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Published: June 26th 2017
This time I heard it. Caught red handed. It was just before 6am. First a rustling that seemed to be coming from directly outside our door, then a slither of something being forcibly pushed under the door. I had actually witnessed the act by an unseen spectre who stealthily wanders the corridors of the hotel delivering the newspaper 'USA Today' to all residents whilst most are asleep. It was like being woken by Santa Claus all over again as he drunkenly ‘fell' in to my bedroom that fateful Christmas in 1967!! Also this newspaper was delivered to your room whether you wanted it or not, just like a jig saw was delivered to my room in 1967 whether I wanted it or not!! Perhaps I'd stumbled on what Santa does for the rest of the year. He has a paper round in Las Vegas!!!
After our hectic day yesterday we decided to take it easy so we didn't leave the hotel until about 10am.
Circus Circus is a Casino and hotel that, as the name suggests is themed around a circus!! This lies no more than a mile north of our hotel on Las Vegas Boulevard South.
We
passed the Venetian with its manmade canal although Roisin did point out to me that ALL canals are man-made. A natural canal is called a ‘river'!!! Passing the Palazzo we had to navigate a walkway across the next junction. Due to the size of some of the roads that intersect the Strip, there are barriers to stop pedestrians from crossing. One has no option but to use the walk way, usually connecting two or more Casinos together!!
Across from the Palazzo stands the Wynn hotel on what used to be the site of the old Desert Inn that was demolished in 2001. I understand that the main feature of this $1.6 billion hotel and casino is that it houses an indoor mountain backed by a curtain waterfall that cascades in to a three acre indoor lake. Maybe, another time, maybe Sunday? For now we were content to watch the fountain display dance along to such music greats as
Consider yourself from Oliver and Lumiere's magical
Be our guest' from Disney's Beauty and the Beast!!
After the Wynn, travelling North, there is a parade of souvenir/gift shops which was a welcome break to peruse just as a respite from
the heat of the day. Thereafter, lies waste ground but not for long. Work is already well underway for Las Vegas's newest addition that will simply be known as
Resort World. This is to be a 6,500 room Chinese themed hotel and Casino scheduled for completion in 2019. As they say in this cash cow that is Las Vegas, there is always room for one more.
Circus Circus is one of the older Casino hotels built in 1955. At the entrance one is greeted by an enormous clown that acts as a billboard. The hotel is looking rather tired at the moment but that doesn't stop hoards of punters from making use of their ‘facilities'. Navigating our way through wave after wave of slots we took the stairs to the Midway level. This level is a mezzanine that runs around the whole of the building supposedly resembling a big top. On this floor, there are wall-to-wall carnival stalls (hook a duck, shooting range, tic-tac-toe, Derby Day Horse racing to name but a few.) Every day from 11am on the half hour, circus acts entertain the public whilst the gambling continues below. We took our position for the 11:30 show.
We were entertained by the resident clown who, by clown standards wasn't very funny despite the grease paint and a large foam red nose!! He was good at balancing tennis rackets on his chin and juggling hoops but not once did he so much as trip or stumble. He didn't even use the bucket of water filled with confetti gag. If he dropped the clown costume and concentrated on his juggling I could probably recommend him to a few cruise ships!! Following on from our opening act, a young lady from Argentina entertained us with her trapeze skills.
Show over it was time to move on. We descended back to ground level and followed the signs for the Adventure dome level. Wow, Circus Circus is like Dr Who's Tardis. It doesn't have the wow factor on the outside as some of its more modern counterparts but it doesn't stop such exclusive stores such as Tiffany and Prada having outlets in their mall. We spotted an advertisement on one of the columns promoting the Adventuredome (which was closed, by the way) All I can say to the Management is that if you have posters that wrap around columns and include
the word AMUSEMENT in the strap line make sure you use the correctly sized font so the whole word fits on one side of the column… just to avoid any misunderstanding!!!
We spent the afternoon pool side where we ended up acting as judge for two young German male guests who had obviously been inspired by the Diving from the 2016 Rio Olympics. We were asked to judge who had the best technique. Just to set the picture, we didn't witness a pike with double somersault and 1 ½ twists but more like a belly flop with double splat and extra splash!!! To keep the diplomacy we called it a draw!!
After an early tea at Denny's (I still have a few 20% discount coupons!!!) we took a leisurely stroll down to the Flamingo Casino. It was a warm evening still in the 80F's. The time was just on 7pm and the sidewalks were in full swing. Many people were milling around, stopping in the middle of the pavement to take selfies with little respect for other pedestrians. It was impossible to just walk in a straight line (although some would say this is something I have difficulty
with anyway at the best of times!!) After 20 minutes of manoeuvres we finally made it in to the comfort of an air conditioned Flamingo. Of all the shows available in Las Vegas we had decided to watch Donny & Marie (Osmond, just to clarify!!) I have seen them once before and although I was very apprehensive at the time I really enjoyed the show and would have been happy to see them again. Well, tonight I got that chance. They were very entertaining then and tonight was no exception. Even more so because from having seen them in a rather impersonal 10,400 seater stadium tonight they were up close and personal in this 700 seater auditorium. The house rules were ‘Strictly no photos or videos' so there is no proof but the show is a mix of old favourites, cover versions coupled with a lot of tom foolery (and Tom wasn't even on the bill!!) It is obvious that Donny and Marie still love what they do after 50 years plus in show business. Marie has such a versatile voice. She sang country, jazz, rock and even a Soprano version of Nessun Dorma…IN ITALIAN!!! Who would have thought that
Paper Roses medlied with Run DMC/Aerosmith's
‘Walk this Way' would work?? Now that's something you don't hear every day…only in Vegas!!! The layout of the auditorium was a mix of booths and tables. We watched the show from a table of six where we met Helen and Rich from Kansas. They had been in Vegas for almost a week but travelling home (driving) tomorrow. This was their final ‘goodbye' show (Helen and Rich not Donny & Marie!!)
The show finished shortly before 9pm so we hurried off to cross over where the world famous Bellagio dancing waters were shortly to commence. The show takes place on the small lake that fronts the resort. This is carefully choreographed dancing waters at its most exuberant. All others pale in to insignificant. Tonight the waters danced away to Frank Sinatra's ‘
Luck be a Lady tonight'. It's not that I like to be picky but if I were the management, a little bit of colour wouldn't go amiss!! Tomorrow we hire a car and drive to the Grand Canyon. It could be another long day. It depends on who's driving and how many times we get lost!!!
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Claire Bradshaw
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Loving catching up with the blog!