Advertisement
Published: June 24th 2010
Viva Las Vegas
The night time rush in VegasWhat a very bizarre place!! Everything you have read or seen about Las Vegas is true and then some!
Equally tacky as it is classy, cheap as it is luxurious and very, very hot! We landed in Las Vegas four hours late at midnight on Friday 18th June after a four hour delay to our flight from New York (which unfortunately allowed me to wallow in the abject performance by England against the Algerians which we managed to watch in a bar at the airport!) so after checking in to our suite at the Venetian hotel, we both dropped off straight to sleep! So much for us young party animals!
On Saturday morning, we looked out of the window of our room on the 31st floor of the hotel to see the "strip view" (no Mikey, not that kind of strip!) we were disappointed to see the hotel pools and two hotels) Not exactly the famous Vegas strip! After securing a room change to the new Palazzo resort at the Venetian, we took a walk down Las Vegas Boulevard and into the Mirage hotel which was beautiful and based on a South Seas Pacific theme and then Caesars Palace,
Our Room
At The Venetian before the move where Rachel took to the shops and I.... tagged along!
The inside of the hotels are unlike anything we have seen before! Shops, casinos, more restaurants inside one hotel than all of Stoke, spas, gyms, pools, cafes, bars, theatres, shark reef aquariums, lion enclosures, St Peters Square, waterways and gondolas! And that is just the inside of them! We had a look around the Bellagio and the fountains and bought tickets for a show (I'll come to that later) and then had a very late lunch in the cafe at the Paris Hotel in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower.
On Saturday evening we again had a fairly low key evening. We went across to the Mirage Hotel to watch the famous Mirage Volcano, a display of light, water, music and pyrotechnics. It was spectacular and very enjoyable, we caught most of it on video as you can see! After that, we had a walk around soaking up the atmosphere of the strip and the casino. Most people were dressed up to the nines, very glamourous and very drunk! Rachel and I both said it would be great to head back for a trip here with some smarter
clothes and our party hats on, because all the nightclubs and bars were so nice but really not designed for a couple with flip flops, t-shirts, shorts and denim skirts!!
So as Saturday drew to a close we had been to Venice, Rome, the Pacific Islands, Paris and back! In a day! Only in Vegas.....
Sunday was even hotter than Saturday (37 degrees) so we decided to explore more of the Venetian and walk along the canals to the replica St Marks Square where there were some people in period costumes singing, dancing and performing. After decamping to the poolside for a few hours it was time for dinner and a show.
We had dinner at a restaurant called SushiSamba which was a fusion between Japanese and Brazilian food (self explanatory really!) where we had a really nice dinner in a beautiful and very funky surrounding. After a walk down the strip to the Bellagio, we settled into our seats for 'O' by Cirque Du Soleil
Official Site for O at the Bellagio We had great seats for what turned out to be a truly spectacular show. (Despite the Japanese man next to us falling asleep half way through). To set the scene,
Caesars Palace
The Forum Shops (Rachel liked these!) at Caesars the stage was what looked like a huge swimming pool which actually had numerous mechanical platforms in it which sunk and raised throughout the show. So one second someone would walk across what looked like a puddle on the stage and the next someone would high dive into it after the platforms had been lowered. It was fantastic! There didn't seem to be much of a story behind the show, it had a surreal freak show theme and was really enjoyable.
After the show we walked back to the casino in our hotel where we played blackjack next to Robert Earnshaw (obscure football reference!) and his other half and we went up to bed $180 richer!!
On Monday we concentrated on the far end of the strip and walked around the Mandalay Bay hotel and had a look at their Shark Reef Aquarium. It was interesting but not as good as we thought it would be; so when asked by a group of people at the entrance as we exited whether they should spend their cash on visiting we told them the truth... No! They were very grateful for our in depth review and we thought we better
Us at the Bellagio
With the fountains and Paris in the background get out of the hotel in case the security had heard us "dissing" their sharks! We ran out like a pair of giggling schoolchildren laughing at the thought of being chucked out for something so silly!
After a quick visit to the Luxor hotel, which was spectacular to look at but not much substance or anything to do inside, we made our way to the very famous MGM Grand. We had been told by various people to go and see the Lion Enclosure within the MGM Grand (Rachel was particularly excited by the prospect of seeing lions walking around) There is a running commentary/information tape played by the enclosure which was surrounded by people when we walked in. The first line we heard the commentary say was that lions sleep for 20 hours a day. Great. Guess what the lions were doing when we were there... no not roaring or being fed.... yep, they were sleeping! How disappointing! Rachel was also very excited about the CSI Experience at the MGM (she is a big fan of the show and even has the game for her Nintendo DS). When we got to the entrance, they told us it was $30
each and after hearing the description of what was involved, it sounded like a big version of Rachel's Nintendo DS game! So we passed up the oppurtunity and took the bus to The Stratosphere.
When we arrived, it looked like a smaller replica of the CN Tower in Toronto (and we all know what happened to Stuey there!) To make matters worse, as we walked to the entrance looking upwards at the tower, someone jumped off and hurtled towards us!! (It's ok, there was a bungee cord attached to the nutter!) After some not so gentle persuasion by Rachel, I decided to grow a pair and get up that tower! It was certainly worthwhile. The views were spectacular. A few things up there unnverved me (namely the fact the tower felt like it was swaying when I stood still and two, the rides that you could see hanging over the edge of the tower as we looked upwards!) We are sorry to disappoint anybody (Uncle John and Stacy in particular) but we refused to pay someone to dangle us over the edge of a tower! (although by the end of seven months together all day every day we will
Paris
In Las Vegas?! probably be happy to do the same to each other!!)
Stratosphere Ride - Dangling over the edge! For our final evening in Vegas, we decided to go and watch the Treasure Island - Sirens of TI show at the hotel. It was a free outdoor show that Rachel had been raving about since we arrived in the city. It wasn't what Rachel saw the last time she was here! It was basically a group of poledancers with pirate swords in a mock battle involving song and dance with a group of the Chippendales with pirate swords!! Oh well, this is Vegas after all, so nothing should surprise us!
Yesterday, we started the next leg of our journey, the epic road trip!! Make sure you are subscribed to the blog to get an email when we write about the early stages of it.
Bye for now, love Stu and Rach x
Advertisement
Tot: 0.099s; Tpl: 0.019s; cc: 12; qc: 25; dbt: 0.0552s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
sim
non-member comment
love it love! love the dress rach. Proud of you stu for going up the strat..................rach i think the next time you will be dolled up in vegas will be my hen night!!!!!!!