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9/20-9/23

Discussion in 'Vegas Trip Reports' started by Mia4071, Sep 30, 2009.

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  1. Mia4071

    Mia4071 Tourist

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    My Trip Report

    This is long over due but I had been so busy returning to work that I forgot to post it ..

    So here it goes …

    9/20-9/23

    7 people total on this trip. What was supposed to be a very late honeymoon for my husband & I turned into a full trip with my sister, her boyfriend, my aunt who is separated, her male friend & my soon to be aunt ( my other uncles fiancé). I was a little upset that so many people jumped on our bandwagon but overall it was fine. I knew I had wanted to do certain things and wasn’t sure if they would tag along. So for the most part my husband and I decided that we would get up & do what we wanted and if they came great, if not we would meet up with them later. In the end it worked out just fine. Everyone ended up doing everything together for the exception for a couple of times were we split up for meals. But other than that for the most part we all stuck together & had a really really good time

    Had gotten a great price on Southwest vacations .. Hotel & roundtrip airfare was $520.00 for 2 adults. – Very good price coming from Bayarea


    Sun 9/20
    Departing the flight was full to the max. We had to sit 3 to a row, being that I am 4’11 of course I got the middle seat. My husband is 6’2 so he was in aisle seat. Left on time and got to LV airport and it was mad crazy. It was PACKED, I couldn’t believe how packed it was but maybe I was in a little shock because I hadn’t been to this airport in about 2 years.

    We checked in using the airport check-in for MGM Grand. All of us were staying at the same hotel so we managed to get 3 rooms all on the same floor and I requested being close to the elevators. We all had Standard Rooms on 13th floor. We bought the roundtrip shuttle transportation so that we wouldn’t have to worry about it on the way back. Our wait wasn’t too long and we managed to make our way over to MGM. We had gotten there around 11am so we were worried we couldn’t check in since the Mayweaher fight was the night before we figured we would have to wait for our rooms. But we were lucky and went right up & got in our rooms, unpacked and decided to all meet in the casino in 30 minutes. After going down we all decided that we wanted to eat so we choose the Studio Café in MGM which was actually good. I had a delicious Patty Melt & a basket of fries while my husband choose a Bacon burger which was very dry. Either way everyone gobbled down their food & we decided to walk the strip. We walked out and it was HOT! I think it was 97 that day & coming from California weather, we were burning up. We made our way from MGM all the way to Planet Hollywood. Of course we stopped at all the little stores along the way. The only place that I noticed was new & hadn’t even heard about was the Hard Rock Café. I didn’t even know that was there, that’s how long its been since I been there. So that place was new for me to see. Went into Planet Hollywood & noticed Pinks Hotdogs right to your left hand side as you walk in. It was dead! The whole Planet Hollywood shops were dead. Nothing too new about that place that would make me want to go back. For me I honestly felt it was a waste of a walk in that hot sun. I had read about Planet Hollywood & was very interested in seeing the new stuff … Wasn’t even impressed. Overall I thought it was a waste. It was too hot to walk back so we took a cab back to MGM & decided it was time to put our bathing suits on & hit the pool. We ordered a couple buckets of beer and stayed at the pool until they kicked us out. Got pretty wasted w/ the sun & was on a good Vegas buzz. By this time it was probably about 6 or 7 pm. We wanted to all shower & get ready for the evening. We all got dressed, met downstairs and went to Centrifuge ( the circle bar down @ the casino) To be very honest – the rest gets very blurry from here & I know from pictures we visited other bars in MGM and gambled… We playing black jack & roulette, I do remember winning $250 & ended up requesting Hennessey on the rocks … So my husband called it quits ( I HAD TO BE DRUNK TO BE ORDERING THAT!) & we took a cab to the Venetian .. I remember sobering up at the roulette table @ the Venetian … then that’s when I knew I had to eat. We ended up eating at the Grand Lux Café ( I had the Buffalo blast, which was sooo good & my husband had the lettuce wraps) and stayed there till almost 1am. Just talking, eating, laughing & drinking. We got back to the MGM & hit the slots - I think we hit the room around 3ish … 

