Anyway, I wanted to share about our trip with a few stories and photographs. Hope you don't mind!
We left bright dark and early on Sunday morning (we were out the door by 4:45am and at the airport, checked in & through security by 6:00am for our 7:15am flight) and came back Wednesday evening around 5pm. We took Northwest Airlines (Delta?) and had a very good experience - no delays either way, and actually arrived in Vegas 20 minutes early. Also, both directions, we ended up with an empty seat in our row, which allowed us to stretch out a bit & be more comfortable...well as comfortable as one can get in an airplane seat.
We stayed at the MGM Grand and we had a pretty good experience there. This hotel is HUGE!! It took forever to walk from our room to anywhere. It has something like 5,000 rooms. That is like 4X the size of the population of my hometown. Unreal. Our room was pretty nice and we had a good view of some of the Strip. The thing we didn't understand that the pool area was super far from the rooms and you had to walk through almost the entire casino plus shopping areas to get there. Unfortunately, because of this, we didn't spent any time at the pool. I am not sure if there are lockers or changing areas or what, but I'm pretty sure no one wants to see a dripping hotel guest walking through the casino area to get back to their room. From what we could tell, there was no back way either. I don't understand the logic. Oh well!
(One view from our hotel room window)
We arrived at the hotel from the airport around 9am so obviously our room wasn't ready yet. We left our luggage with the bellman who would stow it until our room was ready to be checked into. We decided to start walking, which would be the theme of this vacation! We found one of the Tix for Tonight locations right by our hotel and decided to get in line to get tickets to a couple of shows. I would highly recommend this if going to Vegas! We got half price tickets for The Lion King for that evening and also for Legends in Concert for the following night. We spent about an hour of time waiting in line & purchasing our tickets, and probably saved about $150 ~ since that's far higher than our hourly pay rate at our jobs, I'd say it was definitely worth it!
After getting tickets, we walked around more, got our actual seat locations for the Lion King (3rd row!!) and then stopped for lunch at the Mandalay Bay buffet. How can you go to Vegas without visiting a buffet?! We were starving by that point, and it was very good. We loved Mandalay Bay...they had something pumping through the air vents that smelled like beach and ocean...mmmmm :)
We walked back to our hotel and got checked into our room and attempted to take a quick nap...after all, we did wake up at 4 AM that morning! (Whoever planned a 7:15am flight...grumble...I can only say this because it was ME!) Unfortunately, I don't think we really slept much and soon it was time to get ready for the evening.
We stopped for a light dinner of pizza and our first try of gelato (mango! yum!) at the deli counter at Caffe Giorgio at Mandalay Bay.
The Lion King was a great show and we really enjoyed it. I've always wanted to go but it seemed to sell out fast when it was in Minneapolis. Our seats (did I mention we had 3rd row!?) were incredible and it was a fabulous production.
Afterwards we walked back to our hotel and promptly passed out from exhaustion!
So, that brings us to Monday. We slept in and it was wonderful :) Today we decided to buy a one day pass for the Monorail so we could ride up and down the strip and see more of the hotels/casinos. We rode to the end and checked out Sahara...not impressed. What a difference the older & newer casinos are! Then we went to Circus Circus and had fun playing the different Midway games (SkeeBall, air hockey, etc) and redeeming our tickets for a junky toy for Cody. We loved it's "vintage" feel!
We did a lot of walking this day (wait, that was every day!) and saw different casinos like Caesar's Palace, Treasure Island, etc.
Oh! One crappy thing that happened on our trip was that after we turned off my phone to get on the plane in Minnesota, is that it never turned back on! ARGH! We ended up finding an Apple Store in the Forum Shops at Caesar's Palace and found out my phone was completely dead. Sigh. Phone #2 - a goner. By the grace of God, it was still under warranty by 19 days & I was able to get a new phone! All was right with the world again...
Anyway, that night we waited for the TI pirate show but unfortunately it got cancelled due to the high winds. Disappointing as we had planned to see the Bellagio Fountains too, but figured those wouldn't be going either.
We saw the Legends in Concert show which is an impersonation concert and featured Jerry Lee Lewis, Tina Turner, Bette Midler, Michael Jackson and of COURSE, Elvis! This was kinda cheezy but I figure you HAVE to see Elvis while in Vegas! (And not to fret, we saw a few versions of him, plus Michael Jackson, the following night wandering the streets...) Afterwards we went to our second buffet at Harrah's which was okay but not great since it was 8:00pm and we were SO tired that we were just in a daze.
