Epic Conclusion to the 5-part Story of My Vacation in Las Vegas

We got up late, since we decided we were going to go to the Rio's Carnival World Buffet, which is by far the best buffet in Vegas, I'll get to it later.  Anyways we skipped breakfast since we knew we were gonna eat well later.  The hotel didn't have free internet so we had to go to the library so we could do advance check-in on our luggage or something for the flight the next day.  The library was kind of nice, its like 3 floors and you could tell it was old.  I'd be surprised if it wasn't haunted.  They microfiche machines which I honestly have never seen before in any other library minus the one at the college campus.  There was also a book sale going on in the basement like area of the library so we checked that out.  It was interesting looking through all the ancient books but in the end there was nothing of any great interest.  They did have quite a few of the Jacques Cousteau documentaries on VHS, which I thought was kind of neat.

We stuck around at the library for quite sometime before heading to the Rio.  We figured we'd do some gambling there before eating.  When we got to the Rio we found out that there was a deal for the buffet.  For $30 per person you could eat there all day.  Like eat, leave, come back later and eat some more.  So we decided to do just that.  But first gambling.  My sister and I did not have the players club card thingy for Las Vegas, so we signed up for it and got $10 slot play, so we had free money to gamble.  Unfortunately I didn't pay attention to my machine and lost the money real fast cause I was betting more than I intended.  Ah well, such is the way...

After losing quite a bit of money, well, free money, we headed for the buffet.  The reason I consider this the best buffet in Las Vegas is the size of it.  It is by far the largest one that I'm aware of and it has an awesome assortment of ethnic foods, and best of all, the dessert section.  Unfortunately the desert selection changes with the seasons and the winter selection is no where near as good as the summer's, but its still all good.  Just like the other buffet's I've mentioned previously, this buffet has the Japanese, Mexican, etc sections.  But there are more too.  The Chinese section has soups which are another drawing point of the buffet.  The udon noodle soup is superb.  Definitely suggest getting that if you ever go.

After eating we went to gamble some more, but at Paris/Bally's.  AKA we wanted alcohol.  And we had the same service as the previous day.  We also walked a bit, back near our hotel, so Mandalay Bay, Excalibur, Luxor and probably New York New York and MGM.  I remember on one of the walkways at the Excalibur there was one of those ticket-seller guys trying to get our attention said something like, "Where you from" and I replied, "Somewhere" and then we kept cracking jokes about that for the rest of the night.

Eventually we ate at the Rio again, and then decided to walk the back part of the strip.  We went through the Caesar's Palace Forum Shoppes and I think the Palazzo and Venetian again.  The Palazzo has a bunch of really ritzy stores.  Stores I'll never be in, unless I get filthy rich suddenly.  At the Forum Shoppes there is an FAO Schwartz which is a big toy store.  The entrance is actually a Trojan Horse.  Its pretty cool  We actually spent quite a bit of time there.

If my memory serves me correctly the Aria is pretty much across the street from the Venetian.  Anyways, whatever that was our next destination.  Too bad it was busy as hell.  Like we basically walked in and walked right back out.  That night was the opening night of the Aria, which explains why it was so busy.  It seemed nice, from what we saw.  There was a fountain that looked to be a mini version of the Bellagio fountain, but it changes color.  And a waterfall that the news was making a big deal about, but honestly, it was not that impressive.  Hopefully next year it will be less busy and we can throw a few dollars away there.

We walked a bit more and then went back to theHotel to go to sleep, since we had to get up early for the flight back home.  Fortunately the flight back was very normal.  No problems or anything.  

But with those vouchers we got from the shit flight going we figured we'd go to Las Vegas again when the spring semester ends.

Vegas: Parto Quatro

Unfortunately memory does not serve me correctly.  I honestly don't remember much about what happened on the 4th day in the Fabulous City of Las Vegas.  Its all a memory gap until mid-afternoon.  I don't remember what we had for breakfast or what we did all morning.

In the last post I said something about a Comedy Magic Show.  We originally planned that for Friday, but found out it was dark on Friday (meaning no shows on Friday), so we decided to do it on Thursday instead.  The magician's name is Nathan Burton, and apparently he was on America's Got Talent or something.  I dunno.  Anyways he did pretty good on the show and now he performs in Las Vegas at the Flamingo Hotel.

