Peter and I found out last Thursday that we had to be in Las Vegas for appointments this week. Thankfully the children hadn't started school yet and I was able to get the time of work without any issues.
The children stayed at home with my mom and Peter and I packed up our things and left early this morning to catch our flight out of Orlando. We had to stop by the ticket counter on the way to security because our friends who booked the flight for us put down my nickname instead of my
legal name but we had a wonderful customer service employee who went out of her way to help us. Security was simple and not too much of a wait. When we arrived on the other side of all the lines we stopped and got some breakfast and ate in the main lobby before proceeding to our gate. We had a short layover in Charlotte, NC and made a couple phone calls. Our plane was slightly delayed there but we still arrived in Las Vegas as scheduled. My first
appointment isn't until tomorrow morning so we had the whole rest of the day to explore the city. We arrived around 1pm and picked up our rental car and then checked into our hotel. We are staying at the Mandalay Bay Resort on the Las Vegas Strip. We really didn't know what to expect, there are so many hotels here and they range anywhere from $30 a night to hundreds of dollars.
The Mandalay was a very nice and classy hotel and we are very happy with our accommodations here. We got situated in our room and figured out where things were in our hotel and then went to find some lunch. Flying from FL to NV we went back three hours so we didn't want to eat too much because we wanted to be able to eat dinner before it was really late. We found a little pizza joint in our hotel and split a meatball sandwich and some fries. The food was really good and just enough to hold us over until later. After that we decided to hit the strip and see what all the fuss of Vegas is all about. We went to each hotel and explored the casinos and exhibits. We went through many of the stores and malls along the strip but didn't spend much time in any one place. Some of the hotels were really run down and trashy. We weren't impressed with much of the strip and were pretty much over it all after an hour or so but we kept going hoping that Vegas would be able to redeem itself. We enjoyed the Caesar Palace Hotel
because it reminded us a lot of when we went to Italy. It wasn't very authentic looking but it was still nicely done in most places. We also enjoyed the Bellagio Hotel and looked around at the flower gardens and enjoyed the blown glass displays. It was extremely hot outside and as the day progressed it got more and more crowded. We liked stopping in all the hotels just
to get cooled down and in some air conditioning. There are many areas that have the hotels connected to each other without having to go outside at all but then there are also many pedestrian bridges that allowed us to walk over the streets and not cross in traffic. It seemed like we walked forever so we took a break and got some water at a Starbucks and let our feet rest a bit. Peter and I are not into gambling or drinking so most of Vegas did not appeal to us in the least though we did each spend
$1 on the penny slots. After our short rest we got up and walked on some more. There were a couple things I wanted to make sure we saw and our goal was to get the whole strip down today so we wouldn't have to come back another day. Can't you tell we really want to be here? As it was approaching 8:00 we got to the Mirage Hotel and waited outside just a few minutes until the volcano erupted. We watched the show and made sure to record a bit of it for Abigail so she could watch it later. After the volcano calmed down and became peaceful again
we headed back towards the Bellagio to see if we could catch the fountain show. You always see it on tv and movies and lots of people had recommended it so we stopped and waited and after a few minutes the fountain started up. I have to say that I was really impressed with the show and how amazing and beautiful it was. The music and the movement of the water went very well together and I was very glad that despite our extreme tiredness and aching feet we stopped to watch it. With the fountain show checked off our list we were free to head back to the hotel where we had decided
we would take a nice shower and have dinner via room service. On the way back to the hotel we were bombarded with people trying to hand us their business cards for disgusting shows or services that we have absolutely no interest in but we did like we had learned in China with all their beggars and solicitors, we didn't make eye contact and just walked on with our hands down. Back at the room we relaxed and rubbed our feet. We have to be up early tomorrow so we really didn't want to be up late tonight.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home