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December 30th 2010
Published: December 31st 2010
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Thursday 24th December - Day 83
Mish flicked throught the TV channels and surfed the net (yay, for free Wi-Fi!) while Jess drifted in and out of sleep (definitely not deep though) until about 5:00am when the hunger got to us (almost 30 hours since our last proper meal!). We got up and got ready and went foraging for food about 6:30am... only to find that the majority of buffets and restaurants didn't start serving breakfast until 7:30am. We found a coffee shop downstairs so we had ham & cheese crossaints with milk (white for Jess, chocolate for Mish), that would have to do for now. It was cool charging it back to our room though, hadn't had the chance to do that yet!!
We signed up for the free Player's card which is supposed to give you rewards for your time spent playing but you would have to spend a lot of time playing to get anything! The good thing was the gentleman at the desk advised us that it was good to use at any of the MGM resorts & casinos, and that all the meals from these resorts could also be put on our bill here at NY NY! So this included MGM Grand, Excalibur, Luxor, Monte Carlo, & Mirage...Because of this, we decided to hit the strip, even if it was a little early to do much.
We walked past Monte Carlo, then Bellagio, then Caeser's Palace, marvelling at how BIG each property was. Caeser's Palace takes up a WHOLE block, and so we went in for a walk to have a look inside, and see if there was a good breakfast buffet on offer. It looked great, but was expensive, so we kept on walking. Next up was The Mirage, which also had a buffet on offer. It looked good, and best part was we could put it on our room bill, so we went in to fill up for the day. There was sooo much to choose from, but we each couldn't even finish one plate!! Very full, but still really early, we decided to come back to have a look at the Dolphin and Secret Garden that opened at 11am. We were still trying to find some sort of show to go to, and so across the road there was The Blue Man Group showing at 4pm, with hearing amazing reviews, we hoped to get a cheap late seat to it, or using Jess' Travel Agent rates. After checking at the box office, it was available, but still $100 each!! The guy at the box office told us that there might be discounted tickets at ticket booths like TKTS, so we tried our luck. We didn't have to go too far... across the strip (which means walking down the block, across the side street by a sky walkway, down the other side to another sky walkway across the strip!) there we found a Tix-4-tonight stand. We really wanted to see a Cirque du Soleil performance of 'O' or 'Mystere', unfortunately 'O' was not showing at the moment and 'Mystere' wasn't on today but would be tomorrow, so we settled for the Blue Man Group, the reviews were quite exciting. We also got a voucher for 25% off the check for dinner at a restaurant at the Palazzo called Dal Toro, with 25% off pretty good value (should remember for next time to check the menu first!). We had a good salesperson serve us, she asked if we had booked anywhere for Christmas dinner, we said 'no', and came away with vouchers for a $25 Brasil style buffet dinner where they bring you the meat on skewers and carve it off at your table, pretty cool! And then as a last minute purchase we also picked up some half price tickets to see the Madame Tussauds Wax Museum on Saturday.
We proceeded down the strip, past quite a few construction sites, past McDonalds to Circus Circus... Looking a little shabby on the outside, in need of a touch of paint, but the inside is as lively and colourful as ever. We had a look around the Mid-way games and arrived at Centre Stage just in time for the next live act. The pre-entertainment was a clown with one of those Jamaican steel drums, he was very amusing, followed by a trapeze duo from Brasil, what incredible strength they have to hang onto the rope with their feet! After this, each act only goes for 10 mins, it was off to the Adventuredome, an indoor theme park. Now Jess was sceptical too, I mean how many rides can you fit into an indoor area... well she was very surprised. There were rides for all ages, including a huge roller coaster, water plunging ride and one called the "Inverter", just imagine what that one did... Jess wasn't really up for riding and Mish didn't want to go by himself so we just watched for a while and then decided we'd go back up to the Dolphin Habitat & Secret Garden at the Mirage now that it would be open. On the way Mish remembered that we had to go to the Box Office early to get our seats allocated for Blue Man Group, so we went via the Venetian, and we were pretty lucky because we got seats about 10 rows in front of the people who were standing behind us in the line! Seats secured, we were off to see the animals and we're so glad we did. Normally we wouldn't have bothered with a small animal attraction like this one (not after San Diego Zoo!!), except they have lions and tigers and alpacas (unfortunately no bears...). One of the best parts were the two tiger cubs on display. The funniest part was that we were just about to leave after seeing everything when we went back to the White Lions just to see if they were going to move and one of them got up, climbed the rocks, got back down and woke the 2nd one up and they started to parade around their enclosure. We had gotten a few photos and had just started to walk away when we heard this strange sound and lots of yelling. One of the lions had stopped mid-stride, cocked his leg and peed on the crowd, right where we were just standing, we had literally moved about 2 metres away!! Gross hey!!