The show was good.  A lot of the trick I don't know how he did.  One of the tricks had one of the showgirls supposedly get scrunched into a tiny box, and when he angled it to the audience, to show it, he tried to cover the backside of the compartment, but he didn't do a good enough job and I could see the showgirl's back end sticking out behind the box where the audience shouldn't be able to be seen.  If I was just watching the show and not actively trying to find where he screws something up, I probably wouldn't have seen it though.  Nathan was pretty funny too, but halfway through the show he went for a break and another guy came out.  I can't remember his name but he was hilarious.  And the people in our group didn't get a lot of the jokes or something and he kept making fun of them, which made the show all the more funny.  

After the show we went to gamble at the Flamingo.

 Mentioning that I suddenly remember what we did during the morning section of the day.  In the morning we ate somewhere which still escapes me.  After breakfast, wherever that was, we went to Paris Hotel and gabled there and Bally's Hotel.  The gambling at both those hotel's was pretty good, but the memorable thing was the drinks.  Almost as soon as we sat down a cocktail waitress came and asked if we wanted drinks.  I had an Irish coffee, which was really good.  I never had one before, but I like whiskey so I liked it quite a bit.  After gambling at Paris, we went to Bally's.  Bally's and Paris are connected through a mini-mall thing, and the hotel's are owned by the same parent company.  Anywho.  At Bally's again as soon as we sat down we were asked if we wanted drinks.  Had a Jack Daniel's and Coke there, which was a hell of a lot better than the JD & Cokes I had at other hotels.  And we moved to another area to gamble and were again asked about drinks.  So if you want to get piss drunk, go to Bally's or Paris and move around in the casinos.

Anyways, where was I?  After the show we went to gamble at the Flamingo, but we couldn't find any machines we wanted to play, so we went outside and walked around at the pool area, which has a little bird area and a largish koi pond which had gargantuan koi in it.  Except it was very exciting since it was freezing and the koi kind of just floated there not moving.  And the birds were all trying to stay warm.

Anyways after about an hour or so we went back inside and ate at the Flamingo buffet.  Its a nice buffet, albeit very pricey.  And apparently very Asian.  I swear there were more Asians in this restaurant than white people.  There was a sushi bar and there was wasabi too.  I went up to the sushi bar and was the only white person up there in a sea of Asians.  And when I put a big glob of wasabi on my plate this old Asian woman looked at me funny, like I didn't know what I was doing.  I love wasabi, so I knew what I was getting into.  I'm not a big sushi eater, but its the only thing that goes well with wasabi so I put that on the sushi.  I put too much wasabi on one of them so my eyes started watering and my nose begins to run, and this girl at the table next to ours was giving me strange looks.  That was funny.  There was a nice selection of food at the buffet.  The pasta was nice, and there was a cheese section.  I love cheese, so that wins points in my book.  Desert was nothing special.  Not bad, but I wasn't impressed.  There are better deserts at other buffets.

After diner we walked more on the strip.  As you can guess from all the other posts, thats pretty much all there is to do in Vegas.  Gamble, eat and walk.  But its still somehow fun.  Just people watching is fun.  Not to mention the Mexicans handing out porn.  I shit you not.  Its not really porn so much as, as my friend put it, Stripper Trading Cards.  Things they hand out are no bigger than an index card and have a nude girl on them.  Its kind of like a business card, card, cause they have the number of the strip club or "escort" service that the Mexican works for.  And it the way the Mexicans hand them out.  They have a small stack of them, like 30-50 and they take one and slap it on the stack and try to hand them out.  It doesn't make much sense trying to explain it, but anyone who's ever been to Vegas knows exactly what I'm talking about.

Last post I said we might have gone to the Venetian but maybe not too.  Well, we didn't because I remember we went there this night.  We also went to the Palazzo, which is the Venetian equivalent of theHotel.  The Venetian has a mall which is set up to be like Venice, so theres a canal in the center and you walk along the canal.  You can actually get a ride on a gondola.  We always joke that if we wanted to ride one, the gondolier would be a chick, just to kill the mood.  And the gondoliers will start singing at the large open section of the canal.

Somehow we ended up on the side of the street which had the Aria.  Aria is a new hotel among other things.  It wasn't exactly open yet, in fact it was going to open the next day, but you still go inside the mall thing.  It had a few stores but none were open.  There was some modern art there.  It was pretty cool.  There were ice...sculptures, I guess, they were just columns of ice.  But the way they were melting slowly we called them ice phallus's, since they were sort of...bulbous at the top.  I'll have to get pictures up.

After the Aria we just went back to the hotel and called it a night.

