What Happens in Vegas...Day 2 - Exploring the strip.

[Minnie4Mickey]

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Wednesday 1st June 2016

I woke up early today around 5:30am, but I knew I would be really tired later on this evening so I dozed on and off for the next hour before I finally decided to get up. Amy woke up shortly after me, we hadn’t started un-packing yet and decided to leave this until later on this afternoon, we ate the rest of last night’s cheesecake and then quickly got ready.

I noticed that the bathroom only had a shower in, yet we were supposed to have a spa bath tub, we did mean to make a note of this to reception, but we wasn’t sure if we would actually get round to using it and didn’t want the bother of changing rooms for something that we may not use.

Anyway we left the room at about 7:30am and made our way over to the Bellagio as we wanted to eat at The Buffet.

Amy was surprised at just how big the hotels were, so far she had only seen the inside of Caesars and she was amazed when she finally got to see part of the strip in day light. When I said the Bellagio was the next hotel down from Caesars, she didn’t realise it would take us 20/30 minutes to walk there from our room!

We stopped outside the Bellagio to take a couple of pictures, the temperature was already in the 90’s and it was still so early!

Before we came everyone was always telling me how busy the Vegas buffets get, so I was surprised that the queue was empty when we arrived. We paid separately at different tills, we paid $23 each, there was an option for an upgrade to unlimited Prosecco but we decided to stick to just food that morning. We were then seated at our table, the server took our drinks orders we both chose green tea and lemon water and then it was time to get started on the food.

My first stop was the omelette station; I chose onions, mushrooms, spinach, cheese and ham. I also got a side of breakfast potatoes and sausages. I can’t seem to find a picture of my omelette anywhere though but it was really tasty.

I actually made a pretty poor attempt at the buffet today, I was already feeling really full (probably the cheesecake I had in the room ) however I still managed to squeeze in a plate of sweet options, mostly to make up for my pre-holiday low sugar diet. I wanted to try a bit of everything, so pictured is pancakes, waffles and French toast topped with strawberries, blueberries, chopped pecans, maple syrup and a side of peanut butter. Amy opted for the same as me, except she had powdered sugar, a slice of marble cake? (I think that’s what it was called) and some peach and strawberry frozen yoghurt. We also shared a blueberry muffin and a gluten free banana nut and chocolate chip muffin.

We were now feeling very full, so we left a tip on the table for our server and then decided to wonder round the Bellagio. We didn’t have a set plan for the day except we knew we wanted to book our Grand Canyon tour, a friend of ours had recently left Vegas and we saw his pictures, his tour included an airplane, helicopter and then a boat ride down the Colorado river, Amy was really keen to do something similar to this as neither of us wanted to sit on a coach for 3+ plus hours to get to the Canyon.

Taking advantage of the quiet early morning casino, selfie time (these may be a re-occurring theme throughout this report).

I love the Bellagio, it is such a beautiful hotel. My favourite of the strip hotels are definitely the Bellagio, Venetian, Cosmopolitan and Caesars.

After we had looked round the Bellagio, we started making our way down the strip towards New York New York, my boss was due to be staying here in a couple of days as part of his 5 week USA road trip and he asked me to send him a couple pictures of the hotel. On our way down we saw a Grand Canyon tour group, so decided to go in and speak to the lady behind the counter, she asked us a few questions such as our plans whilst in Vegas, the date we wanted to go and our budget. She then asked us to come back in around an hour, so she could contact a few of the airlines to see who had availability on our chosen date.

On our way down to NYNY, we stopped in the M&M & Adidas store; I was looking for new gym wear, but I couldn’t find anything I liked. I’m a Nike girl at heart.
We then made our way over the road to NYNY, I absolutely love the design of this hotel from the outside, but IMO the inside of the hotel and the casino area is very dated, however I would not complain if it meant I could be in Vegas I would be happy to stay anywhere on the strip.

After taking a few pictures of NYNY, we were considering going on the roller coaster but as we had not long ago eaten a big breakfast we decided we would come back and do this later on in the trip, however we never did manage to come back and do it, so I’m a bit gutted we hadn’t just done it there and then!

We then went in to the Hershey’s store, it took a lot of self-restraint for me to not buy the giant one-pound REESE'S Peanut Butter Cups, I find just after eating one of the small ones that they become quite sickly let alone a one pound cup.

We looked at what was available in the Bake Shoppe, but again were both still feeling too full from breakfast to stomach anything else just yet.

We then headed down to The Shops at Crystals Aria; Amy had been desperate to look in the Tom Ford shop. After spending some time browsing the shops, we also wondered through to the Cosmopolitan, we both needed to use the restroom and I wanted to have a look at the Chandelier bar. Again I apologise for the quality of some of the photos, I’m really annoyed at myself for forgetting my camera!

After spending the best part of an hour looking round the shops, we realised we had forgotten to go back and speak to the lady about booking our Canyon tour, so we quickly left and made our way back over to the tour company. I didn’t actually make a note of the name of the shop we went to, it was on the same side of the strip/ a 5 minute walk past Paris. When we got back to the store, the lady went over our options with us, only one Tour Company had any availability left for the day we wanted but this was a 5am pick up, there was another one available the day before but this would have been a 1pm pick up.

We chose the 5am start as we were worried 1pm would be to hot down in the Canyon, the tour we went for was with Vision Air, they were picking us up from Caesars at 5:20am on Tuesday 7th June, the tour included airplane from Vegas to West Rim flying over the Hoover Dam, helicopter landing down in to the Canyon, boat ride along the Colorado River and then a helicopter back up top, then there was free time to use the shuttle buses to go the Sky Walk and 2 other locations. (Vision Air have very bad reviews on TripAdvisor, we didn’t have any issues and thought the tour was great!)

