Viva Las Vegas

We popped into Vegas for a few nights on our way back from NZ and were pleased to find it’s just like Disney Land, only for grown ups. We hadn’t realised quite how long the strip is (almost 7kms), so were stoked our hotel (Caesar’s Palace) was smack bang in the middle of all the action. Our first night we took in the sights and sounds of the strip itself – the fountain at the Bellagio (which is not a fountain, it’s a 9 acre lake), the first of three visits there; the erupting volcano at the Mirage; and the pirate show outside Treasure Island with scantily clad pirates, pyrotechnics and all. Great fun. Enjoyed an American BBQ meal at Gilleys, then wandered back down the strip were we happened across the Piano bar at Harrahs where for free, we enjoyed a couple of hours of Duelling Pianos (cute blonde twins playing popular songs, teasing each other and encouraging crowd singalongs and requests, just the ticket).

Here's the 'fountain' outside the Bellagio in action:

Day two was spent wandering the strip in full and doing a spot of gambling here and there, after feeding ourselves silly at the Bellagio buffet. The hotels and casinos are just amazing, so we happily wandered for hours taking in the amounts of money spent in hotels like New York New York, Luxor, MGM Grand (what's with live lions inside a hotel?),Paris and the Flamingo. At the MGM we took part in a TV show pilot viewing which was a bit of fun, so we’ll keenly keep our eyes out for the programme we viewed to hit the screens and see if our feedback made any difference.

Day three was a tour of the Grand Canyon. We had pre-arranged our hotel pick up for 6am with the tour company and happily gone to bed the night before with our alarm set for 5.40am (doesn’t take long for us to get pretty in the morning). So we were pretty miffed to be called at 4.30am by the tour company confirming our pick up. Needless to say we didn’t get back to sleep and were pretty grumpy tourists by the time the bus showed up. The tour itself was pretty good, but long. We bussed to the West Rim of the canyon, stopping quickly for a photo op at the Hoover Dam. At the canyon we took a quick helicopter ride to the canyon floor, followed by a boat trip, then ‘coptered out. Were a bit disappointed that the helicopter wasn’t a bit longer to show us more of the canyon, it was simply there as a mode of transport to get in and out. We then had a couple of hours to take in the canyon from the top. Pretty amazing you can get right up to the side, can’t be strict health and safety laws in the USA. Amazingly only about 1 person each year falls off the side. Wasn’t us this time round thank goodness, despite getting pretty close to the edge.

Friday was our last day in Vegas, so we ventured to the ‘original strip’, Fremont Street. It’s a much less glitzy side of Vegas despite all the neon, but we enjoyed some cheaper gambling and the atmosphere. Our final night was spent at dinner and a show – we opted for a Brazillian bbq place (Dean does love his meat), and the Crazy Horse Paris burlesque show – mostly because it was half price that night (Dean does love saving the pennies).

And that was that. Farewell Las Vegas, we’d happily come back!