Viva Las Vegas

Happy New Year!

Its hard to believe the holidays have already come and gone and I've been back at work nearly a week (how can it only be Thursday?!?)

We had a great Christmas with family, and took advantage of the time off to take a trip to Las Vegas! I've been resistant to taking trips during the holidays, but finally realized/accepted we need to align our trips with the school year since Kevin teaches, and we'll take full advantage of the time we get off at the holidays.  We are lucky that we both work for colleges so we get similar days off.

I'd been to Vegas as a kid, and Kevin had never been so it was really the first trip there for both of us, and we had such a great time.  There is so much to see and do I don't know how anyone could be bored in this town.

It was an easy, non-stop flight and we stayed just off the strip -- at Signature at MGM, we'd wanted a non-smoking hotel, and while it was a walk to the strip it was nice and quiet at the hotel, and a gorgeous hotel - room even had a fridge, microwave and even a small stove (we only used the fridge and coffee maker, but good to know).

We booked our shows/excursions before the trip so we could work out the best schedule for ourselves, and I think we did pretty well, a mix of things to do and time to explore.  Our planned itinerary was as follows:

Tuesday - arrive, explore

Wednesday - explore during day (and pick up show tickets), Cirque du Soleil show at night (also makes sure we get to bed early since we have an early morning)

Thursday - Jeep tour (early morning, so booked it midway through to adjust to time zone); nap, dinner with Kevin's coworker who was also in town

Friday - explore during day (and pick up show tickets),  comedy show at night 

Saturday - head home


We've learned to be flexible on trips and while we stuck to the itinerary pretty well, we adjusted as needed,   We didn't make it to the comedy show, we were just too tired when we got back to the room and decided to stay in and have room service.   We did let Kevin's coworker convince us to go check out Fremont Street Experience and are so glad we did - we had dinner at a spot right along it and though we were wiped from the Jeep tour and a busy day (missed our planned nap) we walked around to see it, a pedestrian only street and an overhead canopy with a music and light show on the hour.

Other highlights from the trip:

Cirque du Soleil show  - we chose the Love show, can't go wrong with Beatles music, and it was amazing to see the interpretations to the songs, and in addition to the songs they had audio from recording sessions that we'd never heard before.

Jeep tour - Kevin wanted to get to do some off-roading, and so we booked this excursion, and midway through our trip it also worked out to be refreshing to get some time away from all the hustle and bustle of the city.   We were a smaller group than I thought - only the two of us and one other family and our tour guide, in 3 separate vehicles, and we went to a nearby natural area, Red Rock Canyon.    We had a beautiful day for it, and we were able to sight see a bit, and Kevin was able to get more experience with rock crawling.  We did not expect to be driving in snow!  that definitely made it more challenging.  

electronic craps  - We've known from our few trips to the casino that we like the game craps, and this time discovered the electronic version.  We liked it for several reasons: minimum bet is lower, you can sit (standing at the table gets tiring), predictable pace of the game, and it also has spaces where you can get descriptions of what the various parts of the table mean, great since we are still learning!

roller coaster - as soon as I saw some of the casinos had roller coasters, I knew I wanted to ride one.    I really mix Six Flags Astroworld and haven't been on a coaster in years.   I got some ideas of which ones to do, and chose based on which sounded good and which we were closest to, Manhattan Express at New York New York won.   It was just what i wanted, had a loop and a barrel roll, and amazing views since its on top of the building (when I could keep my eyes open).  $14 for like a 2 minute ride, but worth it!

We also did a fair amount of just walking around and exploring, and i couldn't get over all the shopping!   We also gawked at a spiral escalator in the Forum shops, I'm still not sure how its possible!    and the food, we ate well on the trip...

Tips:

use uber, we also saw a lot of coupons for lyft, but have never used it so stuck with uber.  We did take a taxi once (from airport to hotel) and the same trip back with uber was one third the price!

If you want photos with the Beatles Love signs, take them when you go early to pick up tickets - we had the place (including the store) to ourselves