We’re planning on a trip to Vegas this November for a big blogging conference I’ll be attending. Because the event is being held in Vegas, it wasn’t very hard to convince my husband and my sister to come along with me for a long weekend. They’ve both been to Vegas before, but I haven’t ever been out there. People like me tend to think of Vegas as a place for vacation only, and we forget that people actually live and work there year round. I know of a few bloggers there in fact, that I’ll be meeting in person at my conference.

All of those people living and working in Las Vegas need all of the same things we need in our own towns and cities…they grocery shop, they go to the mall, and occasionally, they get locked out of their homes. When that happens, this Las Vegas locksmith company springs into action. This company provides the residents of Las Vegas (and surrounding areas) with 24 hour emergency service, as well as residential, commercial, and auto locksmith services. (How cool would it be to get called for a job at one of the big hotels…and get to go behind the scenes in the casino, a la Oceans Eleven?)

They even offer free estimates on their website, or call for one!

We’ve booked one hotel for our 8 night trip to Canada next month. (Note to self: trip is only 3 weeks away - get moving on booking other hotels!) We’re still debating on using Priceline for our 3 night stays in Toronto and Montreal (if anyone has a recommendation for a great downtown neighborhood to stay in for either city, let me know!) but we knew we didn’t want to gamble with Priceline for Niagara Falls. We wanted a hotel with a great view of the falls, and we wanted a big name brand. We ended up booking rooms at the Hilton Niagara Falls Fallsview and because my mother is coming with, we snagged a substantial AARP thanks to her membership with the group. Score! The hotel is connected to a casino (I love the slots!)and has a gorgeous indoor pool with a great slide to keep the kids busy.

We used my Priceline tip last night from my list of 6 tips to save money traveling. We needed to rent a minivan for our 9 days in Canada next month. I researched prices at all of the major companies using Sidestep.com, and then figured out which company was the lowest - that was Budget. Their price per day, not including tax, was $35.

We went to Priceline and put in our airport location (Detroit) and dates, flight times, etc, and selected a minivan. We put in our price per day as $20. Priceline will add taxes and fees to this, so don’t include those in your price per day. Our initial bid was rejected, but we knew it was a long shot. We were asked to adjust one of our options - the car type, pickup or drop off dates, or location - we can’t change any of those, so how do you get around that? I ended up making a new request, and I put it all in my name this time, and used my own credit card (everything was in my husband’s name on our first request.) For my 2nd request, I upp’ed the price we were willing to pay to $25 (still a deal, remember - the cheapest company wanted $35 a day) and we found out in a minute our bid was accepted.

The company that accepted our bid wasn’t the cheapest - in fact, they were one of the more expensive, quoting almost $600 total including taxes and fees for our 9 day rental. Our total by using Priceline though, will be only $300! Not bad for a 9 day minivan rental with unlimited miles, from a major rental car company.

Yes, we’re headed back to the Mouse this weekend. Another Disney weekend, and in the same places as our last visit - Port Orleans. We stayed there last time for sentimental reasons, and this time, it’s because Port Orleans is the only Disney moderate resort that can fit 5 people in a room. My lesson was learned though, and if we’ve got issues this time, I’m reporting them before I leave the hotel.

We don’t have any plans yet - I’m thinking possibly Animal Kingdom and some water rides there to beat the heat, and maybe mini golf as a belated birthday gift for the boy. I’d like to rent boats at Port Orleans and cruise to downtown Disney too.