We actually took it pretty easy on this trip. We didn't want to have to come home a rest from our vacation. We were going to spend time with each other and time with our best friends, Karen and Aaron. Since you KNOW I brought my camera, and you KNOW I took some pictures (not as many as I had thought I would, but still quite a few), I'm going to tell our journey through pictures (as much as I can). I've really cut down on the pictures, really!! There are more on Flickr.
We picked up Grandma from the airport on Sunday and she stayed with us a few days before Shannon and I left on Tuesday for our trip. We are so very thankful that Shannon's mom is willing to travel down here and stay with Landon for long periods of time. She comes down about 2-3 times a year for a week or even weeks at a time. We are also thankful that Shannon's Dad loans us his wife for that long as well. Thanks guys.
So Tuesday morning we head out for our trip. We were on a PACKED flight, but everything was running on time. When we were getting close to Vegas we flew over the Grand Canyon. I've never seen the Grand Canyon before. I knew it was big, and I knew that I couldn't comprehend how big it was, but I had no idea it was THAT BIG!! As much as I don't like photos from inside airplanes, I had to snap a photo. We were sitting in an exit row over the wing so the shot wasn't to great, but anyways....
When we landed at the airport our friends, Karen and Aaron met us in Baggage Claim. Their flight landed about 30 minutes before ours. They were joined by our limo driver.
After we checked in we made our way to our room. I had to make sure no one touched anything until I could get some pictures. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me yet because the bellman was still bringing up our luggage. But I had my small camera in my purse. The room pictures are on Flickr with about a hundred others.
I didn't take my camera with me because I thought we were just going to lunch, but we decided to get out and about for the afternoon. I didn't take many pictures because I thought I would get back down this way before the week was over with my "real camera," but I never did.
Here is the New York, New York Hotel.
While inside, Shannon had his shoes shined.
At this point I was still pretty much in awe. The strip was much more than I expected. For one thing they have all these people passing out these little business card looking things. Upon closer inspection I realized they were pictures advertising women. When you looked down, there were hundreds, or thousands of them on the ground.
We walked around the south end of The Strip for the rest of the afternoon. We visited the M&M store - a four story store of nothing but M&M branded stuff. We bought Landon's two gifts here - a crazy straw and a matchbox M&M Race Car.
After a few hours we headed back to the hotel to get ready for dinner. We had reservations at Mon Abi Gabi in the Paris Hotel at 9:00. We could see part of the Bellagio Fountains from our table. A great steak and good "french fries" too. Our favorite part of the meal was the dessert - the manager offered us a Banana Foster and a White Chocolate Bread Pudding, on him!! Again, I even had my camera with me and didn't take pictures at dinner...but I did take some pictures on our way to dinner.
The Paris Hotel
The Crystals Shopping district just outside our hotel.
After dinner we walked around the Paris Hotel and played a few slots. It was getting late and we were off our inner clocks by two hours. To us it felt like it was past 2:00 AM so we headed "home" for the evening. To get to our elevators you had to go through a guarded door. Since we were in the Sky Suite Towers we had private elevators for our section of the hotel. Here is Shannon with the "bodyguard" as we called him!
On Wednesday we had reservations at the Spa in our hotel. Shannon and I had planned to wake up early and go to the gym. I promised myself I was going to get a good workout in at least once on this trip. Although I walked A LOT during the 4 days, I knew I had to stick to my plan. The gym was very nice. After our workout Shannon and I headed up to the spa. We had a couples massage. It too, was very nice. After the massage Karen and I walked around the hotel a little bit more to check out the swimming pools and other features. We met the guys for lunch at the Buffet!! Lunch was just ok, but the Gelato we had for dessert was AMAZING!!! After lunch, Shannon had an appointment for a straight razor shave (he's always wanted to do that) and Karen and Aaron wanted to sit by the pool and take a nap. I wanted to go take pictures!! I left out by myself and headed the other way on The Strip. I had plans to see some of the things a few friends told me I MUST SEE. First I headed to Caesars Palace. Lauren said shopping at Caesars was life changing - so I guess I had to do it. It was pretty amazing. Unfortunately, I didn't buy anything while I was there. I had a few things I wanted to get for some people, but I wasn't really in the mood to shop. I spent most of my time just looking around. The details and designs were amazing. (I've used that word a lot - I'm sure I'll say it a hundred more times!).
Hadley told me that I MUST eat at Joe's and get the pretzel bread. So I found Joe's on the first floor of Caesars.
After spending a while in the Forum Shops at Caesar's I headed "next door" to the Bellagio. I say "next door" because nothing is really NEXT DOOR. The next hotel can be about a 10-15 minute walk away, but they will be "next door". The hotels are massive.
I went inside the Bellagio to see the gardens. I was supposed to find the candy store and see the Chocolate Fountain, but I never made it that far. I wanted to get outside by 3:00 to see the fountain show. The center garden after you enter the hotel was quite whimsical. It was something I wish Landon could have seen.
The ceiling in the lobby was made of these glass flowers. Much like the ones I'd seen earlier in the gallery near our hotel. They remind me of the Jade-Glass flowers I like so much.
One of the other things on my MUST SEE list, was the fountains at the Bellagio. Photos can not do this justice. You just can not imagine this unless you see it. I actually didn't take that many photos of it because I spent most of my time experiencing it. I did take some video footage of part of it - I'll try to get it uploaded soon.
Here is the Paris hotel again in the daytime as you would see it from the Bellagio Bridge.
I was a bit intrigued by the older hotels in this area as well. I didn't go inside any of them because I didn't have much time. But someday I would like to peek inside these. I needed to be back to our hotel by 4:00 to get ready for dinner so I took some photos of the inside of the Aria on my way up to our suite.