By now it was time to go see the Blue Man Group, so we made our way around and over the strip back to the Venetian. This is a must see show if you are going to Vegas. Yes three men painted in blue who don't speak at all through the performance sounds a little strange but it is very very entertaining as well as humerous and incredible what they can do... We had a great time... Afterwards we had to find our way through the Grand Canal Shoppes (literally feel like it is daytime and you are outside in Venice...we had flashbacks) The roof here is painted with blue sky and whispy clouds and you walk on paved pathways around the canal (yes, a proper canal with gondolas and everything). We eventually found our restaurant and had a nice small meal, it was a little expensive (always the catch with discount coupons) and there wasn't much that Mish wanted to eat... Jess had a beautiful meat Ravioli and Cheesecake dessert. Next stop Freemont Street Experience.
It was a fair hike down that end so we purchased some bus passes, problem was that you have to wait for the buses and we got a little impatient, started walking and ended up walking almost halfway there anyways... we eventually caught one and it was nice to sit down... It was pretty crowded down at Freemont Street, being Christmas Eve and all, there were 3 Christmas concerts going on, tells you how big it is. The main attraction here is the hourly light/movie display on the roof covering the street. It was pretty incredible, like a huge TV from one end to the other, we watched a tribute to the Doors, the next show was going to be a tribute to someone else...and so on. They even had a zipline going for half the length of the street, lots of people were flying down and then hitting the end and falling back to almost halfway so the guys had their work cut out for them, collecting people and dragging them back to the platform. We didn't spend long here as it was cold and really crowded, so back on the bus to try and catch the sidewalk shows of the Volcano at Mirage and the fountains at Bellagio. This night we missed the Volcano but we did see the Bellagio fountains (always a must in Vegas!). Then it was a short 30 min stroll back to our hotel where Mish tried his hand at Blackjack, Roulette and Craps, coming out a little bit on top, with no loss of money yet....Jess just watched as it's too much excitment for her. Eventually made it to bed at 2am, a big day after getting up at 4am!!

CHRISTMAS DAY - Satruday 25th December - Day 84
A little sleep in but not too much, there was still so much to see. First thing on the list was to go back to a Tix-4-tonight stand and get tickets to see 'Mystere' the original Cirque du Soleil show, so we did that. We also got tickets to the 'Price is Right LIVE' show and vouchers for a buffet lunch at Flamingo's. Breakfast was next on the list so we tried MGM Grand, ahhh nope, $25pp for brunch on Christmas day (as we had missed their breakfast time), so we tried Excalibur, known for it's great value buffet breakfast, and it was sure well known for it, by the time we found the buffet it was 10:20 and there was a line about 50 people deep waiting to get in, and breakfast finished at 11am... so McDonald's it was... a healthy start to the day!!
