I love Las Vegas. I like that Las Vegas has everything. Everything and anything you want to do, you can do in Las Vegas.
Drew Carey
When the alarm went off at 3:45 AM I’m not even sure if I had slept yet LOL. I’m not the best flyer, in fact I took flying lessons when I was a teenager to try to help me over my fear. I’ve gotten much better but it still leaves me a bit queasy LOL
I was at the front counter of our hotel at 4 AM to check out… Too bad the desk clerk wasn’t. There was another couple checking out as well possibly catching an early morning flight too? I wouldn’t know because they were completely unfriendly and rude. When the desk clerk finally came in we both put our keys on the desk. The other guy pushed mine aside and said “Don’t help her I was here first.” The clerk assured him that there wasn’t anything to do and then said |Ok room 220, Kristin?” I said “that’s me!” and the guy yelled, “Don’t even look at her, I am first!”
I smiled at the clerk and said, “no problem! Email the receipt please. Bye.” And I left.
Harrumph not the way I wanted to be starting this day.
We took Alaskan Airlines and we had a short flight to Seattle a two hour layover where we went to Chili’s for breakfast,
and then just under a 2 hour flight to McCarran airport in Las Vegas.
F is for Flight 🙂
We were surprised when we landed and the first thing we saw in the airport were slot machines! We knew we were in Vegas for sure LOL.
So obviously it would be cheaper to take a shuttle from the airport to our hotel. I studied all the different modes of transportation and as I really wanted a limo to pick us up LOL I settled for something right in the middle called a taxi 🙂
I had read in many travel blogs that some taxi drivers like to take the more scenic route and to always ask them not to take the tunnel to the strip. So, of course I did and apparently I insulted our driver LOL he then slammed our hotel pick, Bahahaha
I booked our stay at the MGM Grand. I did this for many reasons. I split the strip up into 3 sections so for us the MGM was a perfect location. It also has a bus stop directly outside, the tram in the back and it is the freaking MGM Grand!
I have to say out of all of my planning picking the hotel was indeed the hardest decision I had to make. There are so many great hotels out there I read so many reviews on trip advisor, what I wanted and what my main goal was a nice view of the strip and a central location. I didn’t want to have to spend time travelling to places and I wanted us to be in the heart of it all.
Go big or go home!
I picked a King Premier View room which is like the fourth level of rooms. Because I chose a Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday, the price was completely reasonable to stay in a super nice room. Monday and Tuesday were only $71 a night and Wednesday was just a bit more. It doubled on weekends. It cost us more to stay in Kelowna LOL. So, just remember when planning a trip pick weekdays, it’ll help you save money to do things that you really want to do. I mean really, who goes to Vegas and stays in the room anyways?
When we walked in to check in, I was completely overwhelmed and blown away! There may have been more people in the lobby of the MGM Grand than in my entire city LOL
Being noon on a Monday the line was quite reasonable and I was speaking to an agent in a matter of minutes. I had paid a bit extra for an early check-in, however, our room wasn’t ready yet. They were fantastic about it. In fact, I have to say the service that we received in the 3 days there was AH-Mazing! Vegas definitely knows how to treat it’s visitors 🙂 He took off the charge and gave me our room keys and told me he would call me when our room was ready. He offered us access to the pool,
the casino or anything that we wanted to do while we waited. He also directed us to a area where a nice employee would look after our luggage for us. We tipped him $5 and when the phone call came 20 minutes later saying our room was ready, our luggage was brought up right away. Getting to our room was ridiculous, in a good way! By the 3rd day we finally had it figured out LOL. We had to go to a round room with hallways leading to different areas… Wet Republic/pools, Rooms, the Underground, etc. It had a giant fountain in the middle 🙂 There you take 1 of the many elevators up to the rooms. When you get off there is another round room with different archways for the HUNDREDS of rooms! We were on floor 27 room 125!
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| We looked out on New York New York and the rest of the Strip! |
Options time LOL! We had reservations at 4:30. I asked Ninja if he would rather stick around our hotel or go to the hotel where our next planned event was?
He was all raring to go LOL so we got showered and dressed and went downstairs. Tip: use your concierge. No matter where you are talk to the front desk, talk to the concierge. They know what is up. Every resort had a concierge that was super helpful. They would print up tickets from any resort, make your reservations, point you in the right direction, or just laugh with you when you are squealing with jubilant excitement LOL
In Las Vegas the best mode of transportation is the Deuce. It is a 24 hour double-decker bus that pretty much stops everywhere on the strip, they even have affiliated buses that will take you to the south and north shopping outlet malls. I had bought our bus passes in advance so that we didn’t have to go anywhere and get them. A three day pass cost $20 each.
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| The Concierge directed us to the easiest way to the Strip and just steps away from the bus stop 🙂 |
We took the Deuce down to the Venetian. Wow.
I think that was one of my favorites. It could be that it was one of the first resorts that we saw, but man, with the canals and the beautiful cobblestone, it was a beautiful place to visit. We put in $20 and we played until I was getting nervous that we would miss our first appointment LOL. We cashed out and walked away with our winnings as our “free” gambling money for the rest of our time there. We were very fortunate to have this money that we used as our play money, gave us the opportunity to put in $20 at pretty much every casino that we visited 🙂
Because I did my homework I knew that the The Palazzo and the Venetian were attached so it was very easy to get to our location.