Vegas: Part Drei

Wow, a month later and I finally post the third part.  Which is fairly uneventful.  Basically cause I got sick that day.  I dunno, must have been all the weird food or something.  Anywho, if I can remember right, we went to the Orleans buffet for breakfast.  As previously stated the Orleans buffet is one of the best buffet's in my opinion.  The breakfast, not so much as dinner.  No machaca.  But if you like omelets (I don't), they apparently make the best ones outside a sit-in restaurant.  There's some other things for breakfast that are good, but honestly its been a month so I can't remember anything at the moment.  

After that we parked at the Flamingo and walked on the strip.  I can't remember whats on the way, but we walked from the Flamingo to the Bellagio.  In the Bellagio there is what is called the Conservatory.  Its basically a greenhouse with like animals made from plants and stuff.  Its usually themed and it changes every few months.  Since it was Christmas time, it was Christmas themed.  It was pretty and neat, but honestly, we went during Christmas time last year, and it seemed a little re-used.  There were a few differences, but the Christmas tree was most definitely that same. 

It was around this time that I got really sick.  Despite the freezing weather, I couldn't stop sweating.  I had been sweating uncontrollably all day that day, but when we got to Bellagio it was worse.  And I became nauseous and my legs were weak. So after the Conservatory we headed back for our room.  I slept for about threes hours.  After I awoke I felt a hundred times better. 

For dinner we went back to the Orleans.  Not for the buffet, but for Don Miguel's.  Don Miguel's is a Mexican restaurant.  The portions there are amazing.  You know how Mexican places give you chips and salsa?  Well Don Miguel's does that too, but instead of the defaulto salsa, they give you a selection of salsa.  Theres the regular stuff, the chipotle/mesquite stuff, and that green stuff that I dunno the name of, to name a few.  Anyways, unfortunately they were closed.  They closed on Monday for the holidays.  Fuck.  So than we were trying to figure out where to go.  Then we remembered there was a Mexican restaurant at the Palms.  So thats where we headed next.  Only the Palms' Mexican place was too expensive, but there was a cafe just a little bit down from that restaurant.  The cafe was moderately priced so we ate there.  The place was called 24 Seven or something.  Anywho I had a club sandwich which was pretty damned good if I say so myself.

I think next we went to the Wynn.  Gambling there is pretty nice, ironically since its one of the more nicer places.  After the Wynn we went to the Mirage and Treasure Island.  We really just wanted to see the volcano at the Mirage but it was down for maintenance.  We didn't gamble at either of these since we couldn't find machines we liked.  Well, at the Mirage, dad apparently found a machine to play on, but the rest of us just went to the fish tank at the lobby.  The aquarium is like 50 feet.  Its huge.  We always make it so that we come to the Mirage just to see it.  There are quite a few large fish in there as well, most noticeable the huge ass puffer.  He's unpuffed too.  He'd be gargantuan if he puffed up.  We haven't had the liberty to see him that way yet.

We took the tram over to the Treasure Island, of TI as its called now.  The Sirens at TI show was also closed for maintenance, but the show sucks anyway so that doesn't matter.  One of the things I remember from the past was a brass mermaid statue at the front entrance, with worn nipples.  I commented on it a few years prior about how you have to rub the nipples for good luck.  That statue is gone now.  Probably cause its nipples finally got too worn.  I was severely depressed about this.  There was nothing to play at this casino either.  Even worse than at the Mirage.  

I'm pretty sure thats all we did that night.  We might have gone to the Venetian or maybe we didn't.  I honestly can't remember.

Somewhere during the day we got a little pamphlet thingie from a dude outside one of the hotels.  Probably at the Flamingo.  Anywho the pamphlet was about a comedy magic show and coupled with a deal for the Flamingo buffet.  We decided that we wanted to see a show, we hadn't decided which at that point, so we decided we would see that one on Friday.

Vegas: Part Deux

After the hell of the first night we got up a little late.  Too late for breakfast anyway.  We decided to go to Red Rock Canyon.  First off we had no idea how to get there, so we had to ask the concierge for directions.  Than we had to find the interstate.  That was fun in of itself.  We had to go South on 215, but 215 is East/West.  When we went to get on 215, we realized it wasn't the 215 we wanted.  Theres a County Road 215 and an Interstate 215.  Well, we got on the County Road one and drove for awhile before we got off as no roadsigns were helping.  So we turned around and found I215 with no problem, and we were off to where we wanted to go.  

Red Rock Canyon has a very nice view.  Its a mountainous desert area, and pretty barren.  There are quite a few Joshua Trees, cacti and a whole lot of shrubs.  I was a bit dismayed with the lack of cow skeletons in the dirt, which would complete the classic desert imagery.  As we were driving you couldn't tell how close the mountains were.  Were they really close, or perhaps several miles off still?  As we travelled west the sun was behind us, and shadows covered the craggy mountains.  A majestic sight to behold.  The shadowed areas of the mountains were a great contrast to the lighted areas.  

