Day 7 – No luggage!!
Oh, Las Vegas, you’ll be the death of me,
City of Sin,
Oh what a mess I’ve in.
Look what you’ve done to me?Las Vegas – Tony Christie
As our time was now our own in Las Vegas, we could have a lie-in so we did, getting up at 8.00am. We were sick of cereal bars by now, so we decided to go out for breakfast. We washed and dressed, each wearing a touristy ‘Grand Canyon’ t-shirt, before heading downstairs. Inside the hotel was a Chick-Fil-A restaurant, which we’d never yet tried, as there are no branches near us in the north of England, at least none that I had seen.
We ordered a breakfast sandwich of sausage, egg and cheese on biscuit, the latter of which disintegrated once we had bitten into it. It was washed down with a large, and very hot, coffee, which took me ages to drink as I had to wait until it cooled to a comfortable temperature without taking the skin off my mouth.
Afterwards, we returned to our room and got ready for the day, putting essentials such as sunscreen, lip salve, tissues etc into one of the rucksacks, as well as our currency and credit cards, and including a phone charger, as we would be out all day. We then left the hotel and went to purchase a 24-hour bus pass for $8.00, which allowed us unlimited journeys along the Strip for the day. When we reached the machine that you purchase them from, however, it was not working, and it advised us to download the “RideRTC” app and purchase our ticket there, instead. This meant you just had to hold your phone over the scanner each time you boarded a bus.
Once we’d done this, however, we didn’t know where to find the bus stop for the bus to take us to the Strip. We were looking on Google Maps when one of the doormen at the Golden Nugget came out and asked if he could help. We asked him where to find the bus stop. “Where do you want to go?” he asked us. “Were you interested in visiting any attractions? Come with me?”
We followed him back into the hotel, where he took us to an ‘events promotion’ desk where a couple of guys were taking to customers. Our guy, whose name badge proclaimed him to be ‘Eric’ had dark hair scraped back in a long plait underneath a baseball hat. He asked us how we were enjoying Las Vegas and we told him we had only arrived last night. “I can get you discounts to the main attractions” he said. “I might even be able to get you a couple of freebie tickets”. He passed us a large ring binder full of laminated sheets advertising different attractions and we leafed through it. Seeing a huge Ferris wheel called the “High Roller”, we looked at it with interest (I have always loved ‘big wheels’). “What about a show?” said Eric “You’re in Vegas, you gotta take in a show”.
We browsed the folder a bit more and saw that there was a performance on tonight from the Cirque du Soleil called “Mad Apple”. The show sounded good; it featured music, comedy, traditional circus acts, magicians – it had the lot. We decided to order two tickets for that, as well as tickets for the High Roller.
Eric started writing up our details on an A5 triplicate pad, asking our names and marital status (what did that have to do with anything?) He said that the tickets for the show were $75.00 each, but he would do them for $112.00 for the pair, and that he would throw in the tickets for free for the High Roller. “All” we had to do was visit the Hilton Grand Vacation Hotel on Las Vegas Boulevard, have a look around it, and complete a survey as to what we thought. They would even send a shuttle bus to pick us up and take us there.
We weren’t in any hurry – we had all day. “OK” we told him, “We’ll go for that.” He handed us the second copy from the triplicate pad and asked us to hand it in at the Hilton Hotel so we could receive our free tickets. By this time, the shuttle bus had arrived, and it was only when we were in the bus an en route to the hotel that I took a closer look at the ticket and saw that we were going to be attending a timeshare presentation! They were not upfront about telling us that!
Still, it said that we would only be there a maximum of two hours and would get lunch and refreshments. We decided just to go with the flow, but we’d already made up our mind we were NOT, under any circumstances, going to be suckered in.
We had to attend a half-hour PowerPoint presentation, during which we time were allocated a rep. Ours was called Todd and he seemed very friendly in an “I-am-your-best-friend” way. He was fast-talking and persuasive and used all the psychological tricks in the sales book. We stood firm and refused, much to his barely-concealed chagrin. Finally, he left us with a curt “Bye”.
Soon we were out of there and we went to the front desk to get our vouchers, two for the discounted Cirque de Soleil tickets and two for the High Roller, which we noticed was open until 11.30pm. We used the PCs at the hotel to book our seats for the 7.00pm performance of “Mad Apple” at New York, New York.
