Days 17, 18 & 19 - Last days in Vegas and return to Hollywood!

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Once again, we have not updated the blog for a couple of days so this entry will cover the days that we have missed!

On Friday morning, we got up at around 9:30, got packed up and dressed, and checked out of the Imperial Palace. We were planning on leaving our luggage in the luggage room available, but there was a huge queue for it, and we figured that the Stratosphere would have a luggage room too, so we just went straight there instead. We hopped on the Deuce bus up the strip to the Stratosphere (visible from most of the strip due to its huuuge tower) and dragged our cases over to the entrance.

At check-in, the girl told us that there was a room available for us, so we could move straight in, which saved messing around with luggage storage for the day (and saved us a couple of dollars in tips for the bell-boys!). We went up to our room on the 11th floor and stayed in there for a little while. The room was really nice, with a 37" flat screen TV and a fairly good view of the north end of the strip. We could also see the wire on which "Sky Jumpers" (I think that's what they were called) would fly past - basically people could pay $99 to jump off the top of the Stratosphere tower and freefall 108 storeys!

Once we had checked out our room, we left all of our stuff and went to find somewhere to eat - it was around 1pm and we hadn't eaten anything all day so we were starving! We noticed a Carl's Jr. around the corner from the hotel, and as Craig enjoyed what he had from there when we were in downtown LA, we headed there for dinner. Craig had the same as last time - a double Western bacon cheeseburger, whilst Emma went for a double cheeseburger. Again, the burgers were huge and we were very full after eating them, but they were very yummy!

We then had a walk around to see if we could find some wifi as we needed to upload the blog that we had written the night before. We noticed that there was a McDonald's inside the hotel, but when we went to check, it didn't have free wifi available. We instead caught the Deuce back down the strip to go to the McDonald's by the Imperial Palace (little did we know that there was a McDonald's just around the corner from the Stratosphere which we spotted on our way back up!).

Once we had uploaded the blog, checked facebook and emails, etc, we had a little walk around some of the casinos but decided that we would have a day off from gambling today - we hadn't spent that much over the week but as we're on a budget we thought it best to save a bit of money just in case. By around 4pm we were getting a bit bored (there's not really much to do in Vegas unless you have money to spend!) so we went back to the hotel to go and check out the Stratosphere tower, for which we had free admission with our room key card.

After going through the security checks, we went up in the lift 108 storeys (which made our ears pop a little) and walked out onto the indoor observation deck. The views up there were amazing, you could literally see for miles and miles, including all of the strip. We noticed a guy all geared up in the Sky Jump section, so we went over and watched/recorded him jumping off the tower, followed by a girl who we assumed was his girlfriend. It looked pretty scary but we reckoned if we had the money, it would probably be fun to do!

We went upstairs to the outdoor section, and watched some people on some of the other rides on the top of the tower. These include an 'Apocalypse' style ride on the very top of the tower, which shoots you up then drops you back down; a track which tilts up and down, with a rollercoaster train sliding backwards and forwards on it so that it looks like it is going to drop you off the edge; and a spinning claw-like ride that hangs the riders face down over the side of the tower. Again, the prices for these rides were $18 each, so it's only something you can do if you have the money to spend!

We took a few photos (with Emma trying to battle against her own hair - it was extremely windy up there!) then went back down to our room for a while to watch some TV. Once we were getting hungry again, we went down to Mcdonald's (there is NOTHING healthy to eat in Vegas!) for something relatively small for tea, then had a look around the 'Circus Circus' hotel and casino. Like the rest of the casinos in Vegas, once you are inside them they all look very similar, so after a quick look around, we went back to the Stratosphere (now that it was dark outside) to see the strip all lit up from the top of the tower. As you can imagine, it looked even better at night and you could clearly see all of the different hotels, although we were a little disappointed that Caesar's Palace seemed to JUST block our view of the Bellagio fountains! We went back to our room at around 10:30pm and watched some TV for a while before falling asleep.

Saturday was our last full day in Las Vegas, but we spent most of the morning asleep (we didn't wake up until about 11:30)! Thankfully, we didn't really have much planned for today, and the weather has gotten so hot that it's almost unbearable to walk around outside for any length of time! We got showered and dressed, then caught the Deuce down to by Flamingo's, as we had seen a place that did hot dogs for $1.99. We ate one of these each (with a bit of chilli on), then went into Flamingo's (which, by the way, smells like pink inside - if pink could have a smell) to have a go on some of the slots. We had a few goes on a machine where if you got the bonus, you could catch the fish which were each worth various amounts of money, and Emma got to the bonus round and won $6.20 on it. We withdrew the cash voucher and put it in an Egyptian-themed machine, and on the first pull, won $85, totalling $90.20 that we had won altogether! Get in! We cashed out the voucher at a machine and decided that we would quit while we were ahead and would leave Vegas winning!

