03/03/19 - 11/03/19
My first post is going to be about Las Vegas. Robbie Williams had announced that he was going to do a tour there and, well as many will know, he is one of my favourite artists. I spend a lot of my life going to see him in shows and travelling to see him, so it seemed like a great idea to go somewhere I had wanted to go for so long and to see him, so me, Shirley and Sophie booked to go.
Our flight left London on 04/03/19 and (me being me) decided to try and make it as cheap as possible so we had one transfer via LA. Would I do that again? Definitely not. The flight was amazing, it was really comfy and we were really lucky. We had a 3 person row and no-one was sitting next to us, so me and Soph had time to spread out. I watched a couple of films, the views were breath-taking and the food was good (I was vegan at the time) but the connection between LAX and LV was the most annoying and stress inducing thing. I always assumed that during a transfer the airline were in charge of moving your bags from plane to plane, ohhhh no! When we landed at LAX we had to wait for our bags to come through and then get into the massive security queue and go through to put our bags on a separate conveyor. This probably wouldn't have been a massive issue had our luggage not been delayed for half an hour giving us less than half an hour to find the next flight. We spent ages trying to convince some of the airport staff to let us through a shortcut way but tbh they were mega unhelpful. Luckily there were a few others on our flight who had the same problem and after we all started complaining we were let through. After all the stress and running to the next gate, our next flight was delayed by an hour so all in all, never get a transfer haha!! The next flight was smooth though and as we flew into Las Vegas we had some amazing night views of the strip. I was so excited.
As soon as we landed we headed to the hotel. We were staying in the Mandalay Bay hotel and when we turned up I was so shocked. I heard Vegas was big but wow, this was massive. The hotel literally has the biggest casino and shopping centre inside. There is a restaurant and also a tattoo parlour too not to mention the train station! It's amazing. When we got there, Shirley and Heather were already there so we went to our room and I was again amazed at the room, it was beautiful
We decided to head out down the strip, just to see what it was like. I probably looked like a fool as I walked round with my mouth wide open, it was just really a sight that I didn't expect. It was just so great. We decided to go down to the end of the strip and walk back to the hotel (which was lonnnnng). On the way back we bumped into Robbie which was hilarious, first night and seeing him, can't believe it. It was all caught on video as he does blogs and was funny watching it back. He was asking us about the flight and what films we had watched etc, was really cool to see him. He mentioned the dress rehearsal (that we expected but didn't know) and we managed to get on the guest list so woohoo! Always love a freebie. After seeing him we carried on walking back to our hotel which seemed to take hours but given we were on a high was actually really nice.
When we woke up the next morning we had a look round the hotel grounds, the "beach" they had at the hotel was fantastic, it wasn't season yet though so stayed closed for a few days, when it opened at the end of our stay it was empty still because to them it wasn't really very warm. I remember being there and laughing because they don't think it's hot in Vegas in March yet there we were arms out, sunglasses on and enjoying the hot hot hot. The beach was so good though, it was completely sandy and they had a wave machine in the water which made it seem like proper waves. There was also a couple of jacuzzi's there where you could sit in and they would bring you drinks so you could just totally relax. I think my favourite bit though was the lazy river! It was so fast moving but also just proper relaxing with the rings where you could sit in and just go round and round in the sunshine.
During the trip we did so much stuff, our hotel was one end of the strip and the venue for the gig was the other end so we did so much walking. The walking wasn't particularly bad though because the food, well the food isn't the healthiest. I don't really remember finding much other than burgers, burgers and more burgers. In our hotel we had a House Of Blues restaurant and we had breakfast there once which was MEGA in portion size but so delicious. There is no way you can manage to eat three meals a day in Vegas because the breakfast just fills you up for the whole day. I was grateful then when I got back home I had actually lost weight rather than put it on, this must have been due to the amount of walking that we did.
One part of the trip that I will never forget is walking down the strip on the first day and almost every day after actually. Every thing there is just so big. People will tell you about Vegas and they'll say how it's the gambling capital and you can go there to spend money and to win money and to drink a lot but for me, it wasn't really about that. I enjoyed just walking past all the huge buildings and being in awe of how tall things were. Seeing the Eiffel Tower restaurant all lit up and walking through the Bellagio Hotel and seeing all the flowers and shops and casinos inside the hotel. One of the hotels has a rollercoaster that runs through it and you just can't believe how it was all made like that. All the streets have escalators on them to go over the many bridges there, so you basically don't really use any energy going up them. The roads are huge so the bridges go on forever. I remember one day we were there they had rain overnight so the next day all the escalators weren't working and people just didn't know what to do with themselves. There doesn't seem to be many street crossings there but I assumed this was because of the heavy traffic they have.
I would definitely go back to Vegas, I feel like the 10 or so days I spent there wasn't enough time to see everything. I would really like to go to the Grand Canyon also, we didn't manage to make it there because we didn't have enough time. You can get a coach there however it takes all day and we had planned all our days for other stuff. We did make it to a Hoover Dam tour and even that was just jaw dropping. It's just again, so huge. It's well worth planning excursions like that if you can because it is nice to get away from the strip for one or two days. At the Dam they have a cafe and you can get a "Dam Dog" which is the biggest hot dog I have ever seen. We had to try one though because why not right!
There is so much to say about Vegas. One thing we did to try and see as much as possible was get a Go Explore card which gives you access to the attractions. We got a card for 5 different things but you can get a range of cards with a different number of attractions. We tried to vary ours as much as possible and we did:
1. Night bus tour
2. Hop on, hop off tour (day time - this takes you to the Vegas sign)
3. Hoover Dam tour
4. Vegas show
5. High Roller
You can also use this to go up the Strat however we didn't use the card, instead we booked into the bar which is one floor below where you can go with the pass. This way is just as good, plus it's free and means you can use the card for other bits. The Strat is well worth doing as the bar rotates 360 degrees but slowly so you do get to go round and see a really good view of the desert. It's also very bizarre as they have people jumping off the top of the Strat so you sit there having a drink and every now and again someone jumps off and you see them bunjee past!
Right, I hope that you have enjoyed reading all of that. If there is anything you should take from this post it is, go to Vegas, it is fun.
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