Las Vegas Baby!

July 19th 2019-July 23 2019
Las Vegas, NV





Mark and I caught a plane out of Syracuse NY at 5am and headed off to Las Vegas. This was my third time visiting the area, Mark has gone several times before.



I absolutely hate flying, but I am having less anxiety the more often we fly. Just loved looking at the mountains out the window.

We finally arrived. Funny thing flying from NY to Las Vegas....three hour time travel in the past.

Our hotel was the Palazzo which is part of the Venetian. There is no way that Mark and I could have stayed in a place like this unless it was COMPED!!!


Our room was listed at something like $600+ a night. I have to say it was pretty INCREDIBLE.

Nice...hun!

(The view from our room- not the strip side, but still very cool)



After spending some time orientating to our room and unpacking we decided to begin EXPLORING. Mark and I were both not in the best financial situation on this trip, so we had to do Las Vegas on the CHEEP. After everything was said and done, I only spent about $125- in total (at Las Vegas) not including meals at the airport. I would say that is pretty gosh darn good. Some of that total was loss at the slots then won back, so there was some money that came and went and came back again. I won back some money on my $25- free play, and Mark threw me a few bucks when he won on his free play. 

I had also pre-ordered a few items before we left. GROUPON is my bestest friend. I had ordered the romance package via groupon which included Madame Tussaud's wax museum, The Gondola ride at the Venetian and a meal at Buddy V's for like $80+ I had also ordered a buffet package at Paris hotel and casino for like $55- which also included drinks. These pre ordered GROUPON items made all the difference in where the money went on this trip. I have learned that if I can score things before I go, I am able to get a better deal and I have already paid before I get there so I do not have to worry about breaking the bank. Budget friendly vacations, although they do not sound ideal are the way we are able to have so many.

Besides, there are so many things to do in Vegas that do not require $. If you stay away from gambling and do not drink to much, there are generally plenty of things to do. Just looking at everything took up most of our days.

I am not sure what this picture frame was suppose to be about, but everyone was trying to get a picture framed within it. There were people everywhere for the LOVE sign at the Venetian so I vowed to get a better photo the following morning when the crowds were low.  

If you have never been to Las Vegas, you can't really conceptualize the amount of square footage each and everyone of these casino/hotels actually consist of. The Venetian for example is a part of the Palazzo and together they both have a hotel component, casinos, sports betting, a few dozen restaurants, several shops, a convention center, multiple pools, a river for two gondola rides, several walkways that are incredibly beautiful.

The Venetian

Below is a picture of the gondola rides on the outside of the Venetian.

Mark and I had no destination in mind, we simply started walking and we ended up hitting several of the Casino's along the strip. After exiting the Venetian, we walked Harrah's then to the Casino Royale (now a part of the Linq casino and resort) and O'Shea's. Both used to be their own casino's now owned by Linq.

Buck and Winnie Greenback at Harrah's

Casino Royal at Linq

We took a side street towards the Ferris wheel, and stopped in The Flamingo. At each casino I purchased 1 $1- chip to add to my casino chip collection. (I left Vegas with $27 chips) That is a whole lot of casino's and we didn't even go to everyone in the area.

O'Shea's at Linq

Flamingo

Harrah's had some music, we stopped and listened for a moment. (Inside-below)

(Outside-below)

We made our way to The Flamingo, I simply LOVED this style...

Pink Flamingo's everywhere. 

and a Buddha???....rubbing his belly did not make for good luck.

They also have real live fowl. A few ducks swim in this pond area while the main feature....

stood sunning themselves around the corner.

This area was all new to Mark and I. the "High Roller" Ferris wheel by Linq was pretty cool. Mark and I did not take a ride, but we did take a stroll along this alley which hosted several shops, activities and theaters and FOOD..including an In and Our Burger.

Like the In and Out Burger we had in LA, it was super crowded, but good and nicely priced. There was a whole lot of activity while we ate, we even witnessed a marriage proposal  while we were there. The busy restaurant played music and set the stage for the moment. She did say yes. What a great story to have about when and where, or?? maybe not so great? At any rate I enjoyed being a part of some strangers memorable moment. 

After a yummy meal of hamburger and fries, we continued our walking exploration, we stopped at The Cornwall Casino. (New to us), and Bally's. Should you decide to travel to Bally's from the front of the strip, just be aware that this casino sits way back off the road and is a super long HOT walk to the air conditioned entrance. We nearly cried when we got to the escalators and the up was NOT working......HOT and out of BREATH!

There are some neat things to look at while you walk towards Bally's


Many stores are along the way and hey, isn't that Wahlburger? We might have had dinner there instead. Next time.