As we weren't gambling anymore, we had a walk around the 'Miracle Mile' shops by Planet Hollywood hotel, then walked around the Paris shops for a little while, but decided that we were getting a bit bored of walking around the same places. We hadn't really explored much of the 'Old' Vegas, so we caught the Deuce all the way down the strip to downtown Las Vegas, and got off at Fremont Street. There seemed to be some sort of talent show thing hosted by one of the local radio stations, so it was fairly busy round there. We had a look in some of the shops, and noticed that it was considerably cheaper here than on the Strip! There was also a huge aerial runway/zipline thing that flew over the whole of Fremont Street, so we watched a few people fly past on there.

By around 6pm, we were getting a bit hungry again, and had spotted a chinese place, similar to Panda Express but a bit cheaper, inside one of the casinos, so we went there for some tea. We had pepper steak and sweet and sour chicken with rice/noodles (you could only have one so we each had a different one then split it between us). It was nice but not quite as nice as the one in downtown LA, which was even cheaper!

Once we had finished looking around, we caught the Deuce back up to our hotel, and relaced in the room for a while, watching some TV. By around 8pm, we decided that we would make the most of our last night and go back down the strip to watch the Bellagio fountains one last time (plus Craig was getting hungry again!). We got on the bus, but it literally took around 40 minutes just to go the half a mile or so down to the Bellagio. Tonight was fight night between Mayweather and Ortiz at the MGM Grand, and (as those of you that have seen 'Ocean's Eleven' will know) fight nights are notorious for being veerrrryyy busy in Vegas!

We eventually got off the bus a stop early, figuring that it would be quicker to walk than to wait on the bus (which was also very cold due to the air conditioning being on really high!), so we got off by Caesar's Palace and walked over to the Bellagio. Just as we got there, they had already started, so we watched them from behind a few heads, then moved to the centre of the lake to wait for the next couple of showings, which were every 15 minutes. After the first show, we turned around to see a couple of Chinese acrobat buskers had set up a little mat and were doing random balancing acts on each other for tips, so we watched them and took a few photos in between the fountain shows!

We then went back to the place where we got the $1.99 hotdogs so that Craig could have one, then we caught the bus back up to the Stratosphere at around 11:30pm, as we knew that we would need to be up fairly early to check out and catch our Greyhound bus back to Los Angeles in the morning.

This morning, we woke up nice and early at around 6am, got ready and packed up all of our stuff. We went to find somewhere to get some breakfast but had to settle again for McDonald's (we'll have to avoid this place for a while now!). We then went back to the hotel to pick up our cases and check out at reception. We got on the Deuce bus back to Fremont street and walked along it until we reached the Greyhound bus station. We went to check in and the guy at the desk said that we could catch the earlier 9:30 bus rather than the 10:20 one that we had booked. We agreed and went over to the gate, but the driver took a look at our ticket and said that his route was the long way round and that the bus that was departing later would probably arrive before him. So, we waited for the 10:20 bus instead!

We departed on time and the 6 hour journey back from Vegas was much less eventful than the journey there last week (i.e. the bus driver wasn't crazy)! We had a bit of sleep and wrote most of this blog ready to upload when we got to Hollywood. We also had a short break for 30 minutes half way through for food/toilet/walking around and we had some chicken from Popeye's, who claim to taste better than KFC (although we're not sure that we agree). We finally arrived in Los Angeles at around 4:45pm, and got on the number 60 bus down to the Metro station on 7th Street. We caught the red line towards Hollywood and got off at Hollywood/Western, where the 'Super 8' motel was conveniently located, just a little further down the road.

We checked in and went up to our room on the third floor. We looked at the view, as some of the rooms have a view of the Hollywood sign. Unfortunately, as per our usual bad luck when it comes to views, we had a nice view of the car park! Never mind, we're only here for 2 nights! We checked out the wifi in our room, which is fairly decent, but wouldn't break any speed records! However, we will try to upload the pictures from over the last week, even if it means keeping it on all night!

We were getting a little hungry so we had a walk around to find somewhere to eat. Craig settled for a $2 sub from Subway (he had been wanting one all week but for some reason, all of the Subways in Vegas charge ridiculous prices!), whilst Emma got a fruit pot (basically strawberries, watermelon and pineapple) from a Hawaiian BBQ place next door. We spotted a 'Food 4 Less' store opposite, which sounded good, so we went over for a wander round. OMG it was cheap! You could get a MASSIVE box of croissants for just under $5 (about £3) and big tubs full to the brim of any type of cake you can imagine for about $3! They also had other general groceries at really cheap prices (mainly because they were in bulk). Craig had been craving cheesecake since he had seen Chandler and Rachel eating some on 'Friends', and he spotted a twin pack, consisting of one slice of 'Classic New York style' and one slice of 'Chocolate Tuxedo' for $2.50. Emma is not a fan of cheesecake so she went for a bar of Hershey's chocolate instead! We paid for our purchases and walked back to the room (noticing 5 police cars whizz past on Hollywood Boulevard and a chopper overhead with it's spotlight on - not sure what was going on there!).

Tomorrow will be our last full day in Hollywood on this trip, and we plan to go and find 'High Voltage Tattoos'(where 'LA Ink' is filmed) and maybe go celebrity spotting on sunset strip! We will try and upload some pictures once this blog has published!

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