Vegas, baby, Vegas!
So, a couple of days & nights in Vegas and I have to admit I had a much better time than I have in recent Vegas trips. Unlike Dani (and several of our friends) I’m only mildly excited about Vegas trips. Partly it’s the casinos… obnoxious, bell-ringing, smoke-filled buildings designed to do one thing—suck the money out of your wallet. (Naw, I’m not prejudiced.) But the reality is, coming from California (where no one smokes indoors) and having asthma, cigarette (and cigar and pipe) smoke and I are not friends. And the unnatural quality of casino air BEFORE you pump in the smoke (I don’t know if the casinos actually do pump in oxygen or if that’s just a myth, but there’s something about their air that’s wrong) just exacerbates that problem. Then, turn it into a marathon session of nickel, quarter, dollar slots with the occasional blackjack or roulette thrown in and I end up feeling like I’ve wasted several hours of my life (and several hundred dollars) with nothing to show for it (usually) but a bad headache and an inability to breathe deeply. Tends to color my worldview. Then, when you add in the cheese factor that is at the heart of the Vegas experience… well, I’m not the city’s biggest fan.
But this time was actually a lot of fun…
First off, we caught a couple of good shows. Admittedly, we usually try to catch a show or two when we’re in town and we haven’t subjected ourselves to anything TRULY tacky (Siegfried & Roy come to mind, but the animals saved that from falling into the tacky category). But this time we tried a couple of new ones and had a great time at both.
Our first night, it was Penn & Teller. Some very funny stuff going on there, as well as some truly strange bits, but overall a fun time. I enjoy watching them deconstruct illusions you’ve seen countless times and I enjoyed that they finished the show with an illusion that I can't deconstruct. But what the hell was up with the monkey suit number?
And then Dani dragged me to see Mama Mia—a decision I’d been mocking her about for weeks… tickets to a musical based around the hits of Abba? I don’t care how many good reviews you’ve seen, this has got to be a novelty bit and I’m not expecting anything more. Turns out I was wrong. (enjoy that, Dani, I won't often admit THAT in public.) Oh, the first 10 or 15 minutes were painful—two of the girls in the opening trio were pretty bad actresses and spent WAY too much time mugging—fortunately both were minor characters that we weren’t subjected to often. And things seemed a little uneven for a few minutes past that first number (but that just might be me getting back into the whole musical mindset) but after that, the show really took off. It was smart and it had a good story and some of the performances were frankly fantastic. I was really impressed!
As for casino time—well, we kept that to a minimum. And we basically played simply for fun, which meant a lot of time spent on the smaller limit slot machines. But here’s where it gets funny. As I’ve said, we’ve played a lot of slots and some table games in the past and usually end up just dumping a bunch of cash and leaving town feeling poorer for it. This time we stuck to nickel and freaking PENNY slots—and paid for all of our gambling. First night in, we kill a couple of hours playing nickel slot machines and walk away with $185. The next night, we’re cruising the casino and we find these god-awful Beverly Hillbilly penny slot machines (with a progressive jackpot of several hundred thousand dollars, so you don’t feel like you’re wasting your time). Again, we’re just looking to kill a little time and since $20 gives you 2000 credits, we figure “what the hell!” A couple of hours later we walk away with $100. (We probably put close to that into the machines, so we simply broke even, but still!) THEN, the next day, after checkout, we go back and play those same penny slots for another hour or two and this time win over $200. Now, none of this is big money in Vegas terms, but since it covered all our gambling (and probably paid for a lunch or two as well) we figured we did pretty freaking good. Especially considering it’s on nickel and penny slots. (We got passed by someone driving a dark blue Mustang convertible on the way home. Their license plate? "3 Blu 7s" Now THAT'S hitting the slots!)
Other Vegas observations… we used to like Rio Suites—stayed there for our honeymoon, in fact—but there’s something about the place lately that just doesn’t impress. We went there to see Penn and Teller and, after the show was over, couldn’t get out of there fast enough.
Mandalay Bay on the other hand, is gorgeous and we’ll probably try and stay there next time. We have to go back just to try Red Square—their vodka bar—and Rumjungle—their (you guessed it) rum bar! We both loved the spaciousness of the casino (with these huge walkways) and the unique flavor to the architecture and design for each of the restaurants on their restaurant row.
Bellagio has never been one of my favorites—I’ve always found it pretentious and overbearing. In a city dedicated to the idea of wretched excess, Bellagio manages to outdo them all. Come on, an 8.5 acre “lake” with a water show on the quarter hour—in the middle of the freaking desert? Talk about conspicuous consumption! (And, somehow, the air inside Bellagio reeks of smoke. You'd think they'd have spent some money on a good AC system.)
Kahunaville at Treasure Island (where we stayed) has some of the best damn frozen margaritas I’ve ever had—I’m not a frozen margarita fan, but these were fantastic. They remind me of the frozen piña coladas you can get in the French Quarter in New Orleans.
And, since our hotel room had a fabulous view of the strip, I noticed—for the first time—that the casino at Caesar’s Palace is built to look like the Coliseum from the outside. DOH!
