(a Four Part series brought to you by Lisa Says and Happyrobot)
For my week-long vacation, my husband and I flew into Las Vegas and stayed one night before heading off to Utah and Arizona. On the way back we again stayed in Vegas one night and caught our plane home the next morning.
For starters, to get out west for any adventure, you may want to look into flying to Vegas first. Our roundtrip tix were $198 each. Not too shabby. The first night we stayed about two blocks off the "Strip" at a Marriot Suites which was really nice. It's the first place I ever stayed that had a mini-bar with $6 bags of M&Ms. It was shocking. We also rented a Jeep Grand Cherokee for about $230/week. We got that through Thrifty and I must warn you: we drove two of them before we got one that wasn't flashing the "check engine" light and was shifting properly. I think people tend to drive the hell out of the SUVs since you can off-road all over the place out there.
Las Vegas. I'm sorry to report that I wasn't all that impressed with Vegas. I've talked to plenty of people that love it but I just couldn't get into it. I thought the hotels were fabulous, the gambling was cool for about 10 seconds and the food was so expensive. The lore of getting free drinks in the casino didn't pan out as one would've wished. We spent $30 at the roulette table before we got a drink. And that was all the free drink we were getting. I only ever saw one Elvis and he would charge you if you took his picture (and by "charge" I mean 5 bucks, not "charge" as in bull fighting. But I imagine he would wrassle you if you didn't pay him.) It was so busy on the weekend - the traffic was murder. Mostly, it was full of grammaws/grampaws spending their pensions and people with newborn babies and small children. I thought I was at Disney World a couple of times since there were so many families.
That being said here's what I really liked:
New York, New York was a really cool hotel. The inside was set up as a mini-Village and Downtown NY. They even have a Gonzalez y Gonzalez! I didn't venture to the roller coaster but I bet it was fun.
The Bellagio was a pretty fancy hotel. I think when I checked the rates there they started at $200 a night. So much for staying there. They had a cool fountain show out front that was synchronized to music. Cheesy but pretty.
The Treasure Island pirate show was fun. We stayed there our last night and aside from being right on the strip and the fact that coconut-scented air is pumped through the hotel, I could've lived without staying there.
It's possible since I was doing outdoorsy things that I just wasn't in the right mindset for good 'ole Vegas. Maybe if I had more money to gamble with I would've been more thrilled. Also, if I had money to go see the $80 a ticket Cirque du Soleil or a visiting comedian I would've had a super time. But as it was, it was kinda a pain in the ass for me.
|
|