We are home!

We stayed at the MGM Grand, and I have to say we were very pleased with that choice. The hotel room was very nice – not opulent or fancy, but elegant and very nice. The casino seemed to have more high-rollers than other casinos, it definitely seemed to be one of the more upper-class casinos. We didn’t really gamble much, so whatever. The MGM also had a very nice selection of restaurants, though finding anything on the cheaper side wasn’t easy.

The night we arrived we walked down to the Bellagio to pick up our tickets to O. I made the very bad mistake of wearing my black heels (since we weren’t going to go back to our room to change). It took about 50 steps before the strap dug into my heel, and it got progressively worse. I have worn those shoes before, and they are the most comfortable heels I have owned, but I forgot I haven’t worn them in a year.

Both when we checked in at the MGM and when we picked up our O tickets they couldn’t find our reseveration. We sweated for a few minutes while they searched on their computer, then took our computer-printed receipt (we had paid online) and went into the back. Both times. Color us freaked out. Finally they came back and said something about how our name was inputted funny. I decided we will change our last name to Smith. (Our last name is St. Jean – it ALWAYS gets screwed up in computer systems. Always.)

But, O tickets in hand, we walked over to Paris to look around. Very nice hotel, we’d consider staying there in the future. Found a cafe to eat dinner at. I did not have my camera with me though (because no cameras are supposed to be allowed in O), so no pictures of the Bellagio or Paris. :( On the way back to the Bellagio we got to see the fountain show, very cool!

Then we went into the theatre to see O. First of all, I was wicked annoyed that everyone had a camera and were snapping photos. A lady was letting some of them know that cameras weren’t allowed, but no one said anything to most of them! I was just mad because I didn’t even BRING my camera with me, because those were the rules, and I’m pissed that people just ignore the rules. (That was a theme of the trip, btw – does no one care to follow instructions/rules anymore?) I would have LOVED to take some photos of the inside of that theatre…. the ceiling was all glass with aqua and blue fish pattern on them, glowing. The show itself was pretty amazing… my only complaint was that they had several things happening at once – synchronized swimmers below an acrobatic show. You couldn’t watch both at once, so you always missed something! But it was a very very neat show. Very surreal. Even Den enjoyed it. We now definitely want to go see KA and Mystere.

After O I hobbled back to the MGM and we crashed. So exhausted.

Monday was a day for sight-seeing. First the Grand Buffet at the MGM for breakfast. Not cheap, that’s for certain, but OH the food. All sorts of breakfast foods, everything you could imagine. Did I mention I LOVE breakfast? Waffles and pancakes and eggs and bacon and crepes and fruit and salad and much more. We appropriately stuffed ourselves.

Then I grabbed my camera and we set out. For the rest of the trip I’ll have a nice photo journal – once I go through all 500+ photos. First stop was the Lions in the MGM. Awesome animals. Then we set off to see the Excalibur, Luxor, and Mandalay Bay where we went to the Shark Reef aquarium. Very neat aquarium and I got some AWESOME photos. Den got even better video – our camcorder kicks ass.

Then we ate lunch, and I don’t remember where. Oh yes… Dick’s Last Resort. Den’s request. I had a wrap that was actually really good, even though I still wasn’t all that hungry. We also checked out the fancy restaurants in the MGM and made a reservation for dinner.

My feet were really hurting at that point, but we had so much more to see. So we ended up taking the tram up to Harrah’s so we wouldn’t have to walk all the way up to the Mirage (where I wanted to go). Harrah’s was not a casino I ever want to go back to. I would say the average age of the patrons there was 70. Lots and lots of white haired ladies, people with walkers and on scooters. The place looked really old and run-down as well. Blech. We scooted out of there as fast as we could.

The Mirage! Which has the Secret Garden – tigers and dolphins!! And… it was closed. I nearly burst into tears, I swear. It closed at 5:30 and it was now 6:00. No tigers for me. :( Den was begging me not to let this ruin my vacation, but damnit! So instead we had a milkshake. I was dying of thirst pretty much the entire trip… I drank SO much water, even at one point purchasing a bottle of water for $5 because it was all that I could find. (No, there were no water fountains in the fancy hotels.)

By this point I have to say that I was in a lot of pain. I was trying SO hard to just push through, I wanted to see more hotels, but every step was pain, all I could think about was my feet. Not just the blisters, but the heels and balls of my feet hurt so incredibly much. I sat down every chance I could get, but even that didn’t help too much – soon as I stood up they’d be hurting just the same as before.

We got into the Venetian, which was a pretty cool hotel, and we got some photos and video of the mural on the ceiling. We made it up to the shops – which would have been really cool to look at, had I been in any shape to look at anything – when my stomach did a flip-flop and that milkshake decided it needed to come back up. So I ended up speedwalking through the Venetian, not really seeing anything, desperately looking for a bathroom. I was ready to burst into tears and start screaming, “I’m going to puke on you!” at the people who would just stand in my way. And I couldn’t find a freakin bathroom. Finally we did, and yes some milkshake did come back up. Not a good memory of Vegas.

That was about when I threw in the towel. We wanted to make it back down to the Paris and Bellagio to get photos and video, but I just couldn’t do anymore, all I wanted to do was lay down in bed and cry. And we had a fancy dinner planned for that evening and the last thing we wanted was to have me not enjoy it. So that’s what we did… took the tram back to our hotel where I hobbled up to our room. I took a bath and rubbed my feet and just kind of chilled out for 2 hours. It did me a world of good.

We had dinner at Fiamma, an italian restaurant in the MGM. It was a traditional 3-course meal, each course priced seperately of course. We ended up sharing the entire meal, just ordering one of each course, as we were still so full. But I have to say, the entire meal was fantastic. Just amazing. Our first course was a salad, but an unusual salad with pistashios and gorgonzola and pear slices and some tangy vinagrette dressing. Our second course was freshly made pasta with cheese and peas. For our entree we splurged on the lobster and filet mignon entree at $85. Oh but it was good. The steak was cooked perfectly, and the lobster, well, I ate the lobster. I am not a seafood person at all, but it was so good.

After dinner we went to the Centrifuge bar for a drink. It was a cool bar, the drink I had was good (my traditional White Russian, of course), and much to our amusement at one point the music was turned up and the bartenders and servers climbed up onto the bar to dance. It was just a really fun way to end the night.

And yet again we got to our room and passed out immediately.

The next morning we ate at the Rainforest Cafe, which is something quite… unique. It was a totally themed-out restaurant with mechanical elephants and monkeys and parrots all making noises around the tables. You’ll have to see the photos. The ceiling was all lit like stars, and every once in a while a “thunderstorm” would happen where the lights would flash and sound would rumble. And my waffle was quite good indeed. :)

Before checking out I gambled $20 in the slot machines, I just HAD to play the Frog Prince machine (nickle slots). ;) I lost $5, then had to cash out and leave.

We are already planning our next trip to Vegas. Don’t know when – need to get me a job and save some money to do it – but maybe next year. You definitely need more than one full day of sight-seeing to see everything. And we have to go see more shows. I think we’ll stay at the MGM again, since it was just a nice time, it was comfortable and had a lot of things right there that we enjoyed. I’d go back to Fiamma and Centrifuge. And hey, lions!

So now we’re home, the cat is asleep on his back snoring, the dogs are home from the kennel and are taking a nap (in between barking madly at the mailman and other weird things), and I need to go to work shortly. Waaahhhhh. What I really want to do is climb into bed and sleep. I’m exhausted.