Once the shuttle bus came back to collect us, we asked them to drop us off on the Strip. It was now 1.45pm so we had wasted the morning. As we walked along, the sun was very hot indeed and we decided to go for a cold beer. “Circus Circus” was quite nearby, so we decided to go in there.
The dimly-lit, air-conditioned cool was quite the contrast to the bright sunshine outside, and it took our eyes a while to adjust. It was quite quiet for the time of day; maybe everyone was out exploring. Like the Golden Nugget, Circus Circus was the epitome of 1970s shabby-chic. We took our seats on the stools at the bar, at which I was bemused to see a miniature fruit machine in front of each so patrons could carry on gambling as they enjoyed their beers. Tacky in the extreme!
While we were in there, Trevor decided to check his emails to see if there was any update regarding our luggage. Indeed there was – a notification had come from Fed-Ex to say that our cases would be delivered to the Golden Nugget before 10.30am on Friday, 22nd May. Yay! 🙂
We cheered up a little at this news and decided that, once the cases arrived and we had our swimming things, we would spent a nice, relaxing, stress-free day by the hotel’s pool, which had its own ‘waterfall’ and looked so cool and inviting. Others in our party, who we had periodically bumped into since our arrival yesterday, had already received their cases, so ours couldn’t be far away. 😀
After we’d finished our drinks, we made our way to the bus-stop from where we could use our 24-hour passes to explore the Strip. A bus came along almost immediately, and we alighted at the famous Caesar’s Palace and walked around for a while, passing the French Quarter with the fake Eiffel Tower in front of it.
We then made our way to the famous Bellagio Hotel & Casino. Inside, we had a look around the inevitable casino, full of garish neon lights, flashing fruit machines and blaring music. It had a theatre (as they all do) and we went and had a look, as it sometimes puts of free performances during the day. However, there was nothing on.
A small crowd of people had gathered near the fencing at the front and we saw that the famous “Dancing Fountains of Bellagio” was about to start. We placed ourselves at a good vantage point, and soon the music started and the water started dancing. It was magical! The fountains were synched with the music, and the jets of water writhed and undulated, rose and dipped, rippled and surged. I couldn’t take my eyes off them.
As time was now getting on, we decided to make our way to New York, New York for around 5.00pm. We wanted to be sure we could find the place in good time for being in our seats in the theatre by 6.45pm at the latest. It would also give us the time to enjoy something to eat and a pre-show drink or two. 🙂
We took the crowded Deuce bus along the Strip, until the destination board told us that New York, New York was the next stop. The bus was absolutely freezing, worse than Frank’s coach! In addition, on the upper deck the windows had a sort of heat-resistant mesh at the windows that impeded your view of all the sights. Whose idea was it to have a sight-seeing bus that stopped you seeing the blimmin’ sights?! 🙂
We alighted at our stop, into the 30°C heat once more. We walked up to the entrance of NYNY so we could be sure we would find the theatre later on. Then we set about exploring the immediate vicinity. 🙂
We tried to decide whether we were hungry or not, as we had been nibbling on nuts and snacks throughout the day, but we thought we’d grab something more substantial to eat later; it’s funny how the hot weather seems to diminish your appetite. As I had already walked over 16,000 steps, a cold beer was definitely in order. 🙂
We spotted an authentic looking Irish pub called “Nine Fine Irishmen” and we entered its welcoming cool interior. Taking a seat on a bar stool, we each ordered a freezing cold “pint” of Guinness. We enjoyed it so much we ordered another pint between us, as we wanted to be in our seats between 6.30-6.45pm.
I would have preferred to have been able to dress a little more smartly for a trip to the theatre, or at least wear clothes that were clean. We hoped that the Americans believed more in casual dress than we did, as we walked into the theatre, and I showed them the QR tickets for “Mad Apple” on my phone. We were shown to our seats which were better than I had thought, with an unimpeded view of the stage. We were sitting there, both of us feeling scruffy in our jeans and Grand Canyon t-shirts but, sneaking surreptitious peeks at our fellow theatre-goers, we were relieved to see people wearing shorts, Crocs and vests.
