Vegas!
Trip Start
Jan 20, 2012
1
8
29
Trip End
Mar 18, 2012
Las Vegas, Nevada
Saturday, February 4, 2012
It took about four hours to get to Vegas from Los Angeles. On the way there are service stations and fast food restaurants in the middle of nowhere so I don’t know where the workers live. One souvenir shop was selling heaps of knives and tasers that looked like mobile phones and cigarette cartons. It was weird. As we approached the city there are all these houses that look the same and are all brown in colour. It’s really depressing.
In the daytime the city looks fairly ordinary. We had some time before the hotel’s 4pm check in because they have an extended checkout so people can sleep in. Every building you go into is a casino with shops and restaurants. The shopping is not cheap and is mostly designer gear. Everyone drinks on the streets and on the various levels of the hotel but there appears to be no violence and not that many really drunk people on the street. There is a lot of security in the hotels but they didn’t check our ID at all in the casinos.
We found out its illegal to hail a taxi in Vegas. You need to line up in a tax rank outside of a hotel. There are limos everywhere at night. We saw a midget dressed up as gremlin trying to get people into the casino.
The tour group took photos under the famous Las Vegas sign which is across the road from the all the private jets. 65,000 people arrive in Vegas everyday at the airport. From our hotel we could see all the planes arrive almost every five seconds.
On the first night our tour guide organised for all of us to have dinner at an Italian family Restaurant which had lots of rooms with booths and the walls covered in family photos. Dinner was pesto pasta, pizza and chocolate cake plus a few "Contiki Cocktails" which is a special drink the restaurant makes just for us. We then had a tour of the famous Strip and the lights are amazing!
The tour guide and the bus driver were very cunning and faked our bus breaking down next to a wedding chapel. They pretended to call and arrange taxis and we were to wait in the wedding chapel to warm up and use the toilet. Then an Elvis impersonator came out, sang some songs and married two people in our group. It was all a set up and was great fun.
The tour guide is friends with a nightclub promoter and organised us to visit three nightclubs for $5 (usually $80 cover charge for each club). The first one was the Playboy nightclub on the top balcony at the “The Palms” Casino. Two free drinks for the girls. Most ladies drink Vodka and Cranberry (yuk!). The drinks are cheap but you need to tip and depending on the tip amount, it determines how strong your drink will be and when you get served! It’s a very strange system. Playboy had no nude women but some were wearing costumes at the gambling tables. There were a lot of old men smoking cigars. The view from the top balcony bar was fantastic. The next bar was “The Moon” and then the “Ghost Bar”. All had stunning views with glass balconies but as far as nightclubs go, they were pretty much the same. There was lots of security, especially when you use the elevator to go between nightclubs. We were VIP guests for all the clubs and got to skip the line. James and I got home at 1am which is pretty good considering we had been up at 5:30am.
The following day was a free day with nothing organised so both of us walked up and down the Strip looking at each hotel. They all have different themes like Paris, Venice, New York etc. They are like massive cities with everything. It’s easy to get into the casinos but very hard to get out because they want you to gamble. They will give directions to the toilet that direct you through all the gambling machines. You can still smoke in the Casinos but not in the restaurants. There are lots of older people around at the slot machines, many in motorised scooters, and I saw a few with oxygen tanks. People don’t dress up either and a lot of them of them are in tracksuits carrying big tacky sparkly handbags. There are also kids hanging around and kids in prams.
There is a new casino hotel called the Wynn. Many people live there and the building has all necessaries like a grocery store and school!!!. It also has a show room floor where you can buy cars like Ferrari’s.
We had lunch in one of the shopping malls inside the casino and the roof was painted like a sky and every hour it had a storm and would rain?!
There are heaps of people on the street trying to give you nightclub tickets, tickets to shows and $45 hookers which can be to your room in 20 mins!
You can get alcohol everywhere. Instead of a glass you can get it served in a plastic guitar that hangs around your neck with a very long straw.
Our tour guide took us into “old Vegas” which is off the main drag. The hotels are older but you can get 99c Martini’s and $2 Corona’s. It would be very easy to get drunk when it’s hot. It can get as hot at 50 degrees.
Comments
Of course they wouldn't check your IDs. You look like an old married couple.
Is the midget male or female?