Vegas re-cap

I had my first trip to Las Vegas June 20th -25th.

There are quite a few pictures I uploaded in this post with a few side notes. Enjoy :)

The Weather

Hot.

40+ C in the daytime and reasonably in the 20s C at night. What people were telling me about "dry heat" and that due to lack of humidity it won't feel as hot unforunately did not apply. All I know is, whenever I stepped outside in the daytime/afternoon, I was uncomfortable after 5 mins - I had to walk into the nearest hotel lobby with AC

I always feel like I'm truly on vacation when I'm greeted by palm trees.

Do you have palm trees where you live?

I took this picture just outside of Bally's. It looked super cute like an oversized pineapple!

Casinos

I can see how people who get a thrill from gambling need their Vegas fix yearly.

The casinos there are obviously modern (in the 5 star hotels), the general mood of the people is very friendly, and the overall ambiance is very nice. There's also conveniently placed high end shops in case you're lucky, score big and wanna go shopping =)

I'm not a gambler. I went to Vegas for sight seeing, shopping, to relax and to see one of the seven wonders of the World, the Grand Canyon.

So I'm indifferent to the casinos. All the casinos in the 5 star hotels are of course the nicest casinos I've been in.

The most annoying part for me about the casinos is when I'm really tired at the end of the day and I have to walk through the casino in order to get from the hotel lobby to the elevators that bring me to my room. Oh, and they let you smoke in casinos. I really don't like that. I'm use to Ontario laws that don't allow smoking in any public building.

Anyway, here's one huge slot machine at the Paris hotel. I took a picture of my Dad beside it. Isn't it neat how the slot machine is extra big?

Do you play at casinos?

Or do you have other means of getting your thrill fix? ;)

The Palazzo

This is the hotel my parents and I stayed at

I don't fancy that statue. This is in the hotel lobby

The glass dome above the statue was pretty though :)

Their elevator music beats that of any I heard in Toronto hotels

The living room of our suite

The first bedroom with two beds. Here's my Mom and Dad - my travel companions :)

It was the first trip I have had with just my parents and neither of my two sisters along with us.

The second bedroom.

Haha yah that's me in my pjs. Dad caught this picture of me. See the soccer/football game on TV?! I'm telling you, Dad had me find the channel for it on the bedroom TV and the bathroom TV

I really liked how the bathroom looked from the bedroom. I want a bathroom like that ;)

Both our bedrooms had ensuite bathrooms like this one.

Overall I really enjoyed my stay at The Palazzo.

My only complaint would be the lack of a coffee machine. What's up with that?! Here in Toronto, every hotel room I've stayed at has a coffee machine.

Other hotels to note along The Strip

The Palazzo hotel we stayed at is owned by The Venetian. These two hotels are connected to one another.

Here are the gondolas at The Venetian. Very romantic ;)

The gorgeous ceiling of the Venetian grand lobby.

The pretty fountain in the lobby of The Venetian

Outside the Venetian

Love love love the architecture. The most beautiful hotels from the outside (IMO of course) were The Venetian followed by Ceasar's Palace. The Palazzo is gorgeous too - but more simple.

This is a bit of Caesar's Palace. Caesar's looks humongous from outside. It looks like the largest hotel on the strip.

This fountain is a replica and it's gorgeous. It's just outside the shops at Caesars.

I wasn't as impressed with The Wynn's building design - I do admire how it's different and modern though. It's the most posh hotel in Vegas and this picture was taken from one of our hotel bedroom windows.

The night time volcano show at The Mirage is pretty neat

The Mirage also has white tigers that use to be on display complimentary. However, they changed that rather recently and now you have to pay a fee to see the white tigers along with dolphins.


One big cat you can still see complimentary are the lions at MGM Grand.

I caught the cute fellow yawning ;)

The water fountain show at The Bellagio in the night time is romantic

And inside The Bellagio there is a room filled with flowers and I think the theme here is a garden. Very pretty

At Flamingo hotel, there are (surprise!) flamingos among other birds and koi

And in the evening, the pirate show in front of Treasure Island hotel is amusing

I found the Chinese relics in Treasure Island hotel to be really beautiful.

