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Old 8 Aug 18, 11:18 AM  
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neilhd
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Oh Fudge, I'm Forty! Vegas Trip - Day 2

Day 2 - Monday 9th July

Sleep didn’t last long. I woke up at 2, drifted off again a bit and then woke again at 3. At 4 we both gave up and got up. The 8-hour time difference is a real killer!

We got ready and by 5am left the room, heading for the Denny’s I knew to be next door. On the way down we passed the Grand Luxe Café. It appeared to be open so we decided to try in there. We were seated - right by the casino floor - and told it was a late-night menu. This meant the breakfast options were very limited. It was also quite loud in there as it was still catering to the all-night crowd so we decided to leave and just go to Denny’s anyway.

The casino was still quite busy. It really doesn’t stop there!

We took the opportunity of no crowds to get a pic inside and outside the hotel:




It wasn’t too hot out yet, and the streets were pretty deserted. It only took approximately 20 seconds to get to Denny's next door. It was upstairs, above a Walgreens. We settled in and ordered juice and coffee whilst poring over the menu. I settled on an American Slam with pancakes instead of toast. Ele had French Toast. It was typical Denny's food and delicious. It came to about $39 so I left a $50.

We decided we'd walk south to the Welcome to Las Vegas sign, visiting hotels along the way. This seemed to be about 3 miles away, which in hindsight with a bad knee was a bad idea!

Nevertheless, we set off in a southerly direction, enjoying the fact that there was nobody about. Due to some construction we were forced to cross over to the other side of the road at Ceasers, and then we headed briefly into the shops at the Bellagio, which were quite understandably shut as it was still only about 6am!

Pretty lady:



Don't often see the Las Vegas Strip this empty of cars:



We ambled down some more and popped into the Cosmopolitan. It was very nice in here - definitely a place I'd consider staying in the future for sure.

We detoured into the shops at the Aria, and then the Aria itself which was also a really nice hotel.

We Facetimed Joe to say hi for a bit and then got a Starbucks in a convenient one located by the Mandarin Oriental.

We continued south and came across the Mandalay Bay. I really liked this one, too, although it's maybe a bit far south. The outside was lovely with all the waterfalls, and the casino seemed nice and airy. There was a House of Blues in here which we thought we might come back to at some point. We were thirsty, so we got a bucket of Pepsi each from a waffle place and sat for a rest and a drink.

I took the opportunity to swap knee braces from the medium one to a combination of the compression one and the strap-on one as I was really feeling it by now. The change helped a bit. We had a look around outside to see if we could see the pool but it was fenced off and we couldn't, so we headed back outside and then carried on to the sign. At first impressions, it wasn't as impressive as I had been led to believe:



I then had a sneaking suspicion this wasn't actually it so we carried on and soon came to it.



Despite still being quite early (probably 9:30am ish by now) there was a large queue of people all waiting for a guy to take photos of them. There was a sign at the sign that said something along the lines of "there are no official photographers here and no official lines". So it's obviously just a guy trying to make a few $. Nothing wrong with that, but we didn't feel the need to queue and give him money, so we walked up to the side like a couple of other people were doing and took some selfies:



We say these funny pink cars that seemed to be doing some kind of tour:



We bought a couple of bottles of water from a guy selling them from a cooler (on the right in the picture above) and I laughed off Ele's suggestion that we walk back up, and called up an Uber instead to take us to the Bellagio. That arrived in no time at all and turned out to be a guy from London driving it. He was telling us about how he'd been in a bar with a very drunk Ricky Hatton a day or two before. I was just kind of nodding and uh-huh-ing not really believing him, but then he showed us a video of his phone of a really very drunk Ricky Hatton in the bar riding on his shoulders. It was actually quite funny!

He dropped us off and we went in to have a look at the conservatory. Very impressive!



I won't bother with including all the tons of photos.

We were peckish and thirsty after all the walking, so we went into the Bellagio Café in the corner of the conservatory and ordered some coffee, a smoothie and a (large) plate of fruit. It was all very nice, and the café was really nice too. I considered making this my "birthday breakfast" place! Quite pricey though - came to about $35 for that but the service was great and everything was delicious so it was pretty much worth it.



See, proof I do sometimes eat healthy things! That lot should last me through to the new year I reckon. They gave us some free banana bread that you can see in that picture. It was really good.

We left and crossed the bridge over to Ceasers Palace. On the way over we Facetimed Jess as she was now home from work, and spoke to Joe a bit too. We had a wonder through Ceasers casino - another really nice hotel. We headed into the Forum shops and spent a good amount of time wandering around there - it's quite a sight!



We found a souvenir type shop and bought a couple of t-shirts and a few other bits and pieces.

I very much liked the curvy escalators:



We headed back to the Venetian now, entering into the Grand Canal Shoppes. We spent a good amount of time walking around here, taking in the sights and seeing St Mark's Square etc. The gondola ride prices seemed to be something like $110 for a private gondola. $110! I think I could actually fly from home to Venice for that much.

Just-a one-a cornettooooooo, give iiiiiit tooo meeeeee:



He wasn't singing the words from the advert, but they came into my head and made me want ice-cream so we got some Gelato in the square (very nice):



We looked around a lot more of the mall and came across a Zoltar machine from the movie Big, so I took a photo of it to show Joe as we watched it a few weeks back:



I did wonder if I could do the opposite wish and wish not to be 40 this week!

We then went back to our room for a rest. I put some ice on my knee. It was only about 1pm still by this point!

