The good thing about the Vegas strip is that there they are all next to each other, so if price is an issue you can stay at one of the cheaper options and then walk around enjoying the more expensive ones. If you stay in the middle you can enjoy one side of the strip one day and the other side the next. If you haven’t been the entire strip is about 4.5 miles long. If you don’t want to walk, taxis and buses are everywhere if you don’t have a car. Some of my favorite casinos are Bellagio, Wynn/Encore, Venetian, and Aria. The Vegas casinos are large labyrinths designed to swallow you and make you forget what time of day or night it is and keep you gambling or shopping. They are fun to explore.
Some of the best free attractions are the Bellagio Fountains, Bellagio conservatory next to the main lobby, and Mirage Volcano. Most of the casinos have a Cirque show. My personal favorites are Love (Beatles music ), Ka, and O. Blue Man Group also puts on a good show and Rev is popular (I have not seen that one.) You can buy in advance or there are discount ticket centers all over the strip that will sell day of at a discount rate. If you do that the best seats go early, so you need to show up in the morning.
January and February are the 2 biggest refurb months at Disneyland. I imagine at least one of the dark rides will be down. If they are redoing all the FL dark rides for the 60th, you could get a pretty good indication what will go down once they release the fall refurb schedule. Alice is done. Whatever goes down this fall will be done. What’s left will go down January through March or April 2015 in a staggered fashion.