We caught the bus next, down to Treasure Island or TI as it is known here, to reserve our seats for the show tonight, and we were met with yet another line... Vegas is pretty busy over Christmas... lucky we did though because it was a sell out show and we didn't want to sit way at the back (it wasn't really a big theatre so it probably wounldn't have been that bad, but we got half way down anyways). Next we had to go get seats and register for the 'Price is Right' so we could have a chance at winning some big prizes. Back up the strip to Bally's Casino, where we stood in line yet again (they weren't that bad!), to get our seats, then we had to go register and we picked up our fancy 'Price is Right' nametags... he he.... Flamingo's was just next door so we went in search of a good buffet for lunch, it must have been pretty good cause when we got there the line was about 100 people long. We decided it wasn't worth the wait and we would only lose the $4 we paid for the vouchers so we ate at the Tropical Breeze Cafe right next to where everyone else was lining up for the buffet. Our lunch was fantastic, good sized meals, refills on drinks and a view of the flamingo enclosure just outside! Then it was back to Bally's for the actual show. How exciting, getting to go on The Price Is Right! It is not a filmed version, but it is exactly the same as the TV show, made for Vegas visitors, you can even still win a car! They call out contestants in groups of 4 for each round to "Come on down!" That's where they are shown an item and have to make a bid on it. Neither of us got picked for this... At the end of each round they also call out 5 names as instant winners, these guys win 1000 total rewards points to spend at the Casino. They also have the Showcase round where you can win the car and some great holidays but the one that Jess got called out for was the Big Wheel (they said her name, but Mischa's handwriting is so bad they couldn't say it properly, so they had to say the seat number!!) Along with 2 other contestants she had to spin the big wheel to try and get the $1 marker or closest to it. Closest to it won $250, if you got it exactly you won the $250, plus a bonus $250 and got the chance to spin again for $1000. The first guy spun and got 95 cents, pretty much the best spin you could ask for (other than 100), then it was Jess' turn, she spun 90 cents, so had to have a 2nd spin, hoping to get 5 cents to draw or 10 cents to win, unfortunately she got 45 cents so had to go sit down, but she got a T-shirt though! The third contestant spun two spins of 45 cents so the first guy won the $250... Oh well, it was fun to have a go! Next we went and checked out the Madame Tussauds Wax Museum which was fun, they look so life like! On the way to dinner we stopped at the Eiffel Tower, bought express tickets (to avoid the 70 min wait in line) and went to the top for a view of the strip at night. It was beautiful! We got to catch glimpses of the Bellagio fountains going off as well as the Mirage Volcano. We had a reservation for 7pm at Pampas for dinner, but we decided we would just go and see if they could fit us in early. They were extremely busy, it is very popular, but we were seated within 20 mins of arriving, pretty good. Food was delicious,you could have as much as you liked, and the meat servers just kept coming, Jess ended up having to say no to the last 5 as she had so much food already on her plate, Mish loved it! The meat was fantastic, carved right onto your plate, there was, Christmas ham, turkey wrapped in bacon, Pork sausage, sirloin steak, BBQ chicken, rosemary lamb and grilled pineapple, plus others probably... They also had fried banana bringing back fond memories of Sth America for Jess! No dessert as we were so stuffed full. We headed down to TI for the show but we were early so Mish played a few rounds of BlackJack while we waited and he actually won more than what he had spent this round and the night before, so doing pretty well (he was very sensible and stuck to the budget!). At 9:15pm we made our pit stops and found some water, then went to the theatre. Jess was getting pretty tired and within the first 30 mins, nodded off momentarily, it was then a struggle for her to keep awake but she persevered and did get to see most of the show. Mish loved it, Jess loved what she saw. At the start they had a clown (not dressed like one) pretending to be an usher, taking people all over the theatre to find their seats. One time he took this couple right down the front to where someone else was sitting, made them get up and let the couple sit down. He then threw the other two out and gave the new couple a box of popcorn, it was hilarious! Don't worry, it was all set right before the show started. Neither of us had seen a Cirque performance before, it was spectacular! The stage alone was amazing, let alone the performers...They had everything from jumping up and down poles, trapeze, strong men, flips off see-saws onto other people, strong men and trampolining!! It was a great way to finish of Vegas!! It was midnight by the time we walked back to our hotel, so Jess went up to bed, as Mischa decided to try his luck a bit more on the gaming floor. He ended up coming up after an hour, after losing $200 but then winning it back on Roulette!! He was quite impressed. Had came with $400 to spend on gambling, and after playing for well over 5 hours, still came away with $400!! Not many people can say that!! Finally asleep, it was an early start as we were again heading to the airport to fly to San Francisco.


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