So, a couple of days & nights in Vegas and I have to admit I had a much better time than I have in recent Vegas trips. Unlike Dani (and several of our friends) I’m only mildly excited about Vegas trips. Partly it’s the casinos… obnoxious, bell-ringing, smoke-filled buildings designed to do one thing—suck the money out of your wallet. (Naw, I’m not prejudiced.) But the reality is, coming from California (where no one smokes indoors) and having asthma, cigarette (and cigar and pipe) smoke and I are not friends. And the unnatural quality of casino air BEFORE you pump in the smoke (I don’t know if the casinos actually do pump in oxygen or if that’s just a myth, but there’s something about their air that’s wrong) just exacerbates that problem. Then, turn it into a marathon session of nickel, quarter, dollar slots with the occasional blackjack or roulette thrown in and I end up feeling like I’ve wasted several hours of my life (and several hundred dollars) with nothing to show for it (usually) but a bad headache and an inability to breathe deeply. Tends to color my worldview. Then, when you add in the cheese factor that is at the heart of the Vegas experience… well, I’m not the city’s biggest fan.
But this time was actually a lot of fun…
First off, we caught a couple of good shows. Admittedly, we usually try to catch a show or two when we’re in town and we haven’t subjected ourselves to anything TRULY tacky (Siegfried & Roy come to mind, but the animals saved that from falling into the tacky category). But this time we tried a couple of new ones and had a great time at both.
Our first night, it was Penn & Teller. Some very funny stuff going on there, as well as some truly strange bits, but overall a fun time. I enjoy watching them deconstruct illusions you’ve seen countless times and I enjoyed that they finished the show with an illusion that I can't deconstruct. But what the hell was up with the monkey suit number?
And then Dani dragged me to see Mama Mia—a decision I’d been mocking her about for weeks… tickets to a musical based around the hits of Abba? I don’t care how many good reviews you’ve seen, this has got to be a novelty bit and I’m not expecting anything more. Turns out I was wrong. (enjoy that, Dani, I won't often admit THAT in public.) Oh, the first 10 or 15 minutes were painful—two of the girls in the opening trio were pretty bad actresses and spent WAY too much time mugging—fortunately both were minor characters that we weren’t subjected to often. And things seemed a little uneven for a few minutes past that first number (but that just might be me getting back into the whole musical mindset) but after that, the show really took off. It was smart and it had a good story and some of the performances were frankly fantastic. I was really impressed!
As for casino time—well, we kept that to a minimum. And we basically played simply for fun, which meant a lot of time spent on the smaller limit slot machines. But here’s where it gets funny. As I’ve said, we’ve played a lot of slots and some table games in the past and usually end up just dumping a bunch of cash and leaving town feeling poorer for it. This time we stuck to nickel and freaking PENNY slots—and paid for all of our gambling. First night in, we kill a couple of hours playing nickel slot machines and walk away with $185. The next night, we’re cruising the casino and we find these god-awful Beverly Hillbilly penny slot machines (with a progressive jackpot of several hundred thousand dollars, so you don’t feel like you’re wasting your time). Again, we’re just looking to kill a little time and since $20 gives you 2000 credits, we figure “what the hell!” A couple of hours later we walk away with $100. (We probably put close to that into the machines, so we simply broke even, but still!) THEN, the next day, after checkout, we go back and play those same penny slots for another hour or two and this time win over $200. Now, none of this is big money in Vegas terms, but since it covered all our gambling (and probably paid for a lunch or two as well) we figured we did pretty freaking good. Especially considering it’s on nickel and penny slots. (We got passed by someone driving a dark blue Mustang convertible on the way home. Their license plate? "3 Blu 7s" Now THAT'S hitting the slots!)
Other Vegas observations… we used to like Rio Suites—stayed there for our honeymoon, in fact—but there’s something about the place lately that just doesn’t impress. We went there to see Penn and Teller and, after the show was over, couldn’t get out of there fast enough.
Mandalay Bay on the other hand, is gorgeous and we’ll probably try and stay there next time. We have to go back just to try Red Square—their vodka bar—and Rumjungle—their (you guessed it) rum bar! We both loved the spaciousness of the casino (with these huge walkways) and the unique flavor to the architecture and design for each of the restaurants on their restaurant row.
Bellagio has never been one of my favorites—I’ve always found it pretentious and overbearing. In a city dedicated to the idea of wretched excess, Bellagio manages to outdo them all. Come on, an 8.5 acre “lake” with a water show on the quarter hour—in the middle of the freaking desert? Talk about conspicuous consumption! (And, somehow, the air inside Bellagio reeks of smoke. You'd think they'd have spent some money on a good AC system.)
Kahunaville at Treasure Island (where we stayed) has some of the best damn frozen margaritas I’ve ever had—I’m not a frozen margarita fan, but these were fantastic. They remind me of the frozen piña coladas you can get in the French Quarter in New Orleans.
And, since our hotel room had a fabulous view of the strip, I noticed—for the first time—that the casino at Caesar’s Palace is built to look like the Coliseum from the outside. DOH!
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