After cooling off at Bally's and getting another chip, we decided that we should think about heading back towards the hotel on the opposite side of the road. One thing that you should know about exploring the strip is there is absolutely NO WAY to cross the street unless you cross over on a bridge, and there is not always a bridge right where you want to cross. Lucky for us, there was a bridge that took us from Bally's to Ceasar's. We had a Cheesecake Factory gift card and cheesecake was calling. We knew Ceasars had a Cheesecake factory because this was where we had our first ever slice many years ago.

Crossing the bridge has one advantage, you get to see the whole street.

Interesting.....I'm not sure what this has to do with the rest of the decor.

Shiva-Goddess

Ceasar

This place, as you can imagine is BIG!!! Really big.

There is a whole lot to see, but the building, just seems to go on and on....

The Roman God's flourish  here. Statues are everywhere as you walk along. Here are some of the Goddess's of the day. The Three Graces. I tried to do some google searches for the names of the statues that we saw, but I wasn't able to get all of the correct information. Sorry, I wish I know the names of each God/Goddess. In the caption I tried to be my best from what I could find.

The Three Graces (above and below)

Mark even gets fanned.

The marble structures are throughout the place and every detail is taken into account. It is truly insane. David stands tall and proud in this rotunda area we pass through on our way to the shops.

A new view...just for fun.

Mark and I make it through the casino to where the Forum shops begin. Of course we had to get a picture of this fun shirt from The Hangover movie.

Below is an idea of how grand everything is. This is the shops area. It's insane isn't it?

At the cross roads of the shop area is this massive fountain. The fountain of the Gods. This beauty may or maynot be Dame Fortune. (above)

Pegasus 

Artemis-Dianna

This Goddess may very well be Eris,(below) about to throw the golden apple of temptation. Or could this be "the most fairest" claiming her right as the most beautiful; and those Goddess' were Aphrodite, Athena and Hera. Paris choose Aphrodite, and I believe a war began, a Trojan War..

Mark sits in a Ceaser head.

Neptune is the God of Fresh water.

The animatromic Fall of Atlantis (although I could never actually hear what was going on) is a fight over which child will inherit the thrown. King Atlas listens as brother (Gadrius) and sister (Alia) bicker over who has more value and right to the position. Gadrius controls fire and Alia water. As the argument continues the Gods are angered and they are punished by sinking Atlantis into the seas and disappearing forever.

Just behind the Fall of Atlantis show is the the aquarium. I tried to weasel in to see the pretty fish, but there were crowds of people everywhere. There was even an hour wait time at the Cheesecake Factory; lucky us we only wanted a slice of cheese cake.

The Forum mall area is quite a walk, plan on wearing your comfortable shoes when walking Vegas. Buildings that may look a short distance away are more often much much farther. It had to be at least a mile in from the front entrance to the Cheesecake Factory. Be prepared to walk. Cake in hand, we headed out and back towards our hotel. It was getting dark and after all 9pm in Vegas is midnight in NY.

On the return walk we took in the landscaping of The Mirage. (We never did make it into the casino) this nice walk spans the length of the casino ending at Treasure Island.

Just at the bridge to cross is this statue of Siegfried and Roy. After the near fatal attack of Roy in 2003, the show was ceased.

once on the bridge returning to our hotel, we view the strip

After all that walking and the long day we had add some jet lag and we were both asleep once our heads hit the pillow. It was certainly an incredible 1st day in Vegas despite feeling so tired.

Day 2: Up early...I think I made my way down to the casino around 5am Vegas time, 8am NY time. I was surprised to see so many people active in the casino. I was just as surprised to see some people just coming in from the night before...and they call NY the city that doesn't sleep. Oh to be young and in Vegas, some of these late nighter or early risers depending on how you define it, still looked pretty all dressed up and in their very high heels and tiny skirts. I can't even walk around Vegas in my sneakers and not feel the pain in my feet,  and I would offend so many people if I wore a skirt of any size.. So I digress.....Sun rising up out our window over the mountains. It sure is beautiful. Mark and I had discussed doing a day trip to The Grand Canyon or to Hoosier Damn but decided we really did not have to time to on this trip. Someday we will have days and days and days to explore these areas when we (if we) break away from the 9-5 grind and go full time in our RV. (The dream continues...)

Being up early offered me the opportunity to get a great (peopleless) picture of the LOVE structure. Everytime I tried to yesterday there were people waiting in line to get a picture or others climbing on it.

I also got a good one of this sign, this too was often crowded with people yesterday. Mark and I had a pretty full day planned ahead of ourselves, but things were not open quite yet, so we made our biggest mistake of the trip and played some slots. We did NOT do well. Feeling depressed and upset that we were taken in by the possibility of winning big we re-evaluated our next steps before Madame Tussaud's opened and took to walking.

We began our exploring in the Grand Canal Shoppes. The Venetian mirrors itself to Venice, Italy. The canal shoppes are set in a village street with soft fluffy clouds floating on the domed ceiling above.