Impressive how it was carved out of one piece of solid jade huh?

And look at the intricate carvings in this mammoth tusk - a mammoth! (gasp)

Food

I've heard so much about the buffets in Vegas and how they're like none other.

I'm not the type that likes buffets because from my experience the quality of buffet food is below par. But my parents wanted to dine at the buffets and the few other times we ate at regular restaurants I was disappointed with the food and it actually cost more than the buffet.


The three buffets I went to were at The Wynn, The Bellagio and Paris.

The Wynn buffet: I think my favourite there were the ribs - but again, as I mentioned in my Kansas City post the best tasting ribs are at Swiss Chalet.


The Paris buffet ties with The Bellagio buffet in my books. The freshly made crepes at Paris are soooo yummy. But what the heck is with the washrooms there?! There is only one washroom stall in that restaurant! :\ And at The Bellagio, the seaweed salad and Japanese cuisine won me over. I love Japanese cuisine and it was really lacking at the other buffets. It wasn't impressive at The Bellagio but it was enough to hit the spot. I would have loved to dine at a good Japanese restaurant in Vegas but my parents really don't like Japanese food :(


In case you were wondering if I gained weight from my recent pictures the answer is yes. I really let myself go in Vegas and Kansas City. I gained 8 lbs in a week and a half. So that should speak for itself - obviously the food was pretty decent! I'm working on getting the 8 lbs off....


Do you like buffets? What is your favourite type of dish or cuisine?

Hoover Dam

What can I say? It looks just like the pictures I've seen of it.

This huge drain was pretty impressive though.

It actually looked rather eerie when we drove past it.

Overall driving past Hoover Dam and making a short 10-15 min stop was sufficient.

I personally would skip a tour of the dam.





Grand Canyon

My parents and I took a tour to the West Rim of the Grand Canyon.

It's a good 3 hour drive from the Vegas strip, but it's worthwhile.

This was my first time in a desert environment. The vegetation was very interesting to see.

Do you see that single weed-like vegetation to the right of the picture below? I thought those were pretty neat as I haven't seen them anywhere else.

This picture also shows the famous Great Thunderbird carved in the West Rim of the canyon. Can you see the shape of a thunderbird in the rock formation? The dip in the rocks (centre of picture) is the head of the bird and the wings are spread out like it's flying. Do you see it now?

The murky Colorado river below

My Dad said this is a very very old bonsai tree

Do you see the Skywalk ledge behind me?

A note about the Skywalk and taking pictures....only recently have they stopped letting you take pictures on Skywalk with your own camera. What happened in the past year was a tourist brought his (yes, a guy) tripod onto the skywalk. The tripod tipped aaaaand, the glass chipped!!
WTF?! That seriously lowered my expectations of how strong the glass is although before you go onto the Skywalk, they have all these adverts on how strong the glass is and how it has stopped bullets from a 0.257 magnum rifle. I'm sure the skywalk is absolutely safe to walk on - I did it! Well, my parents paid for it before we heard the tripod story....

So basically now you have to lock all loose articles (handbags, cameras, keys...etc..) in a locker before you get on the skywalk. And on top of that, you have to wear disposable booties to avoid scratching the glass. And you have lovely professional photographers to take your picture(s) and you can purchase them for a fee. My Dad bought the package of pictures which was around $120 USD I think - and here's one of our pictures

The many Joshua trees we drove by before reaching the Grand Canyon

Here's my Dad :) Some of the trees are actually quite large

My parents have both been to the Grand Canyon before, but they went to the South Rim.

My Dad said the South rim is more spectacular because the canyon is much wider and when you think of the Grand Canyon, it's really the South rim kind of look.

I haven't been to the South rim. I have only been to the West rim and I have to say I'm not very impressed. It was nice to see but not breath taking like the rocky mountains are for me. I'll make an effort to get to the South rim the next time I'm in Vegas and perhaps take a helicopter down the canyon and go along the Colorado river.

Have you been to Vegas? If so, what's your take on Vegas?

Or, what's one place you heard so much about that you want to visit?