What happens in Vegas...gets posted on LJ
May. 4th, 2010 03:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
orangerfulPHEW! - what a whirlwind of a weekend!
In true AirTran fashion, our flight on Friday was delayed, causing a bit of panic since we had to fly from BWI to Atlanta and THEN to Vegas. But they held our plane since there were 16 other people on our flight going to the same place. Still, I'm happy this is the last time I will fly AirTran (we only did it this time because we had free tickets from the last time they screwed up royally).
We arrived in Las Vegas around 11pm Vegas time, which was 2am for us. But we were both starving and ordered some pizza to munch on so we didn't go to bed until 2am Vegas time. So crazy.
Saturday we woke up early and hit the gym for a bit of a run because Amy is good about that stuff and it made me feel motivated. After that we began our big wander! We decided to walk to Vegas strip and see the sights.
Turns out, not a heck of a lot happens in Vegas when the sun is out. Everyone apparently parties until 4am then sleeps until noon. So the streets weren't too crowded until afternoon. But once that time came around, there were people everywhere. People that were not going to stop or say excuse me or hold the door for you. They had srs bizness to attend to!
We went down to the Excalibur hotel to get our 'Thunder from Downunder' tickets for Sunday night. When we walked in there was a guy dressed like a prince and he was holding some gold beads. I was like "sweet, free stuff!" and I walked up to him. He promptly leads me over to some little flower awning thing and I unwittingly call Amy back and get her dragged into the whole thing. They have us pose for pictures and I quickly realize this is one of those "now we sell you these horrible photos!". We said no thanks (I could have given them a whole speech about aspect ratio and photoshop and how they could probably increase sales if their display didn't look like ass).
They had a special dinner at the JAPONAIS restaurant & lounge in our hotel. $45 for two people. We had mostly sushi and it was delicious. Perfect amount of food too. Then we went to the Beatles boutique where I bought two t-shirts (one that says LOVE and another Beatles shirt that had sparklies on it), 2 pairs of socks (one that has a picture of the Beatles and another that says "all you need is love"), a souvenir booklet of the LOVE show, and a hat that looked like John's from 'Hard Day's Night'.
Then we actually SAW the show. The theater was a lot smaller then I expected so you felt like you were right in the thick of it. I'd never been to a Cirque show before and only sort of new what I was in for. I don't know if I would be in to their plain Cirque stuff, but the magic of the Beatles really drew me into the production. My favorite numbers were probably 'Something' and 'Revolution'. But the whole show was fantastic. I was totally sucked in, and at the end they dropped down screens and showed a montage of classic images of the Fab Four and I started to cry. I really love those guys and their music. *sigh*
Since we had walked all day we were too exhausted to do much after the show. So we went back to our room and passed out. On Sunday we woke up early and made a b-line for the Paris Village Buffet for breakfast since 3 people had mentioned it when I talked about Vegas online. OMG SO GOOD! I mean, I love breakfast foods and this wasn't just your run of the mill buffet, it was all fresh made and very tasty. I ate so much. But it was worth it. We even grabbed some extra fruit and shoved it in our bags for snacks the rest of the day, good deal!
We decided to go the other way on the strip, walking towards the Stratosphere hotel and the older part of Las Vegas. Let me tell you now, it is SO not worth it. First, there is nothing there. While the walk from the Mirage to the Excalibur is jam-packed with hotels and shops, there was nothing to see once you got past the Wynn. And when things began to appear, they were on the level of sketchy of the Atlantic City boardwalk. This is the part of town where the 'Hangover' style wedding chapels exist and tattoo parlors on either side of the street. When we walked into Circus Circus, I understood what Vegas must have been like for Hunter S. Thompson when he wrote 'Fear and Loathing'. Yeah, sketchy. We saw one crazy guy bungie jump off the top of the Stratosphere then started walking back.
We tried our hand at gambling but then realized it wasn't for us. I don't trust machines enough to give them my money. And I am impatient - if I don't win immediately, I don't want to play. Plus, I have no control over the outcome so what is the point of sitting there? I wanted to try Roulette but the minimum bet was $10 - too rich for my blood! I put money in the Star Wars and Indiana Jones machines just to say I did and played video Roulette but it wasn't the same. We were over that pretty quickly.
We went to Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill for dinner. It was really cool though we were both pretty exhausted from the walking all day and our late lunch interfered with us getting to eat our entire meal. We meandered down to the Excalibur to find the 'Thunder Showroom'.
We had checked our tickets online and our seats were in the VIP section which made us go WTF! But we were seats 10 and 11 and the tables were arranged length-wise so I figured it was fine. Then we got into the room and it was soooo tiny. The tables were probably only 10 feet long so there was no doubt that the guys could see it.
The show was so tongue-in-cheek, it was great. I didn't really know what I would think of it, but it was just plain goofy! You could tell the guys knew this was ridiculous and the audience did too so we all just went with it. Even though the picture on the website has them all with very serious looks, they were grinning during the show. They dragged girls up on stage and danced around them, then jumped into the audience and ran right up to everyone, danced on tables...such a laugh.
So, that was Vegas. I think I can check it off my list of things I've done because there is really no reason for me to go back there. I feel like I saw enough random boobies (there are sketchy people handing out stripper cards on every street corner and then people just throw them on the ground) and inhaled enough smoke (you can smoke in all the Casinos and I could feel lit in my lungs) for awhile. The shows were a blast but there's not much else I would want to do there.
But seeing the reproductions of Rome, Paris, and Venice inspired Amy & I to get our passports renewed. We're going on Friday to get our pictures taken so we can mail them in.
