Ani-Vegas-ary! A-Nevadaversary! Our first full day!

redemma13 · 18 Oct 24, 04:01 PM

Wednesday the 25th September.

After a great night's sleep,I woke up just about 08.10ish. We have a family chat between me,Rach and Dad so there were pictures and videos from the kids before school. Abi had lots of questions for us! 😂 Rach couldn't believe we weren't awake in the early hours. We don't tend to suffer from the awake too early thing with the time difference. I pottered about on my phone for a wee while and Paul woke up just before 09.00.

Plan for today was to have a walk down to the peppermill restaurant for breakfast and then uber to the mob museum.

We facetimed the kids before we went out and told them our plans. They were desperate for us to visit the pool! 😂 that would be on our agenda for later.

The view this morning was very nice!

My friend Marie was on holiday as well and Rach was disgusted she hadn't made her bed 1 morning so sent this picture to Rach... 😆

We headed in the direction of the strip. It wasn't far but still good a good 10 minutes to get outside from our room. The hotels are huge!

It was already warm and sunny. We had a nice wander down the street. It was pretty quiet but there were still some people going around.

Can get anything you like in Vegas...

We arrived at the peppermill about 10.15. It's an iconic restaurant in Vegas and has been in movies such as casino and has celebrity guests visiting often. I had high hopes for breakfast!

It was really busy but they said the wait would be about 10 minutes so that was good.

The restaurant had trees all around with interesting lamp shades. A lot of the tables were booths. We got a booth which was nice.

The menu was huge! This is just the breakfast section!

I had a lemonade and Paul had coffee. Coffee is not photo worthy but lemonade is!

I ordered the crab cake benedict with old bay hollandaise and Paul had the Canadian bacon benedict with standard hollandaise. Oh wow! These were really good and massive! 3 eggs on each dish all perfectly cooked. The crab cakes were perfect. Full of crab meat.

Canadian bacon benedict

Crab cake bene

Paul really enjoyed his as well. He loves how his coffee just gets refilled all the time.

The free pour sugar was multicoloured!

We paid up and went to order an uber.

Uber arrived within 5 mins. $13.50 to downtown to get to the mob museum. I ordered the tickets in the uber! Lol!

We arrived at the mob museum at 11.25.

It was an old court house and was a really nice building. It was fairly busy but we didn't have to wait long to get our wrist bands.

There were 3 floors and you normally start at the top and work down but the staff working the lifts said the top floor was really busy so advised us to start on 2 so that's what we did.

Paul is really into mob history so knew a lot more than me as we went round the exhibits. It explained a lot about the birth of Las Vegas and the mob involvement along with the celebrities who has close ties to the mob- including Frank Sinatra!

I would really recommend this museum. It was fab and we both really enjoyed it. A few pics from our walk around.

Wish this was really our money! 🤣

We then heard there was someone giving a talk so we made sure to be there in time for the next one.

Turns out we were going to have a talk from a real live former mobster! Frank Calabrese Jr. He was part of the Chicago mob. His father was a made man in the mob. He told us about his life in the mob and how he ended up turning informant on his Dad. He has a book as well. It was really interesting and we enjoyed it.

The museum has an underground speakeasy so we headed in for a cocktail. We had to show ID and this pleased me! Small things and all that!

I had a blind tiger!

And Paul had an Italian cream soda!

Both fruity and very easy to drink! Lol!

We settled up the bill which wasn't too bad.

The plan was for a walk down to freemont street. The uber driver who had taken us there had said to us to walk down 3rd street and not to wander down other streets as they can be dangerous for tourists. We heeded her advice! We spent almost 3 hours at the mob museum. Well worth it.

It was a nice walk to freemont street. Hot though. The uber driver couldn't believe we had walked from the Palazzo to the peppermill earlier. I don't think people really walk about in Vegas! Lol!

There were some interesting sites on freemont street! Giant gorilla's,chippendales, showgirls who were topless with stickers on their nipples! 🤣 was barely 15.00! Haha! We saw the LED canopy.

We headed into the golden nugget as Paul wanted to check out the poker room here. I went to play and lose on the slot machines. Lol!

The pool area in the nugget looks cool as it was an aquarium bit a slide goes through.

