Girl's Trip/Early Bday Present - 6.24 - 6.27!

I'm no stranger to Vegas, but this is my first "girls" trip. I am going with a former co-worker from my last casino. Another co-worker is meeting us tomorrow night.

Fair warning: I'll try to make this as "live" as possible. Depending on the Wi-Fi connection and what we're doing, I might add the rest later.

We landed in Vegas yesterday morning via Spirit. Great customer service, super short flight from California. The Uber driver we had from the airport was horrible! I'd never had such bad service. First, he was 15+ mins late. After calling him on it, and looking to cancel, he kept saying "I'm right here! 2minutes!" Two minutes turned into 5, then 8. Once we were in the car, he had another party he was taking to TI. My friend and I were going to Hooter's. He kept forgetting, and asked us 3 times. 5mins in, he says "Oh! I cancelled your ride! I'll take you anyway, but I cancelled! " I was thinking, looking at my app, "Still shows an active ride dude." He also got lost km the way (missed the turn) and had to double-back. Needless to say, guy didn't get a tip.

After that, it was time for a haircut and highlights! I was unaware how long it would take (about 2hrs! I also think the gal was new), but my friend waited patiently. I went to Bella Mia Salon (in a Strip mall just down from the Rio) and was very impressed! The customer service was excellent, my hair looks great, and the color is perfect. I'm not a real girly-girl so for me, that's the extent of pampering myself.

Next it was time for lunch. By now, it's about 2p. We went to Giordano's. So so amazing and totally worth the wait.
The cheese was delectable and totally fresh, the crust was buttery, crisp, and not over done, the sausage was flavorful and the whole pie was oozing and melty. Price wasn't bad either. We each had a big salad, I got a huge beer & she a soda, plus sharing the small pizza (6 huge slices), for $42!
10/10, would stuff my face again.

After that, we checked on show tickets. Ultimately we decided to just do the Titanic exhibit later that night.

We went back to the hotel around 5p to nap. So glad I have a friend who's down to nap! When I come with significant others, they usually wanna drink and putz around. The nap really helped.

After that, we got ready and headed to the Luxor. Checked in just before last admission. The Titanic exhibit was really cool and intruiging. Looking at all the artifacts and actually hearing all the history within the history of what was on board is insane... Reflecting on all the lives lost (2/3rds. Jesus), while hearing about the survivors blows my mind. We were each given a boarding pass, and the "guide" is very knowledgeable. At the end, you are told a bit more about your person and the life they had. It was kind of surreal. I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would.

But after that depressing walk-through we needed a drink. We stopped at Aurora bar and talked with Sean, the bar tender who was real nice. Then my friend and I took some pictures. A dude ended up photo-bombing 1 shot, and we ended up talking with him for an hour or so. It was clear he initially wanted to hit on us, but as we kept talking he actually ended up being a nice guy. I work in IT, and he was a Cisco network engineer here for a conference. We talked shop for a while and he said it was his first time in Vegas. I gave him some pointers on things to do. He bought us a 2nd round of drinks before leaving.

My friend got an MLife card and I lost $40 in a span of 10mins on the adjacent Buffalo Gold machines. Lol

After that, we wrapped up our night at MGM Grand. Dinner was at Wolfgang Puck's Bar & Grill (one of my favorites). We used a $25 dining certificate, which is awesome because it enabled us to split 1 entree while trying other things.
We got the truffled Blue cheese potato chips, which are a must for me. They are so so good. Next, we had a side of corn - their riff on Mexican street corn - which was very very good. Our server said they just put it on the menu yesterday, so we lucked out. I found out that the thin red strips on top were not Saffron ribbons, but rather in-house dehydrated pepper, thinly sliced, providing added bite. Color me impressed.
Our Rigatoni Bolgonese was amazing as always. The sauce is on-point, and the parsley added a nice "fresh" taste.

After dinner we walked the floor, but it was nearing 2a and we were ready to call it a night.

Now it's day 2 of our 4 day trip and I cannot wait! We move from Hooter's to Aria this afternoon for the rest of our stay. [

 

Great start so far, luck.ofthe.draw.
That deep dish looks delicious!
Best of luck on your trip.
I'll be following along, as we'll be back to the Palazzo on the 29th, so this will keep the excitement going.

 

Wow, that pizza would feed my family for a week!
Great beginning to your TR!
Best wishes!

RICHARD

 

Thanks @ardee ! It should be a nice trip - hoping I can get some wins under my belt! Really excited for all the food I have planned... Haha.

Thank you @Richard Alpert ! The pizza was really amazing. My boyfriend's cousins are from the east coast, it was highly recommended. Will definitely feast again - with more people!