In the center of this "village" is the interior canal which streams along under the walkway bridges. There is also an outdoor canal. Wiki reports that it cost 1.5 billion dollars to have the canal and gondola's built. (i'm not sure if that price included the village facade as well)

I'm not sure what these sculptures have to do with Venice or anything Italian but they were screaming for a quick picture. (everything is made of metal parts)

As we exited the shops, we headed to the main entrance to the Venetian hotel. Look up, you can not help by gasp at these beautifully painted ceilings. 

I made the picture extra large to give some of the detail. 

This is just the hotel lobby....INSANE!!!!!

It was still to early to hit up our first activity of the day, so we continued to explore. The fountain below is outside the Venetian

We could feel the heat even at 8-9am. It was going to be a HOT one. I believe the temperature hit 114 degree's (we were told that is NOT that hot.) Interestingly enough the hot of 114 degree's in Vegas does not compare to a hot and humid 88 degree's in NY. People always talk about dry heat and Vegas has it, I can not imagine if the humidity was added like in NY. 

 This is the bridge to cross the street. We decided to explore Treasure Island as we did not want to get to far off from our day plans. Treasure Island was once the home to the ever popular Pirate show. 

Research has lead me to no answers on why this free nightly showing was ended, but it is a sad thing. The stage (which is actually the lagoon and ships) still stand at the front of the casino entrance, but no sign of life aboard these vessels. 

Once in Treasure Island casino,I purchased my souvenir casino chip and we did a little exploring of the casino. It seems that things have changed inside as well. Mark tells me it is now under new ownership and this may be why things are different. My last experience was that this was a pretty popular casino/hotel. Not so sure now. 

It seems each hotel/casino has its own themed acrobatic type show. Treasure Island offers a similar Cirque de Sole show. Here are a few of the characters. 

We still had some time before our morning activities were open so we continued to explore. Crossing back over the bridge and adjacent to our hotel is the Wynn. At the entrance is this very pretty waterfall. 

Inside are these amazing floral structures.  

All of these horses are made of flowers. This is so amazing. 

A stroll through this amazing garden of flowers and trees.

Another part of the Wynn. 

We were finally getting closer to the time for Madame Tussaud's wax museum to open so we headed back towards our hotel for this fun time.  We cashed in our groupon Romance package at the Wax museum. This is Mark and my 2nd Tussaud museum, but I have been with my son in Canada.  I'll admit that this is not an attraction I would have chosen had it not been a part of the groupon package. The same with the visit in Hollywood. My son was interested when we visited Canada, but I would not specifically seek a place like this out. Not that this isn't fun, but quite honestly the admission price is insane admission price is $29.95 per person. They entice the experience with the wax Hangover bar, but I wasn't all that impressed with the bar scene.  (inside the hang over bar below)

We certainly had fun posing with all of these Famous people!

After our Tussaud adventure we went over to schedule our groupon priced gondola rides. The prices is $29-$36.00 per person for a shared Gondola ride. Its $144- for a private ride (two people). We got lucky as there was no one else with us and paid the groupon price.

It is actually really fun. We were told these are authentic gondolas.We even had some time for a few songs.

By the time we had finished the Gondola ride it was about time for lunch. We headed to the third part of our groupon special and headed to The restaurant endorsed and named after the Cake Boss.

Buddy V's Restorante

Although most of the patrons at the time were enjoying the massive Brunch, that looked incredible, our groupon included certain items off a special menu. I have no complaints....

The salad was wonderful and the chicken parm was amazing!!!

The brunch desert section was looking rather yummy however.....

Across from the restaurant is the Bake Shop, complete with all the goodies.



I thought this one was supper cute.

After lunch we were feeling the heat and decided to spend the afternoon basking in the sun. The Venetian has multiple pool areas.

It was quite crowded this afternoon. Beautiful none the less.

Evening cam quickly after this and we had dinner plans. Milkshakes and Burgers at Black Tap.

WOW! Would you get a look at those Milkshakes......

and this burger was the bomb! Mark had our dinner COMPED so all this was FREE! Best dinner and for free...

It was a day well spent indulging in delish foods, lounging by the pool, fun with the famous (wax) and a bit of romance. Could day 3 be any better? You bet....


Day 3:
On our third day we decided to use one of the best recommendations we had while visiting Vegas, get an ALL DAY BUS PASS.  For $8- you can ride for 24 hours. The double-decker bus runs pretty much all the time, up and down the strip and into downtown.

Mark and I were eager to hit the strip father down and knew the walk would simply kill us, so we hopped on the bus and made our way to New York New York!!!! Just like the name implies, the theme is everything New York City.




 The gardens, the statue of Liberty, the Brooklyn Bridge and the skyscrapers including the Empire State Building. The interior has streets to resemble Greenwich Village .

This was where we stayed the first time we went to Vegas.