    Monday 9/21

    Woke up around 10am .. Put on our bathing suits & went downstairs for some relaxing in the sun. My husband & I were a bit hungover so we knew we had to eat quick. We ordered some food at The Cabana Grill, we just ordered all kinds of different things since we knew we would be out there for a while and we knew wanted fingerfoods. We ordered some Chicken Nachos, chicken fingers, ham & cheese sandwiches, french-fries. All kinds of junk. Nothing better than greasy food to help a hangover!  Spent about 3 hours at the pool & just relaxed. We also got a poolside massage. It was $30 for every 15 minutes. I got a 30 leg & foot massage while my hubby choose a 30 min neck & back massage. It was nice to lounge and enjoy the pool. I have to say MGM pool was very relaxing. After all the food of course we started up with the buckets of beer again. So we were drinking away & went up to get dressed. Met downstairs & took a Taxi over to Mandalay Bay to check out the Shark Reef. This was something that my husband had been wanting to see so we all went. It was about $16 per person and it was really so cool. They had so many cool things in the Aquarium. It was nice. Wasn’t too long and was really nice to see all kinds of different things. I grew up going to the Monterey Bay Aquarium so I had an idea of what it would be like. My husband loved it. They had all kinds of Sharks, Jellyfish, this humongous turtle. There is this cool area where the floor is all glass and you can see through it to all the fish, sharks, etc that are in the water. It looks like a ship wreck. I would have to say if you ever have extra time on your hands, its worth checking out. It was really something different to check out while in Vegas. We decided to hit up the Shops @ Mandalay since I hadn’t ever seen them before. Its like every other casino that has shops. Lots of shopping and as a woman with 2 huge closets, I can NEVER shop enough! Had a great time.

    We decided to go over to the Rio to eat at the Carnival Buffett. I had been there before so I was looking forward to chowing down! We ate, ate, ate ate & then ate somemore and decided that since we were so full we could surley walk it off so we headed to Freemont street. Had such a great experience on Freemont street. It was beautiful. Everything about it was nice. I love the lights. I loved the show, I loved the vibe, I loved the PRICES!! We hadn’t drank since the morning at the pool so we this was time to start the drinking .. We went into that ABC store and bought a bottle of Patron. Bought some shot glasses and killed the bottle of Patron before we evern got to the cross walk to go on the other side. We were WASTED! We kept drinking and made our way BACK to the ABC store and bought 2 more bottles. Took them back to the MGM and started on bottle #2. We changed and went back down to the casino and played roulette and left when I couldn’t stand anymore. I was so drunk. I knew I had to throw in the towel for the night. We all went to our rooms, I looked at the clock it was 4:45am!

    Tuesday 9/20


    Woke up around 11am and had a pounding headache. I was so hungry I couldn’t wait for everyone to get ready and meet downstairs so while my husband was getting ready I ran down to get coffee & a Danish. I did not feel well. Everyone wanted to head over to Ceasers for the Forum shops and I was sooooo lazy. I just wanted to lay in bed and watch reruns of Maury. I really needed more sleep and I wasn’t a happy camper. I started to snap out of it when my husband reminded me that they have Louis Vuitton there so I quickly turned my frown upside down and almost ran to the elevators. When we got downstairs we remembered seeing a promotion on the tv for 40% Cirque Tickets. So we went to the concierge & sure enough for being hotel guest we got 40% off KA tickets. So we all got tickets together. Got in the Taxi line & headed over to Caesars  When we got there of course the first thing they wanted to do was eat since no one had eaten. We quickly got a table at Spago in the middle of all the shopping – we ordered a Skirt Steak Quesadilla which was very, very good! We also ordered a wedge BLT salad & my hubby got a pizza. So good. Would definitely go back again. We literally shopped till we dropped! We shopped so much I was pooped! I really needed a nap before we did ANYTHING or I wouldn’t make it through our last night there. I stared at my Louis Vuitton bag the entire way back to the hotel & we went upstairs to our room and decided we wouldn’t meet up until dinner time so we can have a nice dinner & go to the show.

    We had dinner at the Grand Wok & Sushi Bar. To my surprise despite the reviews I had read around the boards – it was good. Since it was a bunch of us, we ordered all kinds of different things. We had Pot Stickers Pan-fried, Orange Chicken, Kung Pao Shrimp, Mongolian Beef, Honey Walnut Shrimp – and all kinds of sushi. We wanted to try everything. The Crunch roll, the honey walnut shrimp and the orange chicken were my favorites. It was so good. Everyone really enjoyed their meal.

