The West Coast Road Trip that grew - Day 2 Las Vegas

[Libby]

Saturday Sepember 23rd


Day 1 Here

We slept well until midnight and then dozed off and on until 7am.

It was an overcast and drizzly start to the morning. This was the view from our window.

We decided to try out the Denny's we'd seen from the car on our way from the airport. It turned out to be a 10 minutes walk away, but that was nothing compared to the miles we actually ended up walking for the rest of the day. There were lots of scanily dressed models wandering up and down to pose for photos. (My sweet,innocent DH didn't know where to look!)

In all our years visiting the US we'd never been to a Denny's before, and despite it being a very busy Saturday morning we were happy with our visit.

Luckily another British visitor was able to advise us to add our own name to the seating list (whether we were meant to or not it saved a lot of time.)

The food and coffee was plentiful and set us up for a busy day ahead.

Today's plan was to visit as many hotels as we could, I especially wanted to visit the Bellagio conservatory and, if we could time it right, the fountain show.
At the time we were in LV there was a lot of construction work in preparation for the November Grand Prix, both on the road and pavilions being built next to it.

We decided to cross the road bridge and start our tour at New York, New York.

We were impressed with the effort that went into the theming of the hotels, surprised at how meany people were smoking, and wondered if those sitting at the slot machines at breakfast time had just got there or had been up all night.

At the next hotel (The Excalibur) we took the free tram all the way to Mandalay Bay before walking our wayback via the shopping mall and the Luxor to Planet Hollywood for a a nap.

Once rested we reemerged into a much busier and sunnier Las Vegas.

After that we went across to the Bellagio taking photos on the way.

We hovered to see if the fountains would start but it was only 2pm and the first show was scheduled for 3.

The pavement here was closed so everyone was making a diversion to the Bellagio and it was very crowded. We found the conservatory. Just outside was a glass ceiling that had all the hallmarks of a Dale Chihuly design (I later found out we'd been right and it was by him.)

The conservatory was beautiful and had recently been rethemed to autumn.

We spent some time here before going outside for the first fountain show of the day. And we waited. And waited. Then another member of the audience said she heard it had been cancelled until later on.

(On the news that night we found out that a workman building one of the F1 pavilions at the Bellagio had been fatally injured that morning.)

By now DH was feeling a bit light headed so we headed to a Starbucks for a drink and croissant (OMG the prices here! ) and then he went to the room for a rest while DD and I did some window shopping in the Miricale Mile Shops.

We spent some time at Bath and Body Works as they were having a 40% off everything day to celebrate the first day of autumn. We didn't find any products that we really liked but it was nice looking.

After a while we went to rest too. We're managing the jet lag reasonably well but are finding we're hungry at all the wrong times.

The only other resort that I definitely wanted to see was the Venetain. On the way we notice the fountain show has started so we find a place on a bridge to watch.

Now with pavement closures on both sides of the road we had to take a very convoluted route to get to the Ventian.
We are also shoulder to shoulder with other visitors so the going is very slow.

We manage a side trip to the outside areas of Caeser's Palace.

Before eventually getting to the Vanetian which was just amazing.

It was a long plod back to our hotel. We'd planned to go into the Paris but just had enough energy to keep straight on. DH was even more embarrassed by the scantily clad young ladies we passed who were wearing even less than they were this morning.

Back at the Miracle Mile shops we had a Panda Express before heading off to bed.

Las Vegas was amazing but definitely not for us. I'm so glad we saw it but we preferred the early morning explorations more than the evening. I don't think we did ourselves any favours by arriving on a Friday night both in cost and in busy-ness. But I wouldn't have missed it.

(My pedometer showed I'd walked 13 miles today!)

Day 3 here

[cornishfrogboy]

Your last paragraph sums up my feelings exactly after our recent visit.. (not the bit about the Pedometer).

Las Vegas was amazing, but not for us.

Lovely report and awesome photos.

[dismamx2]

You covered a lot of ground in one day. Pity about all the paths/roads closed due to F1. Bellagio conservatory looks lovely.

[Mortimer Mouse]

I'm sorry - BBW had 40% off and you couldn't find anything you liked?!
This is a sentence I never thought I hear on the Dibb!

The F1 construction looks awful and is causing so much disruption, all for just 2 days of racing.
Looking forward to hearing about the rest of your trip.