 It has such a fun facade, we simply had to return and make the rounds. Interested to see if we still had player cards on record, we went into the casino. I have been collecting $1- casino chips for some time now and of course I had scored many at our last trips to Vegas so we had to get a few more.

Next door and across the street is the fun and playful Excalibur. Themed after King Arthur's court, castles, mid-evil tapestries and Knights in shining armor are the decor.

I think this must be the King himself.

Connecting to Excalibur is The Luxor.

Although, I have never stayed here, Mark has and it is a very nice hotel. I simply LOVE the Egyptian theme, and if you have ever been in my home, you know I have this decor in my living room, infact several of the pieces came from the Luxor in visits past.



The detail to each Statue is insane. This is one thing I have to say about the casinos in Vegas, they do take into account the theme and run with it. The picture below is looking up into the pyramid. Its insane.

The Luxor is also home to  The Titanic museum and they Host the Blue Man Group.




We continued along the same side of the strip, each hotel/casino connecting with one another until we got to Mandalay Bay. This casino/hotel was where the tragedy was in 2017. Interestingly Mark and I both noticed that there did not seem to be any increase in security, there or any other casino for that matter. There was a nice little older women at the security desk at Mandalay Bay who informed me of the free tram from the hotel to NY NY.  Mark, his mother and I stayed her several years back. They do have a nice wave pool.
 We decided that we would rather keep walking then take the tram back down the Street and head to the Big Dog, or rather The BIG LION. MGM Grand. To get to the MGM grand you need to cross the street, and there is a bridge that links to the other side. We got some great pictures of NY NY from the bridge.



Just on the other side of the bridge is the famous (but old) Tropicana casino and hotel. The decor is that of Cuba in the 50's. The casino and hotel was opened in 1957, and has a deep history with the mob. Despite its older feel, I kind of like the ambiance of the place. (I wish I had taken a picture)
Over the bridge to MGM. I referred to MGM as the big dogs because MGM owns most of the casino's along this area of the strip, it's also one of the largest.

Personally, this casino is not all that exciting. It does have it's own claim to fame as it has the most hotel rooms on the strip and when it opened in 1987 the most in the whole world.

After MGM we continued to walk back towards the center of the Strip. Along the way we stopped at Planet Hollywood. 

and we finally made it to Paris. 

Paris Hotel/Casino was perhaps my favorite.

I had once again pre-ordered Groupon deals and we had a brunch date in Paris. Like all of the other casinos/hotels Paris is themed as if you are visiting Paris. The Eiffel Tower is the center of the casino and its steel frame shoots up through the roof and towers over the streets. Our brunch was held at the buffet. Le Village Buffet.  The dining is staged like a small French village. 

and the food was amazing! Below making my crape and the end product. Yummy

 
and dessert complete with champagne.

This was a lovely experience. We truly enjoyed our meal and the scenery. Below is more of the interior of the place. 

  After this we were feeling the burn of both the sun and the walk. The temperatures while we were there ran somewhere over 109 degree's. It was HOT! We took the bus back to our hotel with plans to go downtown next. (below are all the chips so far on our trip.)

We hopped back on the bus and headed downtown.

This place is pretty cool too and much less walking, only thing is it was soooo  hot when we were there, walking anywhere was effort.

Heart Attack Grill. We didnt stop and eat here, but  I have heard about this place. Apparently you are dressed in hospital attire.

Some pretty kookie stuff down here like this area... a gigantic Flamingo

or this rolling house....

An old Vegas sign.

and speaking of old,  El Cortez is the first casino hotel and was once owned by Bugsy Siegel.

We actually had dinner here, notice the 12.95 steak. I think I paid more for my burger and fries.

I need to make it back here at night to see the lights across this block of downtown.

We even saw TuPac....

Binions casino built and family owned in 1951 was once called Binions Horseshoe. Binions has the Million dollar table where you can get your picture taken with a million dollars. We skipped this photo opt.

Up next is the Golden Nugget, home of the worlds largest gold nugget. Somehow we missed this.

But we did see this sign,.....

We hit up most of the casino's in downtown before we decided that the heat was just to much and headed back to our hotel.

On our way back to the room, Mark yelled for me to take a picture of this famous artist. (I'll admit I had no idea who he was)

A few moments to relax and we were soon off again, this time we were headed to the Mirage for the Volcano show.

After the show we caught a bus to view he fountain at Belligio.

and we had a great viewing point.

Right across the street Paris shined bright.

We atempted to catch a bus back, but there was no access to the road. WE pretty much had no other option but to walk back.....so we did. By the time we crossed the street the next Fountain show was starting....and by the time we made it back to The Mirage...they were doing another showing. Basically it took us FOREVER to get back to our hotel and I was poooped!!!

Goodbye Las Vegas...tomorrow we fly home.

What a great time.....TTFN