    We had about an hour to kill before the show started and we played the slots. We left when we started loosing so we sat at the bar & just waited till the show was going to be seated. We got a 9:30 showing to KA & we went in, got more drinks and sat down ………………………………………………………….So before going to any Vegas show before I had seen a Cirque show in our town while they came. And the show was so great. .. Going into this show I was looking forward to something very similar. Our seats were great, smack in the middle, we could see everything …..We sat through a show that was just about 2 & half hours. It was so long. I was so drained from the previous 2 days, you won’t believe this but I wanted to go to sleep. I think it wasn’t what I expected. Trust me if it was just me & my husband I probably would have whispered to him to walk out mid way… the plot was werid, I couldn’t follow the story, I was sitting there wanting to leave. Of course everyone was enjoying it so I didn’t want to be the party pooper and walk out. So I stayed. Overall from a 1-10 – I would give it a 5 – that’s being nice only because my drink was good. I was so disappointed. And really I give everything a chance …I don’t know if it was the combination of being tired & overly full that put me in that mood. But I really wished we would have just went over to the Mirage to see LOVE. ( and really now looking back I think that’s why I was being bitter, I had set my hopes high to see LOVE and since we were leaving the next day the entire group voted on KA mostly because of the price & I was a little pissed but didn’t voice it when I should have). This show ended about 11:30 NO LIE! .. Pretty much was a downer. I was tired, we had sat in the dark for over 2 hours and I was ready for bed. However my husband really wanted to go look at the Encore. So we took a taxi w/ everyone over to the Wynn intending to walk to the Encore and never made it that way instead we took the wrong route and ended up outside by the waterfall that takes you either over the bride to the Fashion Show Mall or the other direction down the strip .. since we hadn’t been anywhere near that side of the strip we decided to walk ….. So we walked from the Wynn all the way to towards MGM. We stopped along all the casinos the entire way ..and I was done. You could have put a fork in me! I was so so so so done! Usually when my hubby drinks he gets the munchies and wants to eat, so we kept walking towards MGM and we stopped at Fatburger. Everyone ate expect me, I just had a shake and I was ready for bed. I think we got back into the room around 4 or 5.

    Wed 9/23.
    Check out was at 11am so I knew no matter what I had to set the alarm to get up with enough time to shower & pack up. We were all ready & out of our rooms by 11am and decided we would finally have breakfast before we headed off to the airport. We ate at the Studio Café but this time for breakfast. Nothing too rememberable to write about other than the hot chocolate was good. My pancakes were pancakes. And getting on a flight back home just sounded so nice! :)


    Overall thoughts:

    Gambling: Roulette was fun – we won overall about $400 something so that was cool. The slots sucked our money faster than we could remember putting it in. Blackjack we left the tables even.
    Food: The Grand Wok was really really good. I would go back for sure. I also really like Spago. – Those were 2 places I had never eaten before and really enjoyed both
    Attractions: I would definitely go back to Freemont street. Everything was so cheap & it was nice to see all everything. I think next time I will try to gamble down there. Maybe even try to have dinner as well…. KA – I will never go watch again & make sure I see LOVE!

    This was the first time in all the times I had been to Vegas that I did not go to nightclub. I couldn’t even believe it. I was amazed that we didn’t step foot in one. I learned that there is SOOOO Much more to do in Vegas than just the nightclubs. ( That’s all I ever looked forward to doing every other time I have gone) My husband and I had a really good time even though everyone else went. We relaxed at the pool, drank, ate, shopped and really enjoyed ourselves. We had needed a break from our day to day work so bad that just being away together was fun.
     
  2. SH0CK

    SH0CK Stylin' and Profilin' Quasi Tech Admin

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    Thanks for the write up Landa. Too bad you all couldn't stay over a couple of more days so we all could have met up for a drink or dozen. Maybe next time :thumbsup:
     
  3. Thor

    Thor Beer Drinker

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    glad you had a great time!!!! great TR!!! hennessey???? hmmm...interesting!!! :beer::beer::beer:
     
  4. blackjacknut

    blackjacknut VIP Whale

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    Nice TR thanks for posting sounds like you had fun.
     
  5. breanna61

    breanna61 Super Moderator

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    Great trip report and you managed your hangovers like a trooper!! I completely agree with you on Ka, I now call it Ka Ka and our group of four also wanted to get up and leave but we were smack dab in the middle of a row, so I napped a bit during the show. My husband said the funniest parts of the show were my comments.....his favourite was me saying "I can't believe we paid $160 to watch a couple of idiots making shadow puppets":rolleyes2: I've pretty much sworn off Cirque now unless I'm having trouble sleeping!:eek:
     
  6. jaxjoe

    jaxjoe Guest

    Nice TR...Thanks for writing and sharing your experience...T-42 for me:)
     
  7. gotavegasjones

    gotavegasjones VIP Whale

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    Very nice write up. Thanks for posting your TR. Appreciate the comments about Spago. We always say we're going to eat there while we wander the shops - but never do. Maybe next time. Y'all had a fun trip.

    later, GVJ
     
  8. VegasDiva

    VegasDiva VIP Whale

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    great TR ty for sharing :)

    to be honest, I have no desire to see any Cirque show, I've seen tidbits n snippets here locally and its not really my cup of tea
     
  9. Gambler15

    Gambler15 Tourist

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    Great report! i enjoyed reading it! thanks for posting! sounds like it was a great trip for the most part!
     
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