Viva Las Vegas

Shreya and I visited Las Vegas and Grand Canyon to celebrate New Years Eve. I am writing this blog 5 months after that; so can’t go into a lot of details. Writing what I remember.

We flied to Las Vegas on Dec 29th morning. We had a reservation in Luxor. Luxor is an Egyptian themed resort. It has 2-3 towers, the main tower is pyramid shaped! We had a room on the 21st floor of this pyramid facing the strip!

We checked out a lot of casinos during the day and gambled a bit (may be $20-25..). We had real fun watching the Bellagio Fountains from the top of the Eiffel Tower at Paris hotel. The lion habitat at MGM Grand resort was also good.

We rented a car and drove to Grand Canyon on Dec 30th and spent a night there.

New Year's Eve

We returned the next day to Las Vegas for the New Years Eve celebration. We stayed at Monte Carlo hotel on the Las Vegas Blvd near New York and MGM.

New Years Eve at Las Vegas was crazy! The strip (Las Vegas Blvd) was blocked for the vehicles at 6pm to next morning I guess. It was open to pedestrians only. All the hotel prices go up by 2 to 3 times! And still, everything will be sold out!

The strip turns into a massive party floor around 10:30 with music all around and people dancing everywhere! It was some extreme party! Millions of people on the strip... standing wall to wall!

10 seconds prior to the midnight, there was a countdown on various screens throughout the strip. Sharply at 12am, there were synchronized fireworks from MGM, Paris, Circus Circus and couple of more hotels! It went on for more than 5 minutes I believe! Definitely the best fireworks by far! At the end of the firework, you will hear people shouting “Happy New Year” all around…

I must say, the security was really tight that evening for obvious reasons. There were a lot of drunk people and free flowing beer on the streets but I didn’t notice any notorious behavior.

What a weekend it was!!!

---

---