First Day, Running the Strip, and
Trip Start
Oct 08, 2008
1
3
6
Trip End
Oct 12, 2008
Las Vegas,
Nevada,
United States
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Since I missed the Bellagio fountains we decided to go to Margaritaville and get food and drinks. Again, to our dismay, they stopped serving food at midnight and it was about 12:15. Oh well, we just decided to order margaritas instead (~$9 + tip)
Dale Chihuly Ceiling at Bellagio
. Afterwards we decided to walk around Caesars Palace across the street so I could gamble a bit and then hit the bed. I lost a few dollars in slot machines but enjoyed it either way. Can't really complain on nickel machines. After we went back to our hotel, the Imperial Palace, and went to bed at around 2am. The hotel was nice enough, and was the cheapest main hotel on the strip so it is worth it. The other hotels in the price range were Circus Circus and the Stratosphere which are a dump and too far away, and way too far away respectively.Day 1
Since you dont sleep in Vegas.. we got up early. Being up for 24 odd hours isn't the funnest. After getting ready it was time to see the strip. Of course the first destination was the Bellagio and headed through the casino to the front desk and seeing the Dale Chihuly glass blown flower ceiling which is nothing sort of amazing. Near the front desk there is the conservatory, chocolate fountain, and the Dale Chihuly store. The conservatory and most of the Bellagio is always themed to the seasons. Here there were archways and flower settings with autumn styles as well as two gigantic robotic trees; one that has a face with moving eyes and one that looks the equivalent of a tree ent. After wandering around there we grabbed a strawberry and chocolate gelato, not quite as gelato like as Italy, but still great for about $5.35
Dale Chihuly Ceiling at Bellagio
. (Also, gelato in Italy is much cheaper). After the Bellagio (45 minutes or so) we went to Caesars Forum shops and wandered around the stores. The stores aren't really eventful except for Peter Lik's photography studio with some of his stellar pictures. The really neat thing about Caesars Forum shops is the facades and ceiling is designed to look like Rome, with the ceiling painted as a sky that has lights that change colors during the hour. There are also some fountains throughout that are very reminiscent of the ones I saw in Rome, which was quite neat. Out front of the shops there is their take on the Trevi Fountain and Winged Victory is near by. Really weird to have seen the real ones in Rome and Paris a few months ago respectively.
Not to be out done, it was time to go to the Venetian to check out Venice again. The outside of the Venetian has Doge's Palace, a smaller Rialto Bridge, and the Campanile. I can assure you that the view atop the Rialto Bridge in Venice is much much better than the one in Vegas. The one in Vegas overlooks the Mirage and the road. The one in Venice overlooks the waterway and Venetian buildings. The Venetian shops had a ceiling like Caesars but the middle of the walking area was converted into a canal with Venetian style bridges as walkways
Our Hotel, Imperial Palace
. The canals are complete with gondoliers that actually sing and water that is actually clean. After walking through all the shops you get dropped out in the equivalent of St Marks Square which is much smaller and not as interesting as the real St Marks Square. During the day they have a living statue and live costumed musicians which were pretty good however. The little touches made it amazing though - one of which was that a lot of the lighting poles were of the same style of that in Venice, minus the rose colored glass.Since it was getting to be about lunch time we took a free shuttle from the Imperial Palace to the Rio which is about a block or two off strip (and a block off strip is a bit of an understatement, it would have been a 40 minute walk easily). The buffet at the Rio was recommended to us as one of the best, and it didn't disappoint. It was $13 plus tip, for all you can eat of the best buffet style food with some unusual things thrown in like gourmet sushi and shrimp pesto pizza plus all you can eat gelato bar. I got a drink for $8 plus tip that was called an Amazonian with Midori, exotic juices, and Blue Curacao. I am not sure but I did not like one of the "exotic juices." Guess I should've got a mojito instead. After that we looked around the Rio, which doesn't have that much there and took a tram back to Paris, another hotel in the free shuttle service to the Rio since they are all owned by Harrah's
Inside Caesars Forum Shops
. My parents had gone down to New York New York earlier in the week and grabbed a 45 oz frozen margarita from Coyote's Ugly bar... which apparently is $18 but has $9 refills. So we hopped on the Deuce to go down to the South end of the strip to refill said glass. Vegas has a public bus system called The Deuce that has $2 one way passes or $5 24 hour passes. During the busy hours the bus is almost worthless, but during the off hours or to get to the Stratosphere / Fremont street it is a great luxury to avoid having to hail a taxi. We hopped on that to NY NY and filled up the margarita for $9 and walked around NY/NY, Excalibur, Luxor, Mandalay, and MGM Grand before heading to the M&M store.
NY/NY is setup to be like the New York skyline with statue of liberty and a roller coaster out front. True to its name the Excalibur is a castle setup and is one of the other cheaper properties on the strip, albeit rather far on the south end. Luxor happens to be my favorite out of any of those since I have had a fascination with Egypt for a long time and am going next year. The inside is rather dull although has some great replicas of the famous statues and obelisks like in Egypt. I bought a shot glass for $5 while there as well. The massive light that shoots up into the sky and massive sphinx outside are the selling points however. Mandalay is rather uneventful with exception to rumjungle which we went to the next day. MGM Grand has an indoor lion habitat for free with a few resident lions. There is a glassed in walkway that you can walk through and - when we happened to be there - had a lion and trainer sitting right on top which made for a few great photos. The M&M store is multiple floors of M&M paraphernalia with about 30 dispensers at the top full of random colored M&Ms - again a great photo op
Inside the Venetian, hey I've been here!
.After rushing around those places we stopped briefly at Paris to walk around and see the inside, but I will talk about that more later when were there for more than 5 minutes. After that we regrouped at the hotel for a few minutes before heading out to see my first Bellagio fountain show. After watching a couple of the shows it was time for me to go in and see my first of two shows for the trip, Cirque Du Soleil's "O". This would make my 5th unique Cirque and 6th overall. "O" is focused a bit more on the theatrical production rather than the insane skits, but it was quite amazing to see what some of the people did in the water especially when it came to some of the high dives that were likely from 100 ft in the air. Highly recommended - although two nights later I saw Cirque Du Soleil's "LOVE" which was quite possibly the best Cirque show I have seen.
After the show I saw another fountains show looking at the direction of Paris. It was really neat to see the lighted fountains at night, with the Eiffel Tower in the background. I met my parents up and we went to Margaritaville for a late dinner of a Cheeseburger in Paradise and I got a Raspberry Margarita (~$21 + tip). I like mine with lettuce and tomato, heinz 57 and french fried potatoes.
Afterwards I purchased a 24 hour Deuce pass and went back down to the Luxor/Excalibur area to get some nice night spots and long exposure pictures of the strip before heading back to the hotel and bed at 2am.
