Vegas

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Four days in Vegas , the gambling Mecca slap bang in the Nevada desert.

Vegas simply has to be seen to be believed its completely crazy unlike anywhere else we have visited.

Firstly, its scorching hot, as you would expect from the desert , its no wonder they had to think of an activity you can do inside and of course they chose gambling.

Gambling here is everywhere and completely in your face, there are rows and rows of slot machines in the airport when you get off the plane, there are slot machines in convenience stores and of course there are the huge casinos!!

We stayed at the circus circus hotel and casino, we can assure you that this has absolutely nothing to do with the Barrow-In-Furness dive pub with the same name.

For starters this place is huge.......thousands of rooms, its also as cheap here for a double room as it is to stay at a double room in a youth hostel over here. However, unlike most youth hostels this place has two casinos, five restaurants, three bars, a shopping plaza, a circus big top, an indoor theme park and two swimming pools.

Circus Circus is also one of the less impressive Casino / Hotel complexes all of which are open to anybody. Most have themes, i.e. the Luxor is shaped like a pyramid, treasure island - pirates and New York New York is built to mimic the New York skyline. Some casinos have roller coasters and anything else they can think of to part you with your hard earned cash!!

As far as gambling is concerned you don't have to even gamble there is more than enough stuff to look at without placing a bet, however, if you have a problem then this is not the place for you! Some card tables will let you slap on a $10 000 bet with a minimum bet of $300, that’s a lot of cash.

Us however, we tired our luck on the 1c machines as an exercise in damage limitation. In fact we didn't loose too much and we even won a bit now and again even when we ventured over to the blackjack table!

The best bit though is that whilst you are losing your money on the machines the casino tries to keep you there with free drinks, now I'm not talking about like in British casinos when after 9 hours of solid gambling some teenager comes over and offers you a luke warm coffee and a partly burnt cheese toasty! these people offer drinks quite frequently including cocktails. So if you play your cards right, no pun intended, you can be watered free of charge and only loose a couple of $$'s over a few hours.

You can't just win money either , you can also win cars, watches and pretty much anything else you can think of.

Make no bones about it the casinos win and they win big time , you only need to look at the size of these places to have a feel for the money involved and how much these places must earn and if you think about this for too long it can get a little bit depressing when you see this place for what it really is, a bottomless pit for everybody to throw their money in under the pretense of entertainment. That said and done its a really fun place to visit just to gawp at everything!.

We didn't just dedicate the week to gambling, we also took a tour to the Grand Canyon, that was even more amazing. If you don't know, the grand canyon is 277 miles long, a mile deep and, at the place we were, 16 miles wide. Its simple surreal to look across at this huge gaping hole in the ground and know that what you are looking at is so vast. If you did not get told the dimensions you would not believe it.

Anyway, shall post photos when I get chance as have not been able to find internet for any amount of time in order to post photos. Also forgive the spelling and grammar. No spell checker and in a rush.!

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Photos

Luxor
Luxor Hotel and Casino

Excalibur
Hotel and Casino

slots
at new york, new york

Comments

[Nasima]

Wow wee
Wow .. cant wait to see the pics.. sounds amazing.. take care .. hope to catch up with you on your next destination

[stu]

did you see johny there?
did you see johny vegas there did i understand you correctly did you say john was gambling or gamboling thru nevada?

[Dad]

WOw what fantastic pics! i agree with Stu's comments. Gamboling through Nevada sounds just like John and Clare