Las Vegas

North America » United States » Nevada » Las Vegas
February 8th 2008

Published: March 13th 2008

Edit Blog Post

switzy

MGM Grand

our hotel

For the first couple of nights I stayed at the Golden Nugget, one of the oldest hotel/casinos in Vegas, situated on Fremont Street.
The hotel had a giant shark tank right in the middle of the pool area and the transparent pool slide went straight through the tank.
On the day that Mum, Nan and Robin arrived I caught a taxi over to the MGM Grand and dropped my bag off. After checking my emails I was informed that their flight was delayed by a few hours (nothing new there really). I decided to walk around the city, check everything out and get some info. in advance of their arrival. On my travels I discovered that the Cirque de Soleil company was performing a Beatles themed show at The Mirage. I bought tickets for the following night as an early Christmas present for everyone.
When the family finally turned up everyone was rather tired, so dinner and bed was the main thing on everyones mind.
The holiday deal that we got meant that I had to share a bed with Robin. This turned out to be a bit of a problem for me, as it became a catalyst for a bout

Never ending Corridor

The long, long walk from our room to the lifts

of insomnia. Having to deal with Robin´s flailing legs and boney elbows didn´t make for an easy escape to dreamland. Nor did his steamy breath in my face (ease off the garlic son). Not wanting to wake anyone I decided to go and read my poker book (not much help on the tables as I was to chicken to play anyway) in the bathroom. It was there that I discovered that, at 6 foot 1, it is impossible (dispite a valiant attempt) to fall asleep in a bathtub when completely sober. Next time I´ll remember to liquor up.

The MGM had an awesome breakfast buffet which we frequented most mornings. It had everything you could possibly want. Even Robin´s favourite, Chicken and Biscuits (better known as scones in the UK) with country gravy (yum yum). Seriously though it was the best breakfast I´ve ever had, and at the time I wished I had a bigger stomach so that I could cram more in.

On the first proper day we all walked up the strip and ended up going shopping (what a surprise! my mother and grandmother wanted to shop, who would have thought). In the evening we headed

New York New York

Mum and Nan opposite the New York New York hotel/casino

up to The Mirage and watched The Beatles show. It was a really good show, and the music tied in so well with the performance. Mum decided she wanted a Pina Colada whilst watching the show, so she sent muggins here off to the bar to get one. She was none to happy when I came back with a huge one litre cup of the stuff. "I can´t drink all that" was shrieked. Unsurprisingly, I ended up drinking the majority of it because the queen bee couldn´t handle her booze.

Grand Canyon Tour

The tour turned out to be a bit of a catastrophe really. The bus to pick us up was over an hour late and then it just took us 5 minutes down the road to the Luxor to get the main coach. A journey we could quite easily have walked ourselves if informed of the location. We got on the coach to see a lot of flustered and annoyed people. It turned out the rest of our group had been sat on the coach awaiting our arrival. Anyway we got on our way and after a while we reached Hoover Dam where we were

Monte Carlo

There´s always one idiot who parks in the disabled spot

allowed to get off and take a few photos. After this stop I decided to partake in my favourite pastime; sleeping. I was woken when we reached a small service station and everyone was ushered off the coach and told we had to change onto a smaller bus for the next stretch of the journey. Unfortunately the driver failed to let anyone know where or when we had to get on. What insued was a mix of mass confusion, anger and verbal abuse, and for me much hilarity. When people finally found the bus the driver was telling them to hurry up, and asking why they were so late. This didn´t go down well and many expletives were thrown in the direction of our driver. In fact I recall a certain brother of mine spouting a few himself (he obviously hadn´t had enough sleep the night before). The woman getting on behind us was even more irate and proceeded to argue for several minutes before being repeatedly told to "shut your mouth" by the driver. What followed would have been absolute agony for anyone with haemorrhoids, and was very uncomfortable for us. The small bus worked it´s way along what

At The Beatles show

Love by Cirque de Soleil

was one of the bumpest dirt tracks I´ve ever been on. At one point I´m sure my head nearly touched the ceiling as I was flung into the air (bad choice to sit right at the back).
Next stop was an airfield where we were made to queue in the freezing cold (the snot running from my nose was forming lovely green icicles) for about 20 minutes until we were herded onto another coach. This bus finally got us to our destination where a wonderful meal awaited (yeah right). Mum and Nan barely touched a thing on their plates accept for the tiny square of cake. Myself and Robin, both being rather hungry, ate everything including the mysterious meat of indistinguishable origin. Then we had a walk around and took a load of photos before having to rush back to the airfield to make sure we didn´t miss the bus back (we were told that they wouldn´t hesitate to leave anyone behind). After another couple of transfers (8 over the whole day), and feeling pretty exhausted, we finally returned to our hotel.
A memorable day for all the wrong reasons, and although the view of the Canyon was spectacular, I

In our room

Robin does his best male model catologue pose

think I would have rather had the extra few hours in bed than all the hassle of the journey. Still, at least I can say that I have been to the Grand Canyon now.

