell wouldn't be caught dead in this C-list "club". Walking into Foxtail, it seems like SLS didn't know what to do with the area next to the pool and decided to stick some lipstick on a pig and call it a dayclub. The pool area is below average and small. It shows its age and management has tried to cover up the faults with new cabanas and fresh paint; it doesn't really work. During the winter the pool is closed off and everyone is forced into what I can best describe as a little black box which serves as the nightclub. Unless you got a free table or your best friend's birthday has the misfortune of being hosted here, skip Foxtail and checkout Surrender, XS or any of the Strip's much better nightlife offerings. OPTIONS:
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A: negative

Q: I totally forgot about Merc until the other night when my companion and I required additional alcoholic beverages after the bottle of wine we'd inhaled at True Foods. Quite an improvement since the days when we'd run across Camelback in heels, hoping a Beemer-driving drunk wasn't careening down the road at that exact time. The tunnel makes your transition into the dark sultriness of the Merc Bar that much easier. OK, admittedly, I forgot how sexy it is. I suppose in my more actively drinking days we'd end up here on the weekends, when it was SRO and the music rendered all conversation impossible. On weeknights, it's a different scene. Quiet, but not awkwardly so. Our server? Super hot, wearing an extremely short dress, doing lots of bending over and squatting at inopportune times, thus sending my companion into a bit of a frenzy. In addition to being hot, she was actually nice. A rarity, no? I know the drinks are expensive. What is the special ingredient they add behind the bar? Roofies? All I know is, I went in very mildly buzzed and left shitfaced. No, I'm not complaining. Rad. It's going back on my weeknight rotation. OPTIONS:
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- positive

A:
positive