A slow start to today, no rush, Vegas doesn’t shut!
We started the day with a walk along the strip, down as far as New York New York. It’s massive, with the Manhattan skyline depicted in its various towers, the Statue of Liberty standing outside just passed the Brooklyn Bridge!
We then went to a bus stop, and bought a 24hr pass each. We got the next bus down the strip to the Encore/Wynn Casinos, then we walked up to the Venetian Casino, with its indoor Gondola rides and Italian Piazza permanently at dusk. The insides of all the casinos are glitzy, brash, occasionally breathtaking and always busy. They all have something different to offer, to get the punters in off the street and a little lighter in their pockets when they leave. They all have “The Best Show in Town” and all seem to offer short free entertainment shows during the day.
We had lunch at “Guy Fieri’s Kitchen and Bar”, we highly recommend this place, the food was some of the best cafe style food we have had so far. I had Chicken Wings and Deb had a Thai style Lettuce Leaf Wrap plate, both were finger licking great!!
After lunch we went to see a Vegas Institution, “Fat Elvis” at Harrah’s. Apparently he has been on a bit of a diet and is only a shadow of his former self, my guess is he is only about 225kgs now!! It was an experience, every now and then he’d hop up onto his feet and wobble to the music. He had a pretty good voice, but watching the vintage Elvis movies and film clips on the big screen stole the show for us.
We went back to our hotel for a break after, “Elvis left the building”, to rest up for the nights entertainment, Absinthe, a bit of comedy, contortion, theatre, circus, acrobatics and burlesque.
WOW, what a show. If you ever get a chance to see it, just do it, you will not regret it. They have put together acts from around the world and the things they can do, just shouldn’t be able to be done. AMAZING!!!!!
We walked back to the hotel after the show, we enjoyed all of the lights and the water display at the Bellagio, Vegas has a different feel at night.
Deb here, I have never been to Vegas before. I was expecting it to be more garish than it is. I never realised that it is just one casino after another – I should google to see how many are here (72). The casinos are all inside very large hotels. A lot of money is obviously lost here!
It takes about half an hour to cross the road. There are only a few places you are able to cross the road, often having to go up stairs and over walkways over the road. I had no idea that the strip was either side of a very wide road. It takes ages to walk between hotels as they are the size of at least half a dozen or more hotels at home.
My favourite hotels are the ones that have beautiful flower arrangements inside them – The Bellagio (also has an amazing water feature) and one we went to today Wynn were very nice. The hotels also have pools outside in lovely gardens with many people sunbathing around the pools. On that note you have to pay a resort fee of $35 extra per person to stay at the hotels.
The hotels also have a lot ie dozens and dozens of high end shops in them – every hotel does! But I never saw anyone in them and they seem to stay open all day/night.
Tonight on our way to see Absinthe we went and had a look in the Mandarin Oriental, we went up to the 23rd floor where you check in and where they had a bar, the view was amazing overlooking the strip. Would have liked to have a drink in the bar and soak up the view, maybe someone else could do that for me!
There are a lot of people begging on the streets, which is sad to see.
One more thing, I asked a few people when we got here what the best thing to do in Vegas was and all of them said the Grand Canyon. Not one person mentioned anything about Las Vegas. Just about sums it up.
Looking forward to seeing the grand Canyon tomorrow.
