Las Vegas TRIP REPORT
We had a wonderful time!
We stayed at the Excalibur, which we chose because it's the cheapest hotel on the strip. In some ways it shows. But we didn't go there to hang out in our room.
We lost about $2.96 gambling.
We went to two shows. We saw Cirque du Soleil "Zumanity", which was quite racy. During parts of the show when they're changing the set, some of the performers (the host, a drag queen, and a bawdy middle-aged couple who did comedy) brought members of the audience up on stage to participate in some skits and stuff. We were quite terrified of being called up on stage. The show had amazing acrobatics and sensual dancing. We also saw "Vegas: The Show!" which sort of told the history of Las Vegas through song and dance and skits. It was very good. Some of the cast members performed in skits as notable Vegas stars of yesteryear, like Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr, Elvis, and more. The girl who performed as Gladys Knight (and Lena Horne, and Tina Turner) had an astounding voice. She was really really good.
Before we went, we'd agreed that having a threesome with a Vegas showgirl was on our list of things to do. At Vegas: the Show! we did bump into someone who just had the look of a showgirl, though she wasn't dressed up for it. Linz went to work chatting her up: "Hi! Are you in the show?" "Well, not this show. I used to be in this show, though! One of my friends is in the show! I'm here for his birthday!" "Oh, that's great, maybe we'll see you later!" We did see her later, but her tongue was so deep in Frank Sinatra's tonsils that we realized there was no hope for us.
We rented a car. We went around town for some shopping and to get to some of the places off the strip. We spent a day hiking at Red Rock Canyon, which was a nice change from all the glitz and glamour. We also went to Chinatown to see the Golden Tiki bar, and we went to the Neon Museum, but there was a Tim Burton book signing going on there so we didn't get to see it. I don't know if the car was worth it in terms of money saved on taxi fares, but the convenience was worth it, and being able to go out to Red Rock was very nice as well.
Fremont Street was amazing! The light and sound show was pretty cool, but the amount of unusual characters and strange activities going on was what was really interesting. There were two different concerts going on in different parts of Fremont St. We accidentally crashed a party. The "Stage Magicians Society of America" or some
**** like that was having a party in the lounge on the 2nd floor of the Gold Nugget casino on Fremont, and we went up there to have drinks and watch one of the concerts from the balcony. It was great watching the street from up there. Also, I had no idea stage magicians were so lame. I think we made their lame party about 2000% cooler when we arrived.
The Bellagio fountain show was really wonderful. We saw that 4 different times, and were delighted each time. Seeing videos of it just doesn't do justice.
Some of the downsides... there was a lot of smoke. People smoke cigarettes while they're gambling, and the gambling floor at Excalibur had crappy ventilation, and you have to go through the gambling floor to get anywhere in the building. So I did quite a bit of coughing. There was also a lot of hustlers. Everybody coming at you trying to sell something. Hi pressure time share sales masquerading as discount show tickets. Yuck. Go anywhere on the strip and people are trying to thrust something into your hand. Often little flyers for escorts. We passed a group of young women who were laughing as they traded escort flyers back and forth as if they were trading hockey cards. And everything was quite expensive.
One of the other things that made me a little sad is that it felt like some of the character and history is being lost. Instead of "The Sands" and "The Dunes" new buildings have names like "Aria" and "Encore". "Stardust" was torn down in 2006, and construction of a replacement was delayed for years by the economic downturn of 2008. Now that the new property is finally being built, it's going to be called... "Resort World". How bland and depressing. On the bright side, The Sahara was rebranded as SLS in the early 2000's... but about 5 years ago it was re-rebranded to The Sahara again.
Also we spent too much time having sex. I know this sounds like first-world problems, but spending 2 hours having sex each morning really eats into how much time you have to get out and around town. We were often not out of our room until 10am. Of course by the time we got back to our room at night, we were too exhausted to do anything except sleep.
Overall we had a great trip. My favorite part of the trip was the amazing spectacle of everything. So many amazing things to see and do. I really loved it.
-k