Las Vegas

So last week my wife and I went on our first trip to Las Vegas.  We've been wanting to go for a few years now, but for whatever reason we just never made it out there. 

So we trekked out there on the Wednesday night before Memorial Day weekend and came back on Sunday.  Las Vegas is a really interesting town.  For example we got to our hotel, Treasure Island, and checked in at about 12:30 Vegas time.  Then we went out for a walk on the strip.  I have this thing where whenever I go someplace new, when I first get there I want to go out and see something.  Anything.

Well the great thing about Vegas is that you can go out walking around at 12:30 at night, and see plenty.  Sure a lot of the stores are closed, but the hotels themselves are all lit up.  The people our out and about.  Bars and casinos are open, and there is really no bad time to just take a stroll around to see a few sites.  So that was the start, and the rest of the weekend, was more of just taking in the strip. 

Our hotel was pretty good.  The rooms were nice.  The location wasn't that bad.  The pool was kinda cool (very slippery around the pool though.  And we were dying to try the La Isla mexican place there (although we never made it unfortunately).   We would stay here again.  It wouldn't be our first choice, but we did like enough to go back.

The Good

Well there are some great hotels.  Which I think goes without saying.  We loved the Venetian, the Bellagio, and the MGM Grand, but I think our favorite has got to be Caesars Palace.  The other hotels are all great. 

The MGM Grand is a great looking hotel.  Everything in it just feels big.  I don't know if its the high ceilings everywhere (and I mean high), but you just feel like you're in a massive structure.  Which I suppose you are, but it just felt bigger than the other hotels.  It was nice, had a decent casino, but it was way down the end of the strip.  The end that we didn't seem to like as much.  That is the only reason we don't place it any higher than our fourth favorite.  If it was at the Treasure Island end, it would probably tie with the Bellagio.

The Venetian is just incredibly themed, and we loved the Grand Canal and its casino, but something about it was just ok.  We couldn't really place our finger on it.  We really liked it, but for whatever reason it was maybe third on our top list of resorts.  One cool thing, they had these cool moving sidewalks that went up and over bridges.  So they were sloped.  No big deal right?  Well my wife's shoes had no tread to them, so she slid evertime we went on them :).

The Bellagio is incredible.  The lobby is bright and airy.  The casino is open and well kept.  The fountain show is incredible (and the fact that it is shown every 15 minutes is great).  The Cirque De Soleil show 'O' is here, and it is incredible, highly recommended.  All in all, this was our second favorite place on the strip.  I could definitely see us staying here at some point. 

Our favorite?  Caesars Palace.  Why?  Well we're big Disney nuts.  So we love theming, and Caesars Palace has themeing to spare.  From the marble all over the place (I don't know if its real or not, but it looks real to me), to the gilding on the walls, to all the roman style statues.  Its just awesome to look it.  It screams Vegas! more than any other hotel.  The casino is big, open, and bright.  The location is right in the middle of the strip.  In addition it has the Forum shops (granted they didn't have any stores I'd want to buy anything from, but still they were awesome to see.  The shops had incredible theming as well, styled to look just like a Roman village.  It was just a great sight to see. 

On top of that, right in front of Caesars Palace was Serendipity 3.  I think we ate two meals here over the weekend, and went drinking there one night.  Loved that place.  The food was great.   Julie's Margarita, the RBF, and the CoCo Berry Mojito were all awesome.

Hmm what else.  The temperature.  It was the low 90s, but didn't feel that warm.  Maybe because it was a dry heat?

The Bad

Ok, so it wasn't all good.  The most depressing thing that we saw was the tiger habitat at the Mirage.  Maybe we're spoiled by the Animal Kingdom, but these habitats seemed incredibly small and pathetic.  We felt so bad for the animals here.  Maybe they have bigger areas to roam when the people aren't around, but what we could see was pretty bad.

Some of the casino's were just dank.  I went into the casino at Harrah's, and even the one at Treasure Island, and it just felt second class.  Not as swanky as some other other hotels I mentioned.  Then again, maybe that means the tables are looser?  Who knows.

One of the nights we went to the Pleasure Pit at Planet Hollywood.  We went to Vegas for my brother-in-laws wedding, so we took him there for a little bachelor party.  The idea is that there are dealers in lingerie.  Well it was kind of lame for a couple of reasons.  First the lingerie was pretty much the equivalent of a Playboy bunny outfit.  No big deal really.  Hell the cocktail waitress at the bar in Planet Hollywood was dressed sexier.  On top of that all the tables were $25 dollar tables.  Sorry, I'm not much of a gambler to begin with, and $25 is just too rich for my blood.

The ... Interesting.

I was going to call this the ugly, but some of these (not all, but some) really are more just what makes Vegas unique, not neccessarily ugly.  The Girls Direct card flickers.  These guys are hilarious.  First of all they all line up, about 20 - 30 in a row of them.  All trying to hand out these cards to passers by.  Now the cards are essentially to advertise for hookers/strippers from what I understand (I never grabbed one to see), and they try to hand them to everyone.  Man, woman, Man walking holding a woman's hand.  They don't care they just shove the thing right in your face hoping you'll take it.  It was really hilarious the more you saw it.

How often you would see the same store more than once blew me away.  Every hotel had its own shopping areas.  Caesars Palace, The Venetian, The Bellagio.  They all did.  And they all had the same stores.  I've never seen more Dior, Rolex, Armani stores in one area before in my life.  And all the stores had no customers.  How do they stay open?  This sort of thing wasn't just limited to high end stores either.  It seemed like every single hotel had its own Starbucks, and there was also one on the strip.  It was pretty bizarre.

The moving billboards for the hookers/strippers.  Every so often you'll see a truck driving down the strip will a big billboard on it.  Advertising "Girls brought rigt to you, in 20 minutes!".  Come on. Seriously?  Is this really neccessary?  And do they bring a pizza with that?

The people on the strip with little kids.  Ok, during the day, not so bad, but I saw more parents with little kids, say 2 and under, out on the strip late at night.  I saw a 2 year old being carried around at 2 AM.  I saw a child less than 1 being carried around at about midnight.  I saw a bunch of other kids being pushed around in strollers at around midnight.  Is this really neccessary?

The Summary

All in all, we had a great time, and we can't wait to go back.  We plan on trying to stay at Caesars Palace, eating a lot at Serendipity, and not bringing the kids!