This water wall was in the circle drive of the hotel. It was pretty cool. I wish I'd taken video of that as well, because pictures just don't do it justice.
This set of sculptures intrigued me all week. It reminded me of mercury.
The wall between the casino and the poker room was made of cards. Gold Cards.
This was a light fixture in the casino.
This was the wall of the elevator.
We had reservations at Vic & Anthony's in the Golden Nugget on Wednesday evening so we headed to Fremont Street. This was in "old town" Vegas - The Original Strip. We had a retro night planned in Downtown. This also happened to be St. Patrick's Day, so you can imagine the crowd - and the green!! We walked around Fremont Street a little bit before we had to go to dinner.
On our way into dinner we passed this display of the Largest Golden Nugget.
One of the iconic signs on Fremont Street.
This man used spray paint to create these amazingly detailed pictures.
I liked seeing the Razorback flag hanging in honor of March Madness!!
After dinner we hit the slots in some of the downtown casinos. The slots at the Fremont Hotel were the best for us, and especially for Karen!! This was the first big hit on a slot machine. It might have been the biggest one time hit for the whole trip!
Some of the other "old hotels" on Fremont Street.
We spent several hours on Fremont Street before Aaron threatened to leave us there if we didn't get a cab back to the hotel. I do have to agree with Aaron, it was late (or early - depending on how you look at it)and the smoke was much worse in these casinos than the ones we had been in earlier in the trip, although ALL of them are heavy on the smoke (except our hotel which is an environmentally friendly hotel).
We woke up on Thursday with no real morning plans. We took it easy. Shannon and I headed to the Sky Suite Tower Reception area and grabbed some pastries for breakfast. Karen and Aaron slept in and Shannon had some work to do later in the morning, so I used some of the amenities in our suite. I took a long hot shower and used the steam shower for quite some time. I put on the plush robe and slippers provided for my convenience, and then sat in the living room and read a book! I loved it!
After a while Shannon and I headed out to the North end of the Strip so I could see the Wynn Hotel and the Venetian Hotel - two other MUST see items for me. We took a cab to the Wynn and went inside. The inside of this hotel is spectacular. This hotel cost about half of what the entire City Center cost to build (that is the whole area around our hotel) - Billions of Dollars!!! You can tell. The attention to details is outstanding.
While in the Wynn we played a few slots! They weren't too nice to us, so we headed to lunch, at Wendy's! After lunch we went to the Venetian Hotel. I wanted to see the Gondolas.
Overall, I wasn't too impressed with what I saw at the Venetian. Now, in all fairness, I only saw a little bit. But of the parts I did see this hallway was by far the most impressive! Doesn't that look like it should truly be in Italy?!?!
After the Venetian, Shannon and I headed back to our hotel to meet up with Karen and Aaron. Everyone wanted to spend some time by the pool except for me; I wanted to go shopping. I went to Crystals in the City Center right outside our hotel. I wanted to pick something up for a friend back home. A special gift for her on an important day in her life. Something special. Where else but Tiffany & Co., right! I did a bit more shopping here and then headed back to the suite to get ready for dinner. We had reservations at Emeril's in the MGM Grand and tickets to see the Cirque du Soleil Show - KA. Dinner at Emeril's was just alright. It wasn't bad, it just wasn't quite what any of us were expecting. Compared to the amazing dinners we had already eaten that week, it was hard to stack up against those. But the desserts were delicious!!! After dinner we played a few more slots and then went to see KA. To say that the show was amazing would be an understatement. I'd never seen a Cirque show before, but I kind of knew what to expect. The set and costumes were fabulous. The acrobatics and choreography were mesmerizing. It was amazing.
The set wrapped about halfway around the audience.
This was one of our favorite scenes. These wheels spun around and the guys walked, ran, jumped, and even jumped rope on them.
Another very interesting scene. These pegs were "arrows" shot from the rafters (first picture) and the isles of the audience that popped out of this wall that was almost vertical. These guys climbed up the wall and pegs like they were walking on a sidewalk, except they were slipping and sliding.
After the show we headed back to the casino floor for a little bit. We had planned to play a few slots to give the taxi que time to wind down. While Shannon and Karen were playing a few slot machines Aaron and I wandered over to the Craps tables. They were having a grand ole time over there and I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. Several times that week I'd stuck my head in at a craps game to see if I could figure out what they were doing. I knew NOTHING about the game, but I wanted to play. It just looked entertaining. At one of the tables I met a nice man who was willing to explain to me what was going on. There are so many rules and so much going on at one time, he just gave me the basics. After watching the guys play for about 15-20 minutes I decided to join in - if I didn't I was going to regret it. I had $100 and I cashed in. It was a $25 table so I only got 4 chips!! I started out playing pretty slow, one chip, two chips, pretty conservative, but I was winning. We had a good shooter on our hands!! After a few rolls I was getting a bit more brave. Plus, I was playing with house money at that point because I'd made well more than the $100 I brought to the table. I noticed that several people had put a bet on the "hard eight" in the center of the table, so I joined in too. I didn't notice that they were making $1, $5, bets, I just put two of my green chips ($25 each) on the "hard eight" (double 4's). About 5 minutes later the shooter rolls double 4's. The table goes wild. Then I realize what I've done. I've just made $450!! After the next round I decided to cash out of the table and cash in my chips!! It was the biggest win of the week. I was so excited!!
And since it was now past midnight and we were leaving in the morning we headed back to the hotel.
We woke up early the next morning and packed our bags. We went downstairs to the reception area for breakfast and caught our limo back to the airport. Here we are in the limos on our way back to the airport. Not quite the same energy as the ride to the hotel 4 days earlier.
Overall, we had a great time. Would I go back? Yes. Would I go often? No. But I did enjoy the time with Shannon and great friends.
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