Once we had booked our tour, we decided to head back to our hotel and spend the afternoon by the pool. We did have a slight detour on the way back, Sephora at the Miracle Mile shops was calling our names, and we ended up spending a lot of time and money in there. On our way back to Caesars we got speaking to one of the club promoters, we were planning to go out that night and he arranged us access and drinks at 1OAK which is located in the Mirage.

Caesars Palace pool area is beautiful, I’m now beginning to regret not spending more time there, however Vegas has so much on offer I would have felt we were wasting time sitting round by the pool all day, but we still managed to spend a few mornings/afternoons there.

By the time we actually got to the pool it was around 2pm, we spent the rest of the afternoon sunbathing, swimming and working our way through some cocktails, my choice for the day was frozen strawberry daiquiri and Amy chose the pink lemonade, these were both really yummy and refreshing.

We both began to feel a little peckish, so we decided to get some food so we that we could make it back in a good time to get ready for the night ahead. We originally planned to go to the food court at The Venetian as we wanted to go to Johnny Rockets, but on our way we see a food court on the strip which had Panda Express, Chipotle and Pizza, so we decided to get some food from here instead. I went straight to Panda Express and already knew what I wanted, Orange Chicken, Beijing Beef and Rice; Amy got the same as me.

After we had finished our food we made our way back to the room, we were both feeling pretty tired at this point, I think it was a mixture of jet lag, sun and alcohol. So we decided after we both got showered that we would have a quick power nap, it was about 6:50pm and we didn’t need to at the club until 10:30pm. I set an alarm for 7:45pm however, this did not go to plan when the alarm went off we snoozed it twice and then eventually turned it off all together and completely missed the night out.

Next: Day 3 – Shopping, Serendipity & Hakkasan.

[Lisa_Lollipop]

Unlimited prosecco with breakfast?! I don't blame you for turning that down, my day would have been over before it even began if I took up that offer!

We stayed in NYNY when we were there (nearly 6 years ago) and as much as I absolutely loved it I would love to try one of the newer hotels next time... Cosmopolitan is top of my hit list!

Another great day, i can't wait to see the pics from your canyon your!

[happytraveller]

Loving your reports. Can't wait for the next installment

[JoS]

Loving your trip report. Just love CP. Do you have any pics of the room? Thanks for sharing and looking forward to the rest.

[florida girl]

A good first day .I love the Bellagio buffet .

😄😄 Sleeping through and missing the night 😄😄well there's always tomorrow.

[Minnie4Mickey]

Originally Posted by Lisa_Lollipop

Unlimited prosecco with breakfast?! I don't blame you for turning that down, my day would have been over before it even began if I took up that offer!

We stayed in NYNY when we were there (nearly 6 years ago) and as much as I absolutely loved it I would love to try one of the newer hotels next time... Cosmopolitan is top of my hit list!

Another great day, i can't wait to see the pics from your canyon your!

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I know, that was my thoughts exactly, I wouldn't have been able to last the day! Not that we did anyway haha!

I love NYNY, but agree with you there are a few newer hotels which I would prefer to stay in, Cosmo was beautiful and it is one of the only hotels, along with Aria that actually have balconys!

I have so many pictures from the Canyon, so there are plenty to come!

Originally Posted by happytraveller

Loving your reports. Can't wait for the next installment

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Thank you for reading! I'm loving writing it all up, it's my first trippy so I need to make some improvements for next time, more food pictures and bring the camera!

Originally Posted by JoS

Loving your trip report. Just love CP. Do you have any pics of the room? Thanks for sharing and looking forward to the rest.

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I love CP, a lot of people complain that is a very dated hotel, but I don't agree and I really love it.

I've just realised I don't have any pictures of the room this is my first trip report, so I will make a note to take pictures of the room in future! I will message Amy and hopefully she might have some of the room that I can upload on one of our other days . Thank you for reading.

Originally Posted by florida girl

A good first day .I love the Bellagio buffet .

😄😄 Sleeping through and missing the night 😄😄well there's always tomorrow.

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The Bellagio buffet was so good, and everything tasted amazing!

Omg, we were so annoyed with ourselves for falling asleep, but we did make up for it the next night haha!

[Twinkletoes47]

Great first day

We stayed at NYNY back in April and it was lovely, but I would definitely try somewhere else next time - really want to stay at the Venetian, Bellagio, Caesars or the Wynn

I know what you mean about being exhausted that first night - we never made it out either!

And those breakfast buffets I filled myself up the first morning and could only snack the rest of the week

Looking forward to reading the rest

[Minnie4Mickey]

Originally Posted by Twinkletoes47

Great first day

We stayed at NYNY back in April and it was lovely, but I would definitely try somewhere else next time - really want to stay at the Venetian, Bellagio, Caesars or the Wynn

I know what you mean about being exhausted that first night - we never made it out either!

And those breakfast buffets I filled myself up the first morning and could only snack the rest of the week

Looking forward to reading the rest

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Thank you for reading

NYNY is lovely, but I agree there are a few other hotels I would choose first!

We were so tired that first night, it really took it out of us! And yes, we ate at another buffet later on in the trip and then didn't eat anything for the rest of the day!

[pudge]

Great first day, I am looking forward to my very first trip in September and we are staying at the Aria

[Minnie4Mickey]

Originally Posted by pudge

Great first day, I am looking forward to my very first trip in September and we are staying at the Aria

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I hope you enjoy Vegas, we had an amazing holiday! Aria is a lovely hotel, I'm pretty sure both Aria and Cosmo are the only strip hotels which offer Balconys, if you can get one of those rooms the views would be incredible!