Oh Fudge, I'm Forty! Vegas Trip - Day 3

[neilhd]

Day 3 - Tuesday 10th July

The alarm had been set for an unholy time this morning. 3:15am. That's "am" as I "am" mad for doing this. The pickup time for our Grand Canyon Connoisseur tour with Papillon was 04:25am. That's "am" as in "actually morning". Though for some reason it says we have to be there 10 minutes before our pickup time. Why not just make the pickup time 04:15?

Turns out though, totally didn't need the alarm as I woke up at 02:45. No point in trying to get back to sleep, so we got up, showered and got ready and were out the door at 04:00 on the dot.

I knew roughly where the pickup point was. Or at least, where I thought it was. The Venetian is so mind-bogglingly huge that something so simple-sounding, and important-sounding as the "tour pickup point" can be hard to find. And as it turns out, whilst things are generally quite well sign-posted, this actually wasn't. Luckily we actually found it without getting lost once. It was a good 10 minute walk from our room to get there. Maybe even more than that.

When we first got there we were unsure if it was the right place or not. There was nobody there to ask. After peeking around a bit I noticed the mini-bus parked slightly out of view. Turns out that was our bus. He could have parked in plain sight, but where's the fun in that? We hopped on board and made some small-talk with the only other passenger - a girl from some northern part of England.

We went to our next pickup at the Linq, and the roads were flooded as it had rained the night before. It was so flooded he couldn't get down one street at all, and the entrance to the Linq car-park was basically underwater. He parked elsewhere and radioed it in whilst the company tried to contact the passengers who presumably were waiting in the car-park somewhere, unaware. In the end the driver went in to find them and came back empty-handed. Not that he'd have been actually carrying them I suppose, but they weren't with him.

So we carried on and did a few other pickups. The minibus was full by the time we'd finished, so I don't know how the other 2 would have got on anyway! They did turn up later at the airport though.

We then got dropped near Luxor where we transferred onto the prison bus. Sorry, I mean coach. It did have a bit of a prison bus vibe to it for some reason. The only seats left were right at the back where the naughty kids sit, which was fine by me as I nabbed the very rear bench one in the middle and could stretch my leg out down the aisle.

The bus was freezing. Sitting in an igloo type freezing. We ate our pastries that we'd bought yesterda in Panera Bread and shared body-heat to keep warm. The guys next to me had Starbucks. I immediately hated them. The Starbucks in our hotel wasn't open at the crazy time we went past it.

Eventually we set off and the driver must've thought it was a little chilly so turned the AC down, which stopped our blood turning to ice. The drive to the airport took about 30 minutes and passed uneventfully. We watched the sun come up as we drove.

At the airport we got put into queues to check in. There was a coffee place there as well so Ele volunteered to immediately go there and get coffee as the risk of death otherwise was pretty high. It took a few minutes and I had to let a couple of other people past me in the queue but it didn't matter. It's not like we're not getting on the plane or anything. They weigh everyone and assign seats on that basis anyway.

We had paid a little extra for window seats, and got given seats 2A (Ele) and 2C (Me). It's a 1-2 layout but there was nobody in 2B. Presumably our enormous combined weight meant that was going to make the row too heavy. We waited for about 15 minutes then got boarded.

The plane was cool:

We did have a photo with the pilot that they took but we didn't buy it afterwards.

We clambered up and settled into our seats. Thank goodness nobody was next to me (benefit of being a fat git I suppose), as I could angle myself to not totally crush my knee. Legroom was not exactly in abundance…

We soon had both pilots on board, took off at 06:15 and were soaring over the wilderness. There is literally hundreds of miles of nothing out here.

There was commentary but the English wasn't working so I listened to it in Spanish. I don't speak Spanish. It muted the drone of the engine that was basically next to my head though.

The flight was smooth and the large windows made sight-seeing great. We passed over the Hoover Dam

And the West Rim, with the Skywalk

You could immediately tell the West Rim would be nothing compared to the South.

Nothingness:

The flight took about an hour and we landed at whatever the little airport was, somewhere in Arizona. We were boarded onto a bus (not quite a prison bus this time) and driven into the Grand Canyon National Park. It took about 5 minutes to get there.