Soon the lights dimmed and the music started up, and we settled back in our seats to enjoy the show.
And enjoy it we did! It started off with an excellent singer who was accompanied by a superb live band who were high up above the stage on some sort of scaffolding. There were also dancers in colourful costumes as well as acrobats and a brilliant juggler. The next act consisted of a guy silhouetted in front of a large white screen, who gave us an amusing “shadow animals” performance to music from The Lion King.
The first half of the show ended with a typical American comedian, who was risqué but very funny. Then the lights came up and the comedian announced we had a 20-minute interval. As the crowds started to head towards the bar or restrooms, Trevor and I just remained in our seats, talking about the events of the day and enjoying the rest from walking the pavements in the heat. 🙂
The second half of the show was also excellent. We had some superb aerialists and dancers, as well as a tumbling troupe, more music, more singing and, at the end, one big extravaganza where everyone came out on the stage and we were told we were now allowed to take photos of videos if we wanted.
What a brilliant show it had been – we really enjoyed it a lot and it was certainly something different. 🙂
We filed out of the theatre with all the others. It was 8.30pm and Las Vegas Strip was a myriad of neon, colours, sounds, music. There was no such thing as “subtle” here in Vegas; everything was “in your face!”. We knew what we wanted to do next; go and find the High Roller and gaze over the city from 550 feet above.
As I used Google Maps to navigate towards towards “The Linq” complex and the High Roller, we walked over a high footbridge and I was able to get a great photo of New York, New York, all lit up in the darkness.
We arrived at the entrance to the High Roller, where there was a long, zig-zagging queue to get into one of the large, circular pods. I hoped I would be able to get one of the seats at the window, so I would have an unimpeded view for photographs. When our turn finally came, we entered a large pod and were pleasantly surprised. The pod was much larger than what was required for the number of people within it. There were some seats near the edge, but there was lots of space for us to walk around, change our points of view and take photos from all directions. This was fantastic! 🙂
The “Big Wheel” started up, and we slowly rose into the air.. The lights of Las Vegas – yes, LAS VEGAS!! no less – were spread out below us in a myriad of lights and sights and water features and LIFE! This was amazing – I am a bit of a wordsmith, but I couldn’t adequately describe what we were viewing, below us.
While we were up there, the Bellagio Fountains started up (last photo, above) so we were able to see them during the night, as well as the day. This was incredible, and knocked spots off the London Eye. 🙂
As the High Roller was so big, it took 20 minutes to do one revolution, but one was all we were going to get. We climbed down, and decided to take the Deuce bus back to Fremont Street, and get something to eat as we were now quite hungry. We thought we might go back to the Whisky Licker Up revolving bar, and maybe order a meal and one of those fantastic Manhattan cocktails.
It was Arctic on the bus. So freezing cold that other passengers were wearing coats with their hoods up. Why are the Americans so obsessive with air conditioning? Not only is it uncomfortably cold, it is bad for the environment and bad for your skin and your eyes. How often had I woken up with my eyes almost gummed together and my skin looking like a dried-up river bed. All that dry air…
We thankfully alighted at Fremont Street and headed towards the revolving bar, which we hoped would still be open. However, when we arrived, the lights were on and we could see people inside, but they had locked the doors leading to the stairs so no further customers could enter. It was 22.30pm.
Our stomachs rumbled, so we found that large shop that seemed to sell everything, and we bought some pre-packed sandwiches/wraps as well as a carton of sliced pineapple/melon. We wolfed them down on the way into the Golden Nugget and, once we’d walked through the vast casino, which was extremely lively this time of night, we decided to finish the evening off with a nightcap in the casino bar. There was a live band tuning up, so Trevor went to the bar and ordered a pint of beer for himself and an Aperol Spritz for me.
We sat on the comfortable couches and enjoyed our drinks while listening to the live band and the clangs, bongs and chimes of the fruit machines. We felt relaxed and happy; we’d been informed our cases were going to be delivered before 10.30am and we anticipated a gorgeous, sunny, relaxing day by the pool.
It was about 11.45pm when we returned to our 1970s decorated room and settled down the for evening. We had had a good day and we looked forward to a leisurely day at the Golden Nugget tomorrow.
We slept well.