Las Vegas

  Las Vegas, Nevada, United States
Wednesday, July 16, 2008

16 July, from St. George to Las Vegas

Sunny 35°C/95°F in the morning and the same temperature but with 2 drops of rain in the afternoon.

Today a little more sleeping 'till half past eight. It is only a short ride today therefore we go direct on to the I15. We pass a time border again and at 10.00 o'clock we are already in Las Vegas.

First a coffee at Starbucks and then checking in at Planet Hollywood (PH). We go upstairs to examine our wonderful room. Really a beautiful room!. Bathroom has a separate space with toilet, separate shower space and a generous bad. The room has a Bruce Willis theme and has been funned up with things from his movie The Jackall. Both the bed and the TV are large. But the most beautiful item of the room is the view on the fountains of the Bellagio!

After we inspected our room we went to have lunch in PH and after this we continued to the shopping area, the onemileshops. Like when we were in Treasure Island we also received discount coupons in PH for both the restaurants as for the shops. We have to pick these up and after we did so, we left PH and walked on to the Las Vegas Boulevard, direction South. 

Harley Davidson cafe

We come along several small shops where they sell typical tourists "trash". Since some of my colleagues have become parents recently, I can buy here all kinds of baby t-shirts! In the Showcase Frans has to recover from all this shopping and that goes very well in a water massage.

water massage

This thing looks like a sandwich maker closes you in, except for your head, with your clothes on, and as you are protected by a plastic shield, water jets give you the massage. It is really good for the mussels so energetic we continued our way to the near located M&M's World. Incredibly what you can get in the field of M&M's.

At MGM we have to take of course a look at the Lion habitat where two lionesses on age (around 9 years) let themselves half sleepy, pet by their attendants. The restaurants at MGM look very good to us. We take a 24 hours monorail ticket and return to our hotel for a little bit freshen up. The monorail stops at Bally's, from where it is only a small distance bit to PH. Freshened and dressed up we take the monorail back to MGM and enter at Blue Sea. It proves to be a restaurant of Michael Mina. Someone we don't know but who we won't forget either because he is probably the one who has something to do with the delicious food here. Everything is very good, tasteful, delicious,  also the cheesecake parfait which I took as dessert, melts on my tongue and I won't forget this treat quickly ! 

New York, New York

With our bellies stuffed, we walk through Tropicana to Excalibur. The theme of this hotel/casino is kind of Merlin the wizard in the castle of Arthur, very nice, especially for children, a little less for us, therefore we go to something more adult like; New York, New York. Because my heart is after recent treatment not ready yet for the roller coaster we don't do the ride. Frans, who hasn't had heart problems, or any medical problems at all for that matter, actually was looking forward to do it but didn't want to leave me alone, so he was a little sad. But sadness can easily be taken away at Coyote Ugly, so we went for a Margarita.

With our cocktails we decide to do our first gambling attempts of this evening in this casino. We get in roughly with $20 but discovered already fast that our financial luck does not lie here.

We walked through the Monte Carlo and after that we tried our fortune at the Bellagio. First we went to see the beautiful flower garden of Bellagio. Here was, among other flowery things, a miniature of the hotel with the fountains that were actually working !. At the slot machines we learned very fast that this casino saves the financial luck for others.

miniature Bellagio

In the meantime it has become midnight, officially it was the 17th of July and we had our one year wedding anniversary! After a hug and a kiss we went to our own hotel, Planet Hollywood for the last gambling attempt. We got to the conclusion that we will have to have it from love instead of money.
Somewhere round half past one this long day stopped.

From Saint George to Las Vegas only 130 miles.