The Red Rock Canyon itself is neat.  Portions of the mountains are colored red.  The area used to be a lake millions of years ago.  As the tectonic plates moved, some of the rock was buried, and the lake drained.  Further seismic activity brought the buried rock into open air, which then over the years oxidized.  Literally, the Red Rock Canyon is made of rusted rock.

After sightseeing at the canyon, we went to the Red Rock Canyon Resort and Casino.  Yes, in Las Vegas, even the National Conservation Areas have casinos.  Not really.  The Casino is not on the National Conservation Area property, its just kind of a "last stop" before going to the area.  Anywho, Red Rock Casino is a newer casino, owned by Station Casinos.  It's a nice place, but honestly I don't see many people staying there.  Its so far out from the strip.  But I guess people that don't want to be touristy might like it.  We only really went there for the buffet, which was awesome.  Not many lunch buffets have a sushi, which Red Rock had a nice selection of.  I'm not a big sushi fan, but there was wasabi, which I love.  The Mexican area was also awesome.  They had fajita mixes which I never saw at other casino buffets.  Not like just a soft taco shell and regular taco mixings, they really had sauteed peppers and onion mixed with chicken of beef.  The dessert selection was very nice as well.  Sorbets, cakes, cookies, and other baked items.  

After lunch we signed up for the Players Club since you get free slot play.  Didn't turn out to be much, $3.00, but hey, free money if you win.  The way free slot play works out:  The free slot play is a dollar amount, but its not physical money.  You get a card, not unlike a keycard or credit card, and you put the card in a slot machine.  After following the instructions on screen (usually enter a PIN number), the money on the card acts like you put money in the machine.  Thing is, you can't cashout the money on the card, you have to play the money on the card.  Once you play out the money on the card, you can cashout and whatever you get is what you won.  

After losing our money to the one-armed bandit we went shopping.  Bought some stuff at Fry's Electronics, and went to the outdoor outlet mall and got some stuff there too.  I think we walked a bit on the strip too, but not completely sure.  

For dinner we went to the Orleans Buffet.  Players Club members get a two dollar discount on buffet prices, so we had to sign up for that.  Also got $5.00 free slot play.  Added Bonus!  We didn't use that that night since we had plans already.  The Orleans Buffet has always been one of our favorite buffets.  There's about seven different sections for different types of food.  And the desert section is fairly large with a lot to choose from.  Key items at this buffet:  Machaca (Mexican pulled beef), Gumbo (Not a big fan, but apparently its really good here), and any of the desserts.  This year they had gelato, which makes the buffet that much better in my opinion.

After dinner we went downtown.  We always park at the Golden Nugget, which doesn't mean anything in itself.  The Golden Nugget is a 4-Diamond rated hotel in downtown Las Vegas.  Its a gaudy hotel.  I dunno, its nice an all, but I really don't like gold.  Its so tacky.  Everything about this hotel is golden.  We gambled some at Fremont Hotel and Fitzgerald's and maybe Binion's.  But the real reason we came downtown was for the Fremont Street Experience.  Downtown Las Vegas is on Fremont Street, its just a pedestrian street, no cars can drive along it.  Over the length of the street is a giant canopy made of roughly 12 million LED lights.  The lights are programmed for light shows.  The light shows are always really cool.  This yea we saw one dedicated to the band Queen, which is awesome, cause Queen is my favorite band of all time.  They played We Will Rock You and We Are the Champions.  After that there was a Generic Christmas themed one, Frank Sinatra singing a Christmas carol I can't remember which.  The Experience plays once every hour.  The second Experience was dedicated to Kiss.  I'm not a big Kiss fan, but it was pretty cool.

After gambling and watching the Experience, we went back to the hotel and went to sleep.

VEGAS!

Just got back from a five day trip to Fabulous Las Vegas (pictures forthcoming, which means they'll never get posted...).  It was a lot of fun.  When we finally got there...  The flight we took was kind of retarded.  We go from Tampa to Minneapolis which is 1300 miles, and then from Minneapolis to Las Vegas, another 1300 miles.  Its probably only 1500 miles from Tampa to Las Vegas directly.  But Northwest Airlines was significantly cheaper, even when paying for luggage, than Southwest Airlines (who we usually use).  Plus on NWA you get to choose your seat, instead of having a free for all on seating like SW.  Anywho the flight to Minneapolis went smoothly, hell, I think we were even ahead of schedule.  But upon disembarking the airplane, thats when the nightmare began.  