Trip to the Gun Store

The day came when Robin and I decided that, being in America and all, we should exercise our right to bear arms. Whilst reading one of the Vegas magazines I had seen a voucher for $5 off at the local gun store´s shooting range. We didn´t think that there would be much of a chance of us actually being allowed to fire any weapons, or at least not without some thorough backround checks. But when Robin rang up to ask, the guy on the other end said it would be fine. Still feeling a little apprehensive we got on the bus and made are way down to the range.
When we got there we walked through the door and were immediately greeted by the guy behind the counter "You guys here to shoot some guns today?". We asked him to reccomend a few guns to try and then we had to choose our targets. I chose the regular dummy

The MGM Grand Lion

graphic whilst Robin went for the most popular target of Osama Bin Laden. After paying, and grabbing our safety googles and ear guards, we went straight through to the range area (not once were we asked to show any I.D.). We fired a round each with two different hand guns, then picked another two targets (this time it was the stereotypical black and latino gang members) and fired a round each with two automatic weapons (the M-16 and UZI). I have to admit that it was an enjoyable experience, but it was quite worrying how easy it was for us to have a weapon loaded with live rounds in our hands. All it would take was for one nutjob to decide he fancied killing a few people and they´d have a situation on their hands. It´s no wonder the U.S. is in the state it is.

The Fremont Street Experience and Stratosphere Tower

During my stay at the Golden Nugget Hotel I had witnessed some of the daytime shows on the massive screened roof over Fremont Street (the largest screen in the world), but I hadn´t seen any of the night screenings which were supposedly even better. So

Scruffbag

Caught this guy just before he went rummaging through the bin.

one evening we decided to go and check it out and, as it was nearby, also go up the Stratosphere hotel tower.
Robin and I were already in the vicinity of downtown because we had been searching for a decent internet cafe (surprisingly difficult in Vegas). We called up the ladies, who were back at the hotel, and told them to hop on the Deuce (the bus that runs up and down the strip). After a lot of moaning about it being to much of a hassle, and the usual worries of getting lost without us ("the bus goes straight there woman!"), we finally persuaded them to come down and meet us. Every hour a free show is transmitted onto the giant screened ceiling. We managed to see 3 different shows, all amazingly bright, vibrant and very loud (due to the 555,000-watt sound system). Robin was very excited when he found the spot where a Snoop Dogg music video was filmed outside the Fremont hotel.
From Fremont street we walked back along the strip until we came to the Stratosphere hotel and casino. The main feature of the hotel is the tower above the casino, which stands at 1,149 ft

The Gang at the Hoover Dam

plus a midget with a camera ("get out of the shot woman")

tall and has some of the best views of the city. At the top of the tower there are various observation decks and 3 different thrill rides. Robin and I decided to go on the Big Shot (tallest ride in the world), a ride where you are strapped in to your seats and fired 160 ft upwards at about 45 mph. It is quite something when you are that high up over Las Vegas with your feet dangling and looking down to see nothing beneath you. That added to the feeling of weightlessness and hearing the girly screams of your brother make it a very memorable experience. The other ride I wanted to go on was the X Scream. It seems as though the ride was invented for one purpose; to make as many people as possible crap themselves. It basically consists of a car perched on a large arm which tilts back and forth and sends the passengers flying forwards 27 feet over the edge of the tower, only just stopping at the end of the track. To be honest I was quite glad when I asked Robin to go on it and his reply was "#@#* that!!!".

Hoover Dam

You can tell by the way Nan has dug her nails into my arm that it was rather chilly.

After I had finally got rid of that horrible lot (just kidding) I moved from the MGM hotel to a smaller, cheaper one across the road. I decided to stay for New Years and the huge fireworks display that takes place every year. On the night around 300,000 people hit the strip to celebrate; there was barely room to breath at some points. The Bellagio had a special dancing fountain display accumpanied by Elvis hits which was really good. The fireworks were set off from the rooftops of several major casinos and although they were plentiful they weren´t the best I´ve ever seen (New Years 2000 in Westminster was far better for one).
The following day I needed to sort out the travel arrangments for Mexico City. Places with internet access are few and far between in Vegas and I had to catch 2 buses to get to one I had looked up in the yellow pages. Whilst I was there I decided to update my blog and ended up staying until the place closed at midnight. As I was paying I got chatting to the owner who told me he came to America from the Phillipines, and that he

Grand Canyon

Couldn´t look like more of a plonker if he tried

used to be in the US navy and has travelled a lot himself. He told me all these stories, including how he and three other navy buddies got hijacked on the road in Mexico and had rocks thrown at them. I took his tales with a pinch of salt because the guy had been drinking vodka for a couple of hours and seemed to like the sound of his own voice.

The next day I packed my bags and headed off to the Greyhound coach station. I had decided to travel to Mexico City by coach because it was a lot cheaper than flying. What followed was the longest two days of my life.

(More photos on 2nd page)

Additional photos below

Photos: 30, Displayed: 30