A weekend in Vegas

I got back from spending 3 days in Las Vegas on Sunday night/Monday morning, pretty sure it was about 1am when I finally walked in the door. There were a lot of conventions in Vegas this weekend so what would usually be a 4 hour easy drive took 9 hours! It was the worst drive ever and the 15 is the only road you can take to get out of there. But other than that I had an amazing time! 

Las Vegas might just be one road but you can literally spend a two week holiday there. When I visited for the first time last year in August I really underestimated the size of the strip, assuming the road would just be a 2 lane street. Well it turned out it was 8 lanes wide and incredibly difficult to cross. The hotels look so close together, and they kind of are.... Except it took me an hour to walk five hotels down! The monorail is highly recommended. We had really good weather this weekend although I doubt Vegas ever has much bad weather, it was around 40 degrees c. We stayed at the Treasure Island which is next to the Mirage and opposite the Venetian. We arrived at 2am and I was so ready for bed at this point. 


On the Friday we did some exploring up and down the strip, I found the most awesome shop in the MGM Grand called the television shop, if you love the Dexter series or The Big Bang tv show, I think you'll love this store. I can't get enough of Dexter so I bought some blood hand sanitizer which might sound a bit gross but I love weird stuff like this, and an I <3 Dexter tshirt. 

I drank so many margarita's along the strip I think it dehydrated me! Kahunaville at the TI is a great place for drinks, they give you an extra free shot and put candy worms in your drink, and of a night the bartenders do a show which is pretty impressive and at the end everyone gets free shots. 

Friday night we went on the Venetian Gondola's, I thought it would be nicer to do a night time ride outside rather than in the daytime heat. While on the boat we got to see the Mirage volcano erupt and the clock tower show. After this we took a trip to downtown and Fremont Street, the original Vegas. You know the iconic neon sign of the cowboy that you always see in older movies ft Vegas? Well that's here. Fremont Street used to be a real road with about 2 lanes but they've since covered this so the entire thing is a walkway and covered it with a gigantic round screen. 

This is a much more laid back area of Vegas and not as glamourous as the strip but I thought it was awesome to see where the hustle and bustle used to be back in the day. I tried a fried twinkie in one of the casinos, tastes a bit like funnel cake and way better than it sounds. They have $5 blackjack here too, which I played at the 4 queens casino. Our dealer was really fun too and it was a nice relaxed atmosphere in there. One thing I love about Fremont Street is that they still have the quarter one arm bandits, meaning you win in quarters and can pull the arm instead of just pressing a button and getting a paper slip. 


I had one of the best Margarita's ever in a place called mob bar, it was made with strawberry and fig infused tequila and was literally amazing. I paid $5 for it and was much more impressed than the $17 yucky one from the Venetian.

Bad Venetian Margarita

Nice Mob Bar Margarita

I spent Saturday morning by the pool and a giant margarita (there were a LOT of margaritas on this trip). The pool at TI isn't the best, there's no theming what so ever and it's pretty small. The DJ at the pool was great fun but I think it's a shame there's not more going on, with a pirate theme there is so much more they could do with it. I had tickets for Cirque Du Soleil Mystere for the night so before we got ready for that we took a trip to Margaritaville which is somewhere I'd wanted to go for years, the food was pretty good here.

Last year when I was out here I missed the Bellagio fountain show so made sure to see it this time. It doesn't last very long but it's a nice show and worth seeing. I always loved that one scene is Ocean's 11. 

The Paris makes for a nice backdrop

Watching the fountains

Winning!

My winning ticket
The Mystere show was absolutely amazing, and I'd recommend it for anyone wanting to see a Cirque show for the first time. This was their first Vegas production and is one of the cheapest, I'd love to go and see O or Ka now after seeing this.

Kahunaville is situated just outside of the Mystere theatre and as we were coming out the bartender cocktail show was starting so we got ourselves some free shots and ordered a Big Kahuna which is a cocktail made with dry ice to give it the smoking effect. 

On the Sunday before we left we went to the Paris hotel for champagne brunch at their buffet. The Paris is by far my all time favourite hotel in Vegas, everything about it is just so pretty and I love how they've painted the sky on the ceiling to make it seem like you are always outside and in a small village town. The buffet itself was amazing, my favourite thing was the made to order crepe's. You get a glass of champagne with your food too which was really nice, I don't usually like champagne but this was nice.

In line at Le Village buffet

I'll leave you with this photo of me inside a table ;)

Have you ever been to Vegas? What did you think? Do you have any plans of your own this summer? :)

Summer Travels!

Hi Everyone! I hope you're all enjoying the weather we've been having, I'm finally out of hospital (again!) and can finally enjoy it too, even if it is from indoors! 

I hope to be enjoying even more sun this year when I go back to the states! My summer plans for this year are to go back to California to visit the bf again and take a short visit to Vegas. I visited Vegas for the first time last year with my sister and her friend, and had literally the most amazing time ever, it really is like nowhere else I've been. The heat there is sooo hot, when walking down the strip I basically walked in a zig zag line going inside a hotel and back out again because it's too hot outside and too cold inside! I think we're going to be there for 5 days 4 nights and will be there on July 4th! So hopefully I'll get to see some fireworks. It will be my 3rd time celebrating 4th of July in the states, the first being in 1996 and the second last year. 

I'm planning on staying for about 5/6 weeks and leaving around the 20th June, I haven't actually booked my flight yet (eek!) due to all my hospital visits and I need to get the all clear from my doctor so I can fly but all should be okay! 

There's so many thing's I want to do when I get to Vegas that I missed out last time. One of them is the Gondola's at the Venetian hotel, they sell out quite fast so I'm definitely  doing them this time. 

I'd also like to see the Lions at the MGM Grand, they go to bed at 8pm so I'll have to get there earlier. 

I'd love to eat inside the Eiffel Tower at the Paris hotel, it looks so beautiful and this hotel is one of my top 3. 

Have my Picture taken at the Vegas Sign! I missed this last time as it's not actually walkable or easy to get to but we'll stop off here at the start of our stay. 

Visit the Grand Canyon! I missed this last time too, as the tours they do are all day and I didn't want to spend an entire day there, plus there was so much to do I didn't have the time. We're going to drive there ourselves as the bf went to college in Arizona and knows the place well ;) 

Go to Fremont Street, this is what's known as "old Vegas" where they still have the old machines where they cash out in quarters instead of the vouchers that you hand in for cash.

Get a guitar full of margarita... why not right? lol

Play black jack, after last summer we all came back obsessed with black jack and the guy sitting next to me in one of the casinos helped me learn how it works, I mean the rules are quite straight forward but he taught me how the stats work etc and I ended up winning $300 that night so I'm hoping I can do it again!

The hotel we'll be staying at will be the Treasure Island which is opposite the Venetian and next to the Mirage, the reason we picked here is because we're not really fussed about where we stay and this weekend is going to be so expensive for most hotels and this one gave us the best deals. It looks like a nice hotel though and has a pirate boat outside.

So that's most of my plans I can think of so far, I'm sure we'll do a few more things here and I'll have some plans for California, we'll probably go take another visit to sprinkle's because that place was amazing and maybe some other thing's around LA and Santa Barbara, here are some of the photos from last summer :)

Don't wear a UCLA tshirt in Vegas unless you wanna get lots of comments from college guys ;)

Checking into Caesars Palace with a margarita in hand, I asked the receptionist if the hotel was pager friendly

The Black Jack pool at Caesars, waiting for the Rod Stewart press conference

Outside the Paris hotel

The pool at Caesar's Palace

Do you have any plans for this summer? Where are you planning on going?