Recently, a number of hotels in Las Vegas have been experimenting with offering an "all-day buffet pass." You pay one price — usually $25-$30 — and you can dine as often as you like at the hotel's buffet, stuffing down as much grub as you can hold during the hours the buffet is open and operating.
Typical of these deals is the one at the Excalibur Hotel. It costs $29.95 and their buffet is open from 7 AM until 10 PM. If you have a wristband, you can come and go as you please…I guess. Their website says "Blackout periods may apply" but it doesn't say if that's their blackout period because the place is too crowded or your blackout period because you just had your 19th helping of Chocolate Hot Lava Cake. Anyway, it's not a bad deal monetarily. At the Excalibur Roundtable Buffet, breakfast is $14.99, lunch is $15.99 and dinner is $19.99. If you eat two meals, you at least break even and if you eat three or more, it's cheaper.
There are two drawbacks though, both of which are that you have to eat every meal at the Excalibur Buffet. One is that you can't wander very far around Vegas…not when your next meal is prepaid back at the Excalibur. And the other drawback is that you're eating at the Excalibur Buffet, which was designed (I suspect) to make your old high school cafeteria seem like a gourmet spread. I mean, I guess it's okay if you don't mind Jell-O that makes noise…even when no one is eating it.
The other "all day" options are pretty much the same…or were until today when the Harrah's chain announced a new All-Day-Dining Deal: $29.95 and it stretches across all the buffets at all the hotels Harrah's owns in Vegas. They own a lot of hotels and while some don't have buffets, many do. There's the one at Harrah's, the one at Planet Hollywood, the one at Paris, the one at the Imperial Palace, the one at Caesars Palace, the one at the Flamingo and the one at the Rio. The Rio actually has two buffets but their Seafood Buffet, which costs $39 a person is presumably not included in this deal.
Still, the dinner at the Planet Hollywood buffet is $27.99 and the one at Caesars is only a buck cheaper. So this is quite the bargain: Breakfast, lunch and dinner at Planet Ho purchased separately would run you $62. As long as you eat two meals a day in any of these places, you're saving money. You also, of course, have better food and a greater variety…so you're free to wander more of the Strip. Instead of needing to stick close to one hotel, you have seven where you can eat all you want whenever you feel like it.
Whether you should eat all you want whenever you feel like it is another matter. You shouldn't, of course. Then again, you probably shouldn't do several of the things you're likely to do in Vegas…and most of them will cost you a lot more money.