Las Vegas

(by Karen with some input by Jo)

(Jo) We flew from Kansas City, MO, where we were attending a convention, to Las Vegas, catching a late Sunday flight. Karen and I arrived at our hotel, New York New York, about 1:00 a.m.  It was so noisy we had to scream to the check in lady in order to be heard. You would think that at 1:00 a.m. people would be asleep, but not here. We got our room assignment, went to the Empire Tower, and up to the 34th floor where it was quiet.

Monday morning we woke up at 6 a.m. their time - 9 a.m. Florida time. We met someone who showed us where we could eat breakfast. It was a bagel and pastry shop.  The hotel, like all Vegas hotels, had no windows in the main area. People couldn't tell night from day. The hotel covered a large city block - or two - and Karen couldn't believe how huge it was. This isn't a city Richard has any desire to visit, but we found the Las Vegas exhilarating. Neither of us are gamblers. Karen wasn't legal when we visited in 1998. So for the gambling experience, we played the nickel slots, starting with $10, gaining $5, and losing it all.

NYNY casino	NYNY roller coaster	NYNY entrance
Treasure Island	The Star Trek Experience

(Karen) After breakfast we decided to tour the hotels. We went to the far side of the strip. The Mirage, Treasure Island, Caesar’s Palace, and the Las Vegas Hilton (Star Trek Experience) were all at that end and we explored them all. Wow! Was that tiring. We covered miles in just 4 hotels!

Probably the best of the day was the Star Trek Experience.  When you enter the area where the ride is, the hotel is designed like a space station with the various Star Trek ships docked there.  It was soooo cool.  They had lots of props and costumes from the shows and movies.  They looked so real on TV but so fake close up.   It's amazing.

Part of the ride featured getting into an elevator that became a transporter and we were "beamed" to the bridge of the Enterprise.  It was  just like being on the TNG set!  All the "computers" had flashing lights and looked like they were working and there were actors standing by the back panels and sitting in the forward chairs.  No one sat in the Captain's chair.  Then they took us to the "shuttle" for a simulator ride.

Mom had heard that the simulator ride had a high barf factor and she was almost afraid to go.  She was going to tell them not to load her into the shuttle.  But she decided to go anyway and it wasn't bad at all!  She had no motion sickness from it.

The shuttle had "windows" above, on the sides, and on top so it really made you feel as if you were flying through space.  I thought that was neat.  When we got off, we were "docked" at Deep Space 9 and we exited onto the promenade!   There was Garak's Clothier store and Quark's Bar.  Mom and I had virgin drinks in Quark's Bar.  Mom had the "Wesley Crusher" and I had the "Trill Chill."  I bought a cool Star Trek notebook. 

Enterprise from TNG	Cochran's Ship?	Promenade	Klingon Battle Cruiser
Voyager	Quark's Bar

We didn't actually see much of Caesar’s Palace, but we did visit the Forum. The Forum was like a giant mall. We ate lunch in a New York deli, a real one, called, I think, Back Stage or Stage Door or The Stage.   The food was flown in from New York.  The food was huge, and really good too. I got a sandwich the size of New York. They had pickles there that were so good it made my mouth water. Oh! Before lunch, we saw a show were the statues from a fountain came alive and put on a small play. It was interesting. Also the sky would change from dawn to dusk over a period of maybe an hour.

Forum architecture	Forum changing sky	Gucci	The rotunda area
Karen along the Promenade	The Rotunda	We pose near a statue

(Jo) After Caesar’s Palace, we went to Treasure Island, but by this time we were almost completely out of energy. We looked around a little, decided not to see the pirate show, and walked to the Mirage.

(Karen) I started to collect shot glasses while I was there. One from each hotel I visited. I now have a collection of 9 from Las Vegas and one from California. Actually the New York shot is literally from New York, but I consider it to be from the hotel we stayed at.

The Mirage was neat. We never got to see the Secret Garden because it closed the second we got there. That was a bummer. We were going to eat at a Japanese restaurant there, but it looked a little too pricey and fancy for what we were wearing. People were walking in with full suits and expensive dresses. We decided to go back to the hotel and collapse.

We ate dinner at a Chinese restaurant called Chin Chin’s. It was really noisy and the service was slow. After dinner we explored the hotel. I think we might have quickly looked into MGM Grand also, because mom wanted to get the tickets for the show EFX, which she already had reservations to see. I remember thinking how extremely smoky the place was. It was a difficult lobby for non-smokers. We didn't have too much trouble in other hotels or casinos.

America Café	MGM Grand	Excalibur	Excalibur at night

Tuesday morning we ate at a place called America Café in the New York. It had this huge 3D map of the U.S. I had bagel and lox for breakfast, my favorite. I remember feeling like we had been in Las Vegas a week already. We were going to take it easy today, but it turned out to be a full day too.

We visited three hotels and watched a show in the evening. The hotels were the MGM Grand, almost the entire thing this time, Excalibur, my all time favorite, and the Tropicana, which Mom and I didn't care for.

Excalibur was so awesome. It had dragons and knights and it was everything I thought it would be. I bought so much from this hotel: a deck of cards, a thimble, a t-shirt, a shot glass, a necklace, and two pictures. One picture was of a dragon and the other was of a unicorn. They are very beautiful. We ate lunch