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| “Are you talking to me?” LOL |
We walked up to Dal Toro Museum of fine automobiles and I said “we have an appointment at 4:30 for my husband “
Ninja looked around, raised an eyebrow and said “appointment?” LOL
Ninja is not a car guy. He is however, a lover of sports cars and luxury automobiles.
I handed him his next poker chip and on it said, Ferrari.
I had found a Groupon that allowed him to drive a luxury automobile around downtown Las Vegas for 20 minutes LOL
When you plan as much as I did I had to expect a few bumps in the road. Our first bump was when the gentleman said “Oh dear I’m afraid the Ferrari’s check engine light came on this morning and we won’t be able to drive that today.”
Seriously?
Even though I was quite disappointed he offered to let Ninja drive the Aston Martin instead. It definitely wasn’t as pretty especially as it was a former race car and had type all over the body. But, they gave him extra time and he did get to drive a James Bond car down the strip for a half an hour LOL so our first bump wasn’t that bad 🙂 He was super excited and nervous at the same time. It is hard enough driving around a new city but in a super fast car with paddle gears on the wheel too? LOL They had a course mapped out and it all went well! I just wish I could have taken pictures in the gorgeous sun instead of the parking garage 🙁
While Ninja was off racing around downtown Las Vegas LOL I checked my handy notes 🙂 I typed out all of the Groupon’s that we would be nearby. If we chose to go to any of those places we would use their free Wi-Fi and just download the Groupon.
Dal Toroalso has a fine dining Italian restaurant. Come on, we were at the Palazzo/Venetian LOL, there was a Groupon for $35 that allowed us to eat $60 worth of food and drinks!
Perfect! So while he was off driving I purchased the Groupon, and sat on the patio and ordered myself a drink 🙂
When he got back he was pretty revved up LOL and he ordered a drink and we ordered a delicious salad and a pasta to split.
There is so much offered in Vegas. There is food everywhere. We felt it was better to share delicious meals so that we can eat more later LOL. Our bill was exactly $60 so all we had to do was leave a tip LOL.
This part is very important… Just because you use a Groupon or coupon or any other discount does not mean that you got Grouponed service. Is very important to always tip your server on the appropriate amount. That means, the full bill before discount. 🙂
From there, we walked across to Treasure Island,
and then over to the Mirage.
We went to the Beatles store
and we were hoping to see the volcano. That is one of the wonderful things about Vegas almost every resort has free shows. Look them up and take advantage of each one of them. We did 🙂
Unfortunately, although the website said the volcano erupted at seven and every hour afterwards, the concierge told me that the first show would be at 8 PM. And we didn’t really want to wait for an hour so we moved on.
We went to the Wynn. OMG what a beautiful place.
It was very interesting to see the different manner of dress, type of people, and price of drinks LOL from each resort to the next. We went down an elegant escalator right onto a beautiful patio overlooking a pond and waterfall. The lounge was called Parasol Down.
I handed Ninja his next poker Chip, Falls.
We had some pretty fancy drinks and a bowl of nuts waiting for the show to start. Again, I had researched so that I knew that the free show was about to start on the half an hour. What I didn’t know is that the show consisted of a head rising up from the pond with huge lips, lip-synching to the song from Ferris Bueller’s Day off LOL “Oh Yeah”… lol
We finished our drinks and headed outside to the nearest Deuce stop.
When I had asked people what we couldn’t miss in Vegas, one place kept on coming up, downtown Las Vegas or better known as Fremont Street.
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| VERY FULL DEUCE! 🙂 |
When we stopped and got out I handed him his last poker chip of the day, Fremont Street.
What an amazing, crazy, historical, anything goes place! LOL it is like three blocks of naked bums, apparently I thought that was hilarious and took a ton of bum pictures BAHAHAHA
There were huge drinks, and SlotZila the largest slot machine EVER lol, which had 4 people zip cording out of it every few minutes all away down the street.
Above the street was a canopy playing videos and music,
while every street corner had a stage, one with an Elvis impersonator,
one with the country band, and one with a pop singer… Anything you could possibly imagine was right there in front of you. We even took our picture at Binion’s with $1 million!
It was a party on the street LOL I got a strawberry and piña colada drink and Ninja got a huge ass beer LOL and we quickly realized that those $30 rounds of drinks were going to do us in LOL. If you looked you could find Corona for three dollars but when in Vegas… LOL
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| Vegas even has ZOLTAR!!!!!! |
By midnight we were pretty exhausted LOL we hopped back on the Deuce and headed for home. Now, I have to say I loved the Deuce… Except late at night LOL The strip was so busy we could walk faster than the bus was going. I know this to be fact because by the time we hit the Mirage Ninja was feeling the effects of his huge beer lol. We got off so he could use the bathroom and he said “I’ll be right back” LO, famous last words! You have to think, these resorts are huge! So big that it takes 15 minutes just to get to the front door let alone finding a bathroom! We were lucky that we had already been there and Ninja made it his vacation goal to use every bathroom on the strip LOL.
We walked back to the hotel and got into bed around 2:30. There’s something to be said for the oxygen they pump into those hotels LOL because for anybody that knows me, they know that I am usually in bed, maybe not sleeping, but in bed by 9 PM LOL
Our first day in Vegas was freaking fantastic! Ninja didn’t stop smiling and now he truly knew what he was in for LOL
Stay tuned for our fun filled next day that was brought to Ninja by the letter H.