At 2pm we decided to go and check out the pool so off we went. The pool area was really busy, not helped by one of the other pools being closed. A couple were leaving their loungers as we arrived so we nabbed them. We went in the pool for a few minutes but it was a bit crowded for me, and didn’t feel great on my knee either so we got out again. It was stupidly hot (43C or something) and we had re-apply sunscreen every 5 minutes. A waitress came over and asked us if we wanted a drink, so Ele got a Mohito and I got a beer. We charged it to the room. Or we tried to, at least. She came back with the drinks and a couple of minutes later said she was unable to charge to the room and did we have cash or a card. I said no, but we had pre-authorised $750 for room charges yesterday on my card so it should be fine. She asked if we had a cell phone to call the front-desk. We did, but I said no. She then said I could go over to the desk over by the pool entrance and call from there. At this point I got a bit cross and said this is not my problem. I'm the guest - you sort it out. She went off and managed to sort it out!

It was too hot to stay much longer so we left and escaped back into the blissful air conditioning, We showered and chilled out in our room until about 16:30 at which point we got ready to leave for dinner. We were going to Bahama Breeze!

We left our room and went to the Uber pickup point (all the hotels have specific Uber/Lyft pickup points) and ordered one to take us there. It came soon enough and was a Ford Fiesta, which is probably the smallest car I've ever seen in the USA! The journey only took a few minutes. We asked for a table outside and ordered beer and a cocktail.

Food-wise we had the coconut shrimp and the jerk chicken wings as starters, then I had my favourite ever food - the jerk chicken pasta (lighter portion) and Ele had the shrimp linguine (also a lighter portion). All the food was delicious and just like Florida. As it had been happy hour the cocktail and starters were half price, so the bill was only $55. Bargain!



No pictures of main courses, sorry!

We had noticed a Panera Bread next door, so we popped in there to get some breakfast for the next day as we would be having a super-early start the next day. Then, for some reason I don’t understand, we decided to walk back to the Venetian which took about 25 minutes. Good thing it wasn't 40C and I didn't have a bad knee. Oh no, wait a minute…

We made a pitstop in Walgreens for some water that didn't cost $5 per bottle and we were in bed by 19:30.

Party animals!

Tomorrow - The Grand Canyon!
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Old 8 Aug 18, 02:49 PM  
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Joosebug1987
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Sounds like a great second day - that time difference is definitely hard work with a 7.30 bedtime lol! Probably good prep though ready for early start the next day.

Looking forward to reading more. You've done so much walking for someone with a bad knee! x
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Old 8 Aug 18, 04:00 PM  
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neilhd
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Originally Posted by Joosebug1987 View Post
Sounds like a great second day - that time difference is definitely hard work with a 7.30 bedtime lol! Probably good prep though ready for early start the next day.

Looking forward to reading more. You've done so much walking for someone with a bad knee! x
This was the walking stats for the day, according to Ele's Apple Watch:

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Old 8 Aug 18, 04:31 PM  
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Joosebug1987
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Good grief! I think our most in Vegas was about 28500 so sounds about right - most days was 20 - 24k ish - its just such a massive place isn't it!x
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Old 8 Aug 18, 04:41 PM  
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clochette
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Well done you for walking all the way to the Welcome to Vegas sign in all that heat. Not surprised you got an uber back!

Looking forward to your Grand Canyon day.
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Old 8 Aug 18, 04:50 PM  
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Joelin
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Loving this report Neil! I had to screenshot the part where you said there’s a Denny’s above a Walgreens and text it to the other half. That sounds like heaven to me! Don’t judge - I’m a woman of simple tastes 🙈 Go you with all the walking in spite of the knee and eating healthy things in the US!
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Old 8 Aug 18, 11:55 PM  
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Tweety1
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I love it and lots of talk of food mmmm
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Old 9 Aug 18, 10:39 AM  
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neilhd
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Originally Posted by Joosebug1987 View Post
Good grief! I think our most in Vegas was about 28500 so sounds about right - most days was 20 - 24k ish - its just such a massive place isn't it!x
Huge. You think - oh look, it's just down there past the next 2 hotels. 10 minutes later you're still walking past the first hotel!

Originally Posted by clochette View Post
Well done you for walking all the way to the Welcome to Vegas sign in all that heat. Not surprised you got an uber back!

Looking forward to your Grand Canyon day.
Luckily first thing on the morning the heat was manageable, especially as the sun wasn't fully up. Later on it would've been a killer!

Originally Posted by Joelin View Post
Loving this report Neil! I had to screenshot the part where you said there’s a Denny’s above a Walgreens and text it to the other half. That sounds like heaven to me! Don’t judge - I’m a woman of simple tastes 🙈 Go you with all the walking in spite of the knee and eating healthy things in the US!
No judging here - just total agreement!

Spoiler alert - the healthy eating doesn't last!
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Old 9 Aug 18, 10:47 AM  
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stupet11
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Great review - will follow this - my 50th in 2020, and 25th Wedding Anniversary (hopefully! ) - deciding what to do...wifey ruled out a cruise...it's not her 50th!

Thanks for sharing.
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Old 7 Oct 18, 08:20 AM  
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WileyCoyote
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Great day but oh my all that walking on your bad knee.
Love the pics by the sign and those scoot cars looks hilarious.
All the hotels are so amazing. I imagine you could just spend all day looking round them . Oh wait, you did. Can’t decide which I like best ..
Crikey at the $$$ for the gondola ride and it won’t even have the dead fish and floating debris that you get on the real thing on a hot day in Venice ... rip off I say.
Loving the food choices today. What a faff at the hotel with the drinks though. You do wonder how these things can be so hard sometimes ..
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