The crowds were definitely different at the nugget and there were more people lurking about you when you were playing. An older Chinese guy with not much English kept on trying to tell me something and was gesturing to my machine and was standing right beside me. Paul wasn't far away and came to see what was going on and the guy left sharpish. Was all a bit odd. Paul went to find the poker rooms and the guy came back but I just told him to beat it and he didn't come back.

We still weren't hungry after breakfast but we decided since it was still so hot a visit to the pool was in order. We walked back to the mob museum and ordered an uber back to the Palazzo. $19.44 this time.

There was a walgreens just outside of of the entrances to the hotel so I zooped across there for some juice and a few snacks before going to the pool.

We got to the pool about 17.20. It was still really sunny and warm. Plenty of sun loungers as well. You can get your towels for free and they also give you a big towel cover for your sun lounger which is a great idea. There were loads of little pools and we heeded to an empty one. We bagged our sun lounger and then I nipped to the bar for a frozen pina colada and beer for Paul. It was $38.68 minus tip for the 2 drinks! I charged it to the room along with the tip.

The pool itself was freezing! 😂 took me a wee minute to fully go on. Paul didn't venture much further than sitting on the edge. It was really refreshing in the heat. I had bought a waterproof cover for my phone before we left as I didn't want to leave my phone lying about while we went swimming.

We then headed into the spa pool which was lovely and warm and enjoyed our drinks. We decided on staying in Palazzo/ Venetian and we would wander to get something for tea. We stayed by the pool for over an hour before heading back to the room about 18.30.

I was feeling peckish so enjoyed some of these along with some mountain dew!

We had a wee cat nap and then got showered and ready to go out for some food. I had done extensive research before travelling as looking at menus is like my favourite pastime! I had an idea of the places we would like but walking about was a good excuse to read menus. Paul indulges me as i like to read them all! 🤣

Paul eats meat but was quite happy for me to choose a more seafood based restaurant so after a wander around we headed to a place I had read about called Milos. It was a Greek place. I thought I had taken a picture of the outside but I didn't. We were told a 15 minute wait so we went off to explore some more and went back to ask if we could have a drink at the bar when they said our table was ready. Fab.

It was a busy place! We got a great server who was really friendly and explained the menu and all about the fish we could have. I had a Greek mule to drink and Paul has some red wine that was recommended!

Some bread and oil to nibble on. They snipped fresh herbs into the oil tableside!

There was fresh fish on ice and our server took us over to choose a fish! We went for a grilled whole branzino! They would then take it tableside and fillet it for us. We also chose a side of baked beetroot with yogurt and mint dressing and hand cut chips with herbs.

The food was amazing. The fish was so fresh and flaky. Have never had branzino before - it was a white flaky fish, almost like seabass. We had a caper and lemon butter over the top.

Fish being filleted out tableside

We decided we had room for pudding. I chose baklava. I love baklava and couldn't resist. Paul had a chocolate tart.

This is the biggest piece of baklava I have ever seen! It was huge! I managed about half. It was also very very good. The walnut and honey ice cream went really well with it.

This was also really good but Paul was getting full as well. Paul had an espresso as well. We paid the bill + we tipped in cash.

Time for a walk to let our food settle. We were right next to the wynn and encore so walked along to them. These are really nice hotels but I did feel they were a bit soulless. Not sure I would stay here. Lots of fancy designer shops. Table limits were pretty high as well. Lots to see though as you walk through.

Paul won some money in a poker machine so he was happy.

More than what I was winning! I had won nothing so far! Haha! I was having fun though! We didn't have a set gambling budget as in x amount per day but we often said right,am going to play another $50 and then am done for the night. We didn't bet $100's a day anyway! We are not made of money! 🤣 we didn't mind spending a bit on gambling and having fun with it though.

We called it a night around 23.30 and walked back to the hotel.

Everything is so nice all lit up at night.

We sent a video to the kids - they would be up for school soon and then heeded to bed.

We had a great day and enjoyed a real mix if things from the museum,chill out pool time,food and gambling!

Join us for tomorrow's adventures soon!

Em

ClaireNJ · 18 Oct 24, 08:04 PM

Originally Posted by redemma13