 

Good start! But how rough was the Hooters room? Were the prices at the other strip hotels that much worse last night?

Going to Aria today is basically a complete 180!

 

Damn, that Giordanos looks delish...Of course, I'm a fat guy on a diet so any food pic will get me going..Have fun, good luck, great TR so far. Thanks!

 

Nice first day. Good luck on the rest of the trip

 

Pics from the day! God I love the dry heat (so unlike SoCal)...it was beautiful out!

Better post to follow.

 

Precisely! That's what my friend said. Hooter's was well, it was Hooter's - but the rooms were clean, though minimal. If I had to choose I probably wouldn't stay there again.

The prices were insanely high last night when I was looking to book over a month ago.
When we checked in to Aria today, it was sold out, and rooms were $600 a night!! There's a Cisco conference and LV Comic Con is going on. Holy crap

Note: I scored with the 2 free Aria rooms via MyVegas. Booked 4mos ago. Talk about luck!

 

Bought these sweet flamingo flip flops for the pool, now time for a quick dip before dinner!

 

Wow! Given the conference, I'm surprised it was available. I was in Wisconsin Dells last weekend. Chatted with a guy going to Vegas for the first time for that conference.

And where did you get those flip flops? My gf would love those! Flamingos are am inside joke for us. Lol

 

Good stuff, @luck.ofthe.draw!

The deep dish pizza does, indeed, look delicious. Might have to give that a go next month.

Have a great trip and keep the posts and pics coming.

 

The flip flops are from Old Navy! Only $5 and quite comfy.

Couldn't believe my luck on the room!

@thecarve - thank you! I will definitely be adding that deep dish pizza to my list of regular things to do!

 

Visited The Cosmo to see an old co-worker who recently moved here! She visited us at Jaleo while we grabbed lunch. She's a manager of the pool, so told us to swing by after.

Jaleo was amazing, as always, for lunch. My friend is picky so I was worried she would hate it, but she tried new things and enjoyed it!

I had the gazpacho soup - always different, never disappoints - the croquettas de pollo which are always phenomenal (I'll take 5 orders, thanks), and a sausage which was delightful with the caramelized onions... Plus we did a half carafe of Sangria, which came out to 4 drinks so that was neat.
Service was excellent as usual. Can't wait to go back.

More pics later! We're getting ready to go out, but I have a killer headache.

 

Fantastic report and photos; will be looking forward to the updates.

 

Last night was more mellow than my friend wanted. After realizing that Aria charged me a $300 deposit for these 2 nights, I was suddenly on a tighter budget (fortunately I have cash on me).

She wanted to drink and get blitzed with our other co-worker, so we started drinking a little early. Normally I'm down to have a few drinks, but I acquired a killer headache. We decided to grab some food - I planned for China Poblano for dinner (them noodles, man!), but my friend took too long getting ready.

I threw on my new polka dot dress ($4 score at H&M! I need to shop more lol) and we were ready!

We couldn't make it to Wolfgang Puck's Cucina before last seating, so we went to Todd English's PUB.

They had a reverse happy hour, we ordered too much food. My friend was liquored up, and I just had a beer from a local brewery (a jalapeno hefeweizen! Inventive flavor and quite good!). We also ordered mini corn dogs, sliders, pretzel sticks, and a side of mac n cheese. The mac n cheese had mini cavatappi pasta and the cheese sauce was soo good!

I ordered another beer but couldn't finish it, my head was killing me!

We lounged outside (the 94-degree heat felt awesome, I soaked it up like a lizard).

Our co worker Cheryl got in later than we thought, and by midnight we were fading fast. We all went to our respective rooms for the night.

Now we're meeting up to head to Wicked Spoon for brunch!

 

Loving the trip report! I think you might have a headache from dehydration, make sure to drink lots of water. I just got back home yesterday (and I live in the desert) and I could not get enough water with it being so hot.

 

Contact Uber and get a refund! They'll just check the route and see that it was wrong.

 

You're probably right! I've tried to drink water more but will definitely up the intake today. Thank you!

I should do that... Good suggestion!

 

@luck.ofthe.draw
Enjoying following along - great food pics and commentary - those are some nice finds on those flip flops and polka dot dress - nice indeed! Too bad you missed out on China Poblano this time - it has become one of our favs too.
Another fav if you are looking for something at Aria is Javiers, the 'La Tablita' can be shared - it is more food than you can eat and lots of really good side items, refritos and guacamole, etc - yum - we will eat there in two weeks.

It's funny you mention how you enjoy stepping outside into the heat - the casino is often like sitting in a freezer and a step outside for a nice blast of heat is one of my favorite things to do, lol!

Thanks for taking us along!