Vegas by night

OK more of our road trip. Vegas Day 3



After another stuff your face silly buffet breakfast this time with chocolate coisants and muffins for Martin, we hit the pool to plan out the day. In fact most of this time was spent looking for the camera case which held all the spare memory cards. I was sure I had left it in the car, about a quater of a mile away in the multistory hotel car park. Off Mart trotted to empty the car and get it. He couldnt find it, so I went up to our room to look. No luck, but then I am still sure its in the car. Back to the pool to get the car keys and then hotfoot it back to the car. Of course it was man looking because within minutes I had discovered it under the back seat behind Martin's cigarette stash. HUH!

By now it was nearly 12 and we had promised ourselves a lesson on the craps tables. All the casinos offer free lessons, well their not going to make much out of you if you cant actually play the tables are they. We reckoned we knew enough about blackjack and poker to follow the betting but the dice tables were a complete mystery.
The rules are pretty strict about cameras and phones etc so I had to box a bit clever getting pictures. Waste of time though. This dealer was so fast he was never more than a blur in all my attempts. Shame he was rather tasty in his flashy embroided gold waistcoat. There were still a long list of freebies to go look at in all the hotels we had missed before, but we had now got a better measure of the place and I refused to do as much walking, and I definately didnt want to be so worn out so I packed myself off for a lay down while Martin watched some tables. now he understood more about craps he could watch a game, and was very amused to see one poor sot loose $14000 in 10 mins!

We attempted to catch the monorail again. No luck still not working so we walked to the bus stop and bought an all day ticket so we could hop on and off at will. Our first visit was to The Belligreo but we couldnt see much in here to excite, so moved across to Ceasers Palace.

From the outside this doesnt look much, according to my list there was supposed to be a free show every 7 minutes, but mainly Martin wanted to go see where all the sporting events were held. The casino was huge, even for Vegas standards. We couldnt find any free shows although both Cher and Elton John were doing gigs we could have paid to go see had we wanted to. Then out of the back of the casino they have just build a giagantic new shopping mall, unseen from the front of the building as it stretched back away from the strip. The shops were way out of our league, Chanel, Versachi, etc but the decorations were something else. One Chinese guy asked Martin to take a photo of him with the horse as a backdrop.

He was a bit put out when I sauntered past and murmered to Mart to turn the camera around to fit it in. He was still peering at the result with some confussion when we walked off. I think he was wondering how he was going to sort that one out on his computer.

Out the back of Ceasers and on to TI. According to my AA guide book ( a book I will be singing the praises of later) the TI used to be Treasure Island but they are trying for a more sophistocated image now so its TI and the Pirate show 3 times a day at the front of the hotel has now become The Sirens. We had a quick walk through and then joined the throng outside waiting for the free showing. It was hardly breezy at all but in times of high winds they have to cancel the show. Well guess what? They cancelled the show.

It took ages to fight our way out of the crowd and cross to the Venitian to watch the gondilers on the river outside the hotel.

And while crossing the bridge I spotted a bride being serenaded on one of them (alas no photo though).

I was getting tired and thirsty by now so we crossed back to the TI and went into the jungle bar for a drink. Now we did get a treat. There were hardly any people in the bar but the three bar men were apparently pro-cocktail shaker waiters, one even held the world championship and pretty soon they were showing off their skills in a mini competition between the three of them. Some pretty fancy stuff and it certainly cured our aches and pains (mind that could also have been the freebie tasters of cocktails or the huge measures of beer we were drinking).

We then went across to the Mirage hoping to see the dolphins in their foyer but this was no longer free, but $15 dollars per person but at least I got my ride on the monorail.

It was getting dark now and I had wanted to see Vegas by night.
We hopped on a bus and headed downtown. American's on busses are sooo funny. They sit down and immediately start talking to who ever is next to them. They always seem to want to know what state they are from and then they throw up a current affairs topic. Since they were in the throws of the preliminaries for the election that caused quite a bit of debate, but no matter where we went or who we eave dropped on, they all wanted to moan about the price of gas! It had shot up from the £2.50 a gallon we had been paying in October when we visited Florida to just over £4 a gallon. I know to Americans it was a serious matter as their economy is very gasoline driven we be had to chuckle since we worked out we are paying over £6 a gallon over here.

Anyway downtown is the end of the line for the bus.

This side of the strip was pretty seedy looking and by downtown I felt terrified as I walked from the down bus stop to the up bus stop. It was the first and only time I have not felt anything but safe in USA and so it was a quick snap of the camera and straight back on the bus again. I understand from my dad we missed all the best bits but even Martin felt a bit worried and he is an East End lad!

By now the second showing of the Sirens was about to start so back we went. I am not sure why we bothered. The acting was really naff and the songs pretty awful. I guess if you were a bloke the gyrating half naked women were worth a look but we were a long way back and Martin didnt seem that impressed. Even the special effects and fireworks seemed pretty tame.

This was made up for by the second showing of the beautiful dancing fountains who this time were performing to lights and to Singing in the Rain.