We tour the Strip
Trip Start
Apr 18, 2007
1
85
173
Trip End
Oct 16, 2007
Las Vegas,
Nevada,
United States
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
It was baking again (in fact it's going to be HOT for the nest 7+ days) - we took the rail down to Paris and wandered around thru Bally's into Paris doing the girly thing and shopping (only window - we can't afford any more weight). We were working our way to New York, New York which we arrived at via MGM.
We always headed for "America" - a diner with a large 3D map of America on the wall. We ended up at the bar rather than a booth where we had an excellent breakfast and waitress-service from Crystal. After that we headed for Excalibur (where we're staying in a few weeks time) to check it out - seems ok.
We were flagging by now so took the monorail back to Sahara where a coke and further losses at the blackjack machine followed. We seem to be finding that the machines must be fixed - we are used to playing for hours on $1 previously and often being "up". Now the casino seem to just win every time and that just ain't fun!!
We wonder about the future of Vegas - they are building acres of rabbit-hutch housing on barren desert land and there are 6,000 people a month moving into the area to live (whaaaaaaaat?). A hotel (New Frontier) was brought for $165m in 1997 and has just been sold for $1.3bn - it is a low-rise hotel with a huge single-storey car park and looks out of place on the strip. We stayed here two years ago and it was dated - it had $2 beers and mud-wrestling as "attractions" - it is so obviously worth more as a building plot (altho it will be sad to see a 1947 casino go out of business).
But the building is going on EVERYWHERE - they are putting condo's on the strip and Wynn is building a sister casino next door called Encore plus there is a huge Trump Tower going up one block off the Strip. All this money has to be recovered - we wonder how they are going to be able to offer cheap deals. Certainly the cheap food and drink has gone - it is one of the most expensive places we've been - and really isn't a class-act....
Later in the afternoon Munchie managed to get a snooze in while MJ managed some pool time in hazy sunshine and 100F temperature.
In the evening we went to our favourite restaurant in Vegas - "Nine Fine Men" in New York, New York. We got there for 8.30pm via the Monorail and managed to get a table downstairs in preparedness for the 9pm Irish band. The food was excellent and MJ got two pints of Guinness during the meal. Wonderful atmosphere and great music.
