Vegas

The time change did me no favours this morning. My body was still totally on east time and therefore we were up and ready to rock and roll well before our designated meeting time. I went down to the little market in the lobby and brought back breakfast. And now we started to enjoy our daytime views from the room. By the end of today we can honestly say that we have a pretty good feel for Vegas, after a full day of travelling on the Big Bus, their hop on hop off. We started the day by walking through the Bellagio to get out onto the strip - Las Vegas Blvd. With its amazing decor, chocolate fountain and themed courtyard, this was eye popping delight. Then we headed down the strip past the French themed Paris Hotel, to the next excessively ornate hotel - Caesar's Palace. This one of today's iconic hotels, famous for hosting the likes of Celine Dion and Elton John. Of course ancient Rome is the dominant theme here , but there is a incredible high end shopping area here as well, that gives the allusion of being outdoors, with its blue skies. It also has a robotic animation fountain telling of the struggles between the Roman gods. Since we had already walked a fair bit, we next opted for the Big Bus, which started on a circuit of Vegas' recent growth and finished with a route through old Vegas, a lot of which is gone with the mobsters. We passed the big ones like New York New York with it's roller coaster, Statue of Liberty and New York skyline. Then came the fortress themed Excalibur and the Egyptian themed Luxor. We ended up in a lot of these pictures courtesy of our live guide on the bus named La'Shawn.

The Mandalay Bay was the last hotel on the strip across from the airport. Heading back up Las Vegas Blvd. we passed other biggies like MGM Grand, Tropicana, and the Hard Rock Cafe. We had to change buses to continue the tour into classic Vegas. Very little remains of what once was mob run Vegas. You still get glimpses of what hotels, or rather motels on the strip once looked like. This is also where the famous tacky wedding chapels are found. The El Cortez is the longest running casino - for 75 years. Other hotels like the Golden Nugget harken back to the old days. Following our bus tour we taxied to the Hard Rock Cafe, just up from our hotel on the strip, for lunch. The sun was shining so we took advantage of the nice weather and sat on their terrace overlooking Las Vegas Blvd. One of the many unique features of Vegas includes the rolling billboard trucks that were constantly passing us during lunch. We walked back to our hotel for a short break before heading out for our evening fun. We started off with dinner at Mon Ami Gabi, the French restaurant at the foot of the Eiffel Tower and part of the Paris Hotel. The Eiffel Tower here, by the way, is 1/2 the size of the original. We all had steak frites with a couple of appetizers of pate and escargots thrown in for good measure.

By dinner's end it was time to join the thousands lined up to see Jennifer Lopez (JLo) at the nearby Planet Hollywood. Although she started 1/2 hour late, she certainly gave us our money's worth, which at $250 per person for our lesser, but totally adequate seats, was not insignificant. It was a loud, highly visual show and that girl can shake her booty.

Interestingly enough, the Planet Hollywood casino is the only one we've been into so far that features girls in their undies dancing on tables. We finished off the day with nightcaps at midnight in the Vice Versa, our hotel bar. All of our evening adventures were achieved on foot, so by the end of the day we had logged over 12000 steps. What a day!