In true AirTran fashion, our flight on Friday was delayed, causing a bit of panic since we had to fly from BWI to Atlanta and THEN to Vegas. But they held our plane since there were 16 other people on our flight going to the same place. Still, I'm happy this is the last time I will fly AirTran (we only did it this time because we had free tickets from the last time they screwed up royally).
We arrived in Las Vegas around 11pm Vegas time, which was 2am for us. But we were both starving and ordered some pizza to munch on so we didn't go to bed until 2am Vegas time. So crazy.
Saturday we woke up early and hit the gym for a bit of a run because Amy is good about that stuff and it made me feel motivated. After that we began our big wander! We decided to walk to Vegas strip and see the sights.
Turns out, not a heck of a lot happens in Vegas when the sun is out. Everyone apparently parties until 4am then sleeps until noon. So the streets weren't too crowded until afternoon. But once that time came around, there were people everywhere. People that were not going to stop or say excuse me or hold the door for you. They had srs bizness to attend to!
We went down to the Excalibur hotel to get our 'Thunder from Downunder' tickets for Sunday night. When we walked in there was a guy dressed like a prince and he was holding some gold beads. I was like "sweet, free stuff!" and I walked up to him. He promptly leads me over to some little flower awning thing and I unwittingly call Amy back and get her dragged into the whole thing. They have us pose for pictures and I quickly realize this is one of those "now we sell you these horrible photos!". We said no thanks (I could have given them a whole speech about aspect ratio and photoshop and how they could probably increase sales if their display didn't look like ass).
They had a special dinner at the JAPONAIS restaurant & lounge in our hotel. $45 for two people. We had mostly sushi and it was delicious. Perfect amount of food too. Then we went to the Beatles boutique where I bought two t-shirts (one that says LOVE and another Beatles shirt that had sparklies on it), 2 pairs of socks (one that has a picture of the Beatles and another that says "all you need is love"), a souvenir booklet of the LOVE show, and a hat that looked like John's from 'Hard Day's Night'.
Then we actually SAW the show. The theater was a lot smaller then I expected so you felt like you were right in the thick of it. I'd never been to a Cirque show before and only sort of new what I was in for. I don't know if I would be in to their plain Cirque stuff, but the magic of the Beatles really drew me into the production. My favorite numbers were probably 'Something' and 'Revolution'. But the whole show was fantastic. I was totally sucked in, and at the end they dropped down screens and showed a montage of classic images of the Fab Four and I started to cry. I really love those guys and their music. *sigh*
Since we had walked all day we were too exhausted to do much after the show. So we went back to our room and passed out. On Sunday we woke up early and made a b-line for the Paris Village Buffet for breakfast since 3 people had mentioned it when I talked about Vegas online. OMG SO GOOD! I mean, I love breakfast foods and this wasn't just your run of the mill buffet, it was all fresh made and very tasty. I ate so much. But it was worth it. We even grabbed some extra fruit and shoved it in our bags for snacks the rest of the day, good deal!
We decided to go the other way on the strip, walking towards the Stratosphere hotel and the older part of Las Vegas. Let me tell you now, it is SO not worth it. First, there is nothing there. While the walk from the Mirage to the Excalibur is jam-packed with hotels and shops, there was nothing to see once you got past the Wynn. And when things began to appear, they were on the level of sketchy of the Atlantic City boardwalk. This is the part of town where the 'Hangover' style wedding chapels exist and tattoo parlors on either side of the street. When we walked into Circus Circus, I understood what Vegas must have been like for Hunter S. Thompson when he wrote 'Fear and Loathing'. Yeah, sketchy. We saw one crazy guy bungie jump off the top of the Stratosphere then started walking back.
We tried our hand at gambling but then realized it wasn't for us. I don't trust machines enough to give them my money. And I am impatient - if I don't win immediately, I don't want to play. Plus, I have no control over the outcome so what is the point of sitting there? I wanted to try Roulette but the minimum bet was $10 - too rich for my blood! I put money in the Star Wars and Indiana Jones machines just to say I did and played video Roulette but it wasn't the same. We were over that pretty quickly.
We went to Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill for dinner. It was really cool though we were both pretty exhausted from the walking all day and our late lunch interfered with us getting to eat our entire meal. We meandered down to the Excalibur to find the 'Thunder Showroom'.
We had checked our tickets online and our seats were in the VIP section which made us go WTF! But we were seats 10 and 11 and the tables were arranged length-wise so I figured it was fine. Then we got into the room and it was soooo tiny. The tables were probably only 10 feet long so there was no doubt that the guys could see it.
The show was so tongue-in-cheek, it was great. I didn't really know what I would think of it, but it was just plain goofy! You could tell the guys knew this was ridiculous and the audience did too so we all just went with it. Even though the picture on the website has them all with very serious looks, they were grinning during the show. They dragged girls up on stage and danced around them, then jumped into the audience and ran right up to everyone, danced on tables...such a laugh.
So, that was Vegas. I think I can check it off my list of things I've done because there is really no reason for me to go back there. I feel like I saw enough random boobies (there are sketchy people handing out stripper cards on every street corner and then people just throw them on the ground) and inhaled enough smoke (you can smoke in all the Casinos and I could feel lit in my lungs) for awhile. The shows were a blast but there's not much else I would want to do there.
But seeing the reproductions of Rome, Paris, and Venice inspired Amy & I to get our passports renewed. We're going on Friday to get our pictures taken so we can mail them in.