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Published: August 3rd 2008
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As we said in our previous blog we decided to change our route and pay a visit to Viva Las Vegas, with the hope of making our fortune and never having to return…….
The 7 hour Greyhound journey went fine and we are actually starting to enjoy the trips because it gave us a chance to rest from all the sight seeing we were doing. We arrived in Las Vegas early evening, and we were both instantly mesmerised by the shear size and excellence of all the casinos and flashing lights down the strip and our hotel was slap bang in the centre of it all! We stayed in the Imperial Palace (opposite to Caesar’s Palace) and got a superb deal for the rooms. We paid £90 for 3 nights, which is nearly the same price as we were paying for a dorm in a hostel!! We thought that there must have been some sort of catch, but everyone said that the rooms were cheap because they wanted us to spend all our money in the casinos…..obviously this wasn’t aimed at us backpackers!!
Once in our room Kim automatically dived on one of the queen beds and a huge
smile came over her face and she said “I love it!! I never want to return to a hostel again and be woken up by snoring or rude antics going on in the bed next to me!!......please??!!” James did his normal thing of going through all the drawers and finding all the free stuff he could use, while going through all the channels on the TV.
We were both on a huge high as the simplest of luxuries (big bed, clean carpet, ensuite, free biscuits etc) where now readily available and James wanted to get changed and go out and check out what Las Vegas had to offer. But before arriving we had both made a promise that we were going to stay in our room all night and relax. So instead while Kim ordered room service James went on the hunt for some booze and we lived it up like Rock Stars!!!! Don’t worry there was no throwing the TV out of the window, we are not that wild!!
The following day we slept in until 12:30pm and couldn’t believe the time when we woke up, we must have really needed some sleep. We got ready and
went down to the casino floor where we were met by the loud continuous sounds of electronic noises and a bad Elvis impersonator. We had a brief look around before making our way over to some of the bigger and well known casinos.
We both found it hard to take it all in at first as there was so much going on and our senses where in a mad overload.
Every casino had its own and very distinct theme, listed below is some that we visited:
Caesars Palace - Roman Theme with very impressive décor and great shopping and bars (Our favourite casino on the strip)
Bellagio - Again very elegant and made famous for the huge fountains outside that put on an awesome display every half an hour (Have a look at the video)
Venetian - Italian Theme with a river and gondola’s running through it.
Luxor - Egyptian Style, designed in a massive pyramid.
Treasure Island - Pirates of the Carrabian theme.
MGM - Famous for its huge sporting events
New York New York - The pictures say it all!! It also had a massive rollercoaster running through it.
Excalibur - Knights of the round table
and Medieval theme.
Later that evening we got dolled up and hit the town. Kim wanted to check out this bar in Caesar’s Palace called Shadow Bar that was very exclusive and well-known for having strippers dancing behind a canvas screen with a light behind them, therefore projected their naked ‘shadow’ onto the screen………….James didn’t needed to be asked twice!
Sipping our £10 cocktails with enjoyed the show and spent a lot of the evening people watching and taking it all in. Now that we were both a little merry we thought we would go clubbing at a rooftop bar and after Kim negotiated a price to get in, we were told by the bouncers that only girls could get in free and James would have had to pay £25 just to get in!! James started protesting at how sexist that was and asked the man if he knew J. Peverell (The famous celebrity we spotted in LA), the guy just gave him one of those stares so we declined their nice offer and went back to our own casino to try and win some cash.
We began our gambling venture playing roulette and James started off using $20
of his own money which lasted about 10 minutes before it belonged to the ‘house’. Kim was observing the rules and fancied a flutter herself, so she put down $20 of her money and started off doing well - she won $9. For the next half an hour Kim kept winning and winning and soon enough she was up to $50. Now we are not sure if this was luck or the fact the with every spin Kim was praying to her grandfather to pull some strings with the ‘The Big man above’, either way she was winning. As a bit of encouragement James said “If you win enough money for a ticket to see the Phantom of the Opera, I will pay the rest”…..This only spurred Kim on more, and as you know the more you win the greedier you get and soon enough she was back down to $30, so decided to walk away while she was up.
After all this gambling we were starting to get hungry so we took a short walk over to McDonalds. The queue was massive so James decided to run all the way back to the hotel to pick up a bottle
of vodka so we could have some drinks on the cheap and put it in our Mac D’s sprite!. In the mean time Kim got chatting to some French guys and when they asked her where she was from, to which she replied England, they started to serenade her by singing ‘Swing Low, Sweet Chariot…….’ Kim went all red and asked what song it was meant to be!!! Ha
The next day we woke up slightly hung over and didn’t surface until 2pm. We spent the rest of the day looking around the remaining casinos and doing a little shopping before retiring back to the room, where we enjoyed some room service which happened to be our healthiest meal since we had been away.
We had another early night because the next day we were getting another epic Greyhound bus journey down to San Diego.
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Si
non-member comment
Hey you guys!!!
Heya you two, glad to see you are having such an amazing time, this blog business is a brilliant idea, although being greeted with it monday morning at work back in rubbish sheffield makes me wish i'd follow suit and come join you two, haha. We'll see maybe? But the pics and tales of your exploits are fab and had me chuckling away at work. Speaking of which should probably try and do some before i get told off. Will email you properly soon guys, keep having fun, not sure if gonna be able to look at the fiji photos without going green and compulsive purchase a flight though! Stay safe guys and keep 'em coming! Missing you both loads. Si.xxx P.S. Oh Dave by the way, was inspired by your trip to the tattoo parlour over in NYC, so designed my own and gonna take it down felines at some point and get a price, will have to email it you and see what you think.