Once we got into Minneapolis we had to switch planes, and we had to find where the plane was.  Fortunately it was just two gates over from where we landed.  The plane was already there too.  All seemed good.  Boarding for the flight would be about a half hour from when we got off the first plane.  So we had sometime to relax/stretch before boarding.  About ten minutes prior to boarding the lady at our kiosk makes an announcement:  The plane needs to undergo maintenance and an update will be given in roughly 30-45 minutes.  At first we were kind of pissed, but it was only a half hour, who cares?  We look out the window and see that there is a maintenance crew working on the left engine.  The update came, something along the lines of, we're waiting to see if we get an okay to use the same plane or get a new one.  That didn't sound good.  About 20-30 minutes later we're boarding that plane.  It takes forever to board, but we do, and everything seems normal.  Well, apart from the smell of jetfuel...  Anyways, we get an okay and the plane starts taxi-ing towards the tarmac.  Then the plane sits there for another twenty minutes, before the pilot goes on the intercom and tells us that the plane cannot go on.  I really do believe we might have died that day if we actually took off.  

So now we go back to the terminal, and wait another twenty minutes to find out what our new plane is.  Its all the way at another gate.  We were at Gate G 18 and had to go to F 13.  Ooh.  F.  As in Failure.  And 13, the unlucky number.  Great.  Also the walk from G to F was like a mile.  When we finally get there there are a few announcements by the lady at the kiosk, which went along the lines of "we don't know what the fuck is going on" and "you'll all get compensated."  Compensation sounds good.  I was hoping for free alcoholic drinks on the plane, but now.  Eventually, probably about 45 minutes later we board the plane.  The compensation was a 25 dollars off your next flight voucher.  Woop-de-fucking-doo.  Once boarded we sit there.  And sit there.  And sit there.  Fortunately there was nothing wrong with the plane this time.  I'm not entirely sure what happened, but basically we had the same crew from the defected plane, but for some reason we needed a new co-pilot.  I'm guessing the original pilot had to stay with the original plane or something.  Well the new co-pilot was already on a plane that landed in Gate G, so he had to walk all the way to Gate F.  Thats explains the first twenty minutes of waiting.  About 40 minutes later the pilot explains that the new co-pilot was already on a plane, but all the terminals were full, so his plane had to sit on the tarmac for 25 minutes before a terminal opened up.  After that announcement, the co-pilot finally arrives and everything goes according to plan.  So after about 6 hours we finally get to take off.  And no free drinks.  Damn.  Well, once we got off the plane we got another voucher, this time for 100 dollars.  We were supposed to arrive in Las Vegas at 1pm, but instead we got there at like 7pm.  Killed the whole night.

After getting the rental car (a Kia Spectra, nice car) from Alamo we checked in at the hotel, which ironically is called THEhotel.  THEhotel is owned by MGM Mirage and is basically the all-suite tower of Mandalay Bay. It even has its own lobby.  The hotel is really nice, and I must say, dressed in t-shirt and shorts, I felt very underclassed.  The employees were all nicely dressed and such.  The lobby was decorated with natural stones, like a one million year old quartz sandstone and a 500,000 year old quartz crystal.

After we checked in, we didn't even go to the room, since we were starving, so we just went to The Orleans and ate at Fuddrucker's which is an awesome burger joint.  And then we just went back to the hotel and slept.  The whole day was pretty much wasted from the airlines screwing up.

The room was great.  Instead of typical hotel rooms where there are just one room and a bathroom, THEhotel has two rooms and two bathrooms.  In the entryway theres the bathroom, nothing special, just a toilet and a sink.  The first room is the living room area.  The couch was kind of uncomfortable to sit in.  There was a chair, which was kind of "meh, chair."  And there was a desk with a really nice office chair.  The desk had stationary and a drawing pad, which I thought was pretty nice.  Finally there is the wet bar.  All the stuff in the wet bar you have to pay for, but there is some interesting stuff in it.  For instance, the "Love Box" which contains condoms and such. The second room is the bedroom.  We got two beds, but I slept in the couch in the living area, which although uncomfortable to sit in, it was actually pretty comfortable to sleep on.  I'm sure the beds were nice though. There is plenty of room for clothes in the cabinets and dressers.  The master bathroom is in the bedroom area.  The bathroom is huge.  The bath and shower are separate, and the sink area had a lot of cabinet space too.  The toilet room is just that, a separate room with a toilet in the bathroom.  However the plumbing sucked.  The toilets are really weak, and I swore it wouldn't be able to flush toilet paper.  Each major room has a flatscreen TV in it.  Even the bathroom.