That brings us to Tuesday and our last full day there. We intended for this to be a more relaxing day with less walking (I cannot even explain how much our feet and leg muscles ached), but unfortunately that did not happen as we walked a lot this day, too. We did have a nice, normal breakfast to start the day with my first cup of coffee of the trip. Withdrawals anyone? It's not to say you couldn't find coffee in Vegas - there were Starbucks everywhere!!
One of our main daytime activities this day was checking out the Paris hotel/casino and riding up to the top of the Eiffel Tower where we had great views of the city! Gordon found out that this is a half-scale of the real Eiffel Tower in France. At the top, it was really windy and I was surprised at how Gordon "handled" the heights! ;) Here's one view from the top:
During the day, we also went to Bellagio which is one of the fancier hotels on the Strip. Beautiful fountains outside and gorgeous inside:
(The only picture of us in Vegas, inside the Bellagio courtyard)
(This is the ceiling of the lobby...these are glass!)
By nighttime, the winds had died down, so this night we were able to see the Treasure Island pirates/sirens show (decent but not really worth the extra walk or wait), the Mirage volcano eruption (cool, yet hot) and the Bellagio Fountain show (one of the highlights of the trip). Here are a few photos to explain what I'm talking about:
And because I'm sure you're all wondering, we did do some gambling on our trip...it was Vegas after all!!One of the things we enjoyed was seeing some of the fancy restaurants and perusing their menus. We both LOVE the show Top Chef and this season happens to be in Las Vegas. It was really neat to see some of the restaurants that have been featured on the show. We considered going to one of these nicer restaurant, but we just couldn't do it (read: our wallets wouldn't let us)! This restaurant below featured $195 entrees! I wish I would have taken a picture of the menu...Joel Robuchon is the "Chef of the Century" and this is his only U.S. restaurant.
Hey, to put things in perspective, I found a 7-11 and got a Slurpee and that was exciting enough for me! :)
And I know "what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas" (there was even a sign in the airport 'reminding' us of that when were leaving, ha.), but we did see some, uhmm, interesting things there. A few things come to mind: a gaggle of girls wearing "We put the sin in Wisconsin" on our plane, two cross-dressers attending a show in feather boas & pink hairdos, a guy in khaki shorts wading through the outdoor ponds at the Mirage looking for something, a "little person" Elvis, and a guy laying in the middle of the sidewalk who we weren't sure if he was dead or passed out. Woo!
Oh...did I mention the weather was beautiful! 70 or 75 degrees every day with lots of sunshine. It got a little chilly at night but nothing a light jacket wouldn't fix. Ah. I miss the sunshine now.
The most annoying thing by far were the people on the sidewalks and streets handing out cards for "escort" services or trying to give/sell you discount club/show passes or to get you to go to timeshare presentations. They were everywhere and much worse than I remember during my one other visit to Las Vegas. They almost got in your face & were very rude. This was frustrating but you learned to ignore them and not make eye contact...at least this is what I did! Hopefully by the next time we go, they'll find a way to outlaw this type of solicitation. I'm not holding my breath though, it is Las Vegas after all and they don't exactly have a lot of rules there. We loved all the people walking down the street with beer bottles or drinks in hand!
All in all, we had a good time, but it was exhausting and next time we vow to go somewhere more relaxing :) We were SO excited to get home and see our little guy though. I can't explain the look on his face when he saw us. Worth everything right there! He did so good at home with G'ma and G'pa, slept all night, did good at bathtime and napped well. I don't know how people go on week-long vacations or have nights out all the time without their little ones...I was miserably lonesome for him after a couple of days!
I will leave you with a couple of my favorite photos from our trip of the New York New York and the Luxor hotels/casinos ~ I adore the sky blue sky and gorgeous backdrop...
3 Comments:
awesome post!!! we may have to copy you someday and take a little vacation as a couple! 3 nights would definitely be enough!
i've never been to vegas but it looks like you guys had a lot of fun! we're not super big into gambling either but the shows and the sites look like they'd be fun to see at least once!
Great pictures and write-up--makes you feel like you were along also! But we were home in good ol Mn having a great time bonding with Cody & being entertained by him!
Vegas has never been a place I wanted to go to, but it is beginning to look like a lot of fun. Something we need to consider! I know you missed your little guy, but I'm glad that you were able to have some time to yourselves and enjoyed your vacation. I'd forgotten that there was a Chihuly glass ceiling in Vegas, aren't they wonderful?
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