A few minutes later we were parking up at Bright Angel lodge. The driver gave some information just before we got off, but the Very Rude Italians (VRIs) seated across the aisle from us just talked very loudly to each other, presumably because they weren't going to understand it anyway. Never mind those of us who could. We got given a box of breakfast as we left the coach (muffin, apple, yoghurt, juice) and went through to see the view.

Oh
My
God

Words and pictures cannot do it justice. The scale of it was just staggering. It was like someone had stitched together never-ending panoramas of the most amazing landscapes in Photoshop and then bought them to life. It almost didn't seem real.

We ogled and took many photos, and ate some breakfast. We then started walking along up the path. The view changed with almost every step we took. Somehow, it got better each time.

We took probably hundreds of pictures. I'll just include a few:

It was still really early (about 07:30 I think) when we got there so there was hardly anyone around. It would be a lovely place to spend a night. I had considered it, but then that would have taken 2 days out of a 5-night trip and that's just too much.

We had about an hour and a half here in total, then we grabbed some snacks from the gift shop, bought a couple of souvenirs and went out to meet the coach again.

The coach took us to Mather point for another viewing session. This one was a little more crowded with a large Japanese tour group. We took a few million more photos. The vista here was even wider than it had been at Bright Angel.

We had about 45 minutes here and then boarded the coach to return to the airport. We had to wait for a couple of the VRIs to go to the toilet - queuing behind a load of the Japanese tour group so it took ages - and then 10 minutes later we were back at the Airport, where there was no queue at all for the toilet.

We had 30 minutes before our return flight so we Facetimed Jess and Joe, and bought a drink and a snack in the tiny terminal building. We were soon called for boarding and we got back into the plane for the trip back. It was actually a different plane (same type though) and we had the same seats. On this one the commentary worked in English so I listened to that. The flight back was a bit more bumpy than on the way out and we took a more direct route without detouring over the Hoover dam. It took about 50 minutes in all.

Believe it or not, after all that awesomeness it was still only midday. We registered for the coach back to our hotel and bought some more coffee and a toasted sandwich from the little café. We were soon called to our coach. The coach dropped everyone off at the Luxor to transfer onto feeder buses, except us. We got taken straight to the Venetian as the only passengers on the enormous coach. We were back in the hotel by 1pm.

I must say the entire day was just absolutely amazing. Papillon provided an excellent trip that was extremely well organised and fantastic in every way. Yes it was expensive, but it was worth every single penny and the memories will stay with us for a lifetime. Big thanks to Tonymc who recommended it.

We had to walk past Starbucks in the hotel so we grabbed a coffee to go on the way and decided to head into the casino to win big bucks on the slot machines. Predictably this didn't work and I lost the almost entire $15 that I put in. High roller or what! I'm amazed they didn't comp me a penthouse after that. I cashed out my huge "winnings":

We chilled back in our room for an hour or so and decided on an early dinner, as we'd not had a proper breakfast or lunch and it was now getting on for 4pm. We both fancied a burger and after considering Hard Rock Café we decided to shake it up a bit and we called an Uber to take us to Mandalay Bay so we could go to the House of Blues. Despite going to Disney Springs (sorry. Downtown Disney) countless times, and even going into the shop there, we've never actually eaten at HoB. Very odd considering the Blues Brothers is my favourite movie of all time.

Anyway we got there and were seated immediately in the almost-empty restaurant. I studied the craft beer menu and picked one, which turned out to be very nice so I had another one. We had some cheesey fries with pulled pork and jalapenos as a starter (very good):

For mains I had a Juicy Lucy burger. I'm not kidding when I say this was possibly the best burger I've ever had in my life. So good I didn't take a picture of it. We were way too full for dessert. The bill was about $70.

I bought a t-shirt in the shop. I wanted loads of Blues Brothers stuff as well but I wasn't allowed as it's just "junk that's going to clutter up the house". I can't disagree with that actually… I also wasn't allowed the very nice PRS guitar on the wall for a couple of thousand dollars. I mean seriously - it's my birthday tomorrow! How mean! There was even a 15% discount on things in the shop as we'd eaten in the restaurant.

We dived headlong into the casino and found a Jurassic World slot machine. Jurassic World is Joe's favourite thing so we decided to stick some money in and play it and film it for Joe. It was a 4-D machine which meant it had a 3D screen and a vibrating chair and all sorts. We actually did well on this one and walked away with a profit of $28. Joe must have been channelling us some good luck.

We Ubered over to the Bellagio to watch the fountain but first hit the casino there too. We found a Penn and Teller slot machine that was really good fun to play and the $20 I put it in lasted us about an hour before we finally lost it all. At one point early on we were up to about $40 but we carried on as it was fun. That's how they get you, I guess…

We headed out to watch the fountain just before the 7pm show was about to start. It was pretty good, although I think the Dubai Fountain at the Dubai Mall (in Dubai if you can't work it out) is actually a lot better.

We walked back to the Venetian, stopping in at Walgreens again for drinks and essentials like peanut butter M&Ms. We were back in the room by 19:45. Ele went to sleep almost immediately. I put some ice on my knee, watched a bit of TV and enjoyed another hour or two of being in my thirties, before turning in at 21:30!

[Tweety1]

Looks fantastic!
We did the s rim sunset tour it was a long day (15hrs) but absolutely worth it. We had a small group of 9(5 were my family) and it was all just stunning!
Looking forward to day 4

Where are you going in 9 days

[neilhd]

Originally Posted by Tweety1

Looks fantastic!
We did the s rim sunset tour it was a long day (15hrs) but absolutely worth it. We had a small group of 9(5 were my family) and it was all just stunning!
Looking forward to day 4

Where are you going in 9 days

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Back to Florida! Pre-Trip link in my sig

[Tweety1]

Originally Posted by neilhd

Back to Florida! Pre-Trip link in my sig

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Honestly you need to be a comedian that Pre trip is funny . Poor Ele lol
I would be very interested in how you find the weather end of Aug. I have it booked for nxt yr but a bit dubious about humidity and rain!

[neilhd]

Originally Posted by Tweety1

Honestly you need to be a comedian that Pre trip is funny . Poor Ele lol
I would be very interested in how you find the weather end of Aug. I have it booked for nxt yr but a bit dubious about humidity and rain!

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We nearly always go at end of August actually.

It's always hot, humid and rains a bit pretty much every afternoon. Never found it an problem though. Just crack on with it!

[Tweety1]

Originally Posted by neilhd

We nearly always go at end of August actually.

It's always hot, humid and rains a bit pretty much every afternoon. Never found it an problem though. Just crack on with it!

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It’s not so much the heat (can’t be worse than the Vegas weather we have just been in!) it’s the rain as you see it sometimes where it doesn’t stop all day - have you ever found it like that? Off to read day 4

[neilhd]

Originally Posted by Tweety1

It’s not so much the heat (can’t be worse than the Vegas weather we have just been in!) it’s the rain as you see it sometimes where it doesn’t stop all day - have you ever found it like that? Off to read day 4

See more...

Once or twice it's rained all day, but usually it's just an afternoon storm for half an hour or so.

[Tweety1]

Originally Posted by neilhd

Once or twice it's rained all day, but usually it's just an afternoon storm for half an hour or so.

See more...

Thanks

[Joosebug1987]

Wow this looks amazing - not sure sure I'd hack the early start! In our 3 trips to vegas we've not made the Grand Canyon yet - we had booked with Papillion but ended up cancelling on the day due to weather than meant it was probable we'd have to get a coach back... they were great though even with that so may look at this trip for next time! x

[WileyCoyote]

Just wow, that looks awesome. How totally amazing. Stunning views and prettty well organised despite a bit of faff with the various buses.
Not much else you can say it’s so damn good. Just looked a mind blowingly brilliant day and topped off with fab food and a stash of cash( ok maybe not a stash) from the slots ... perfect !
Oh and don’t you hate those people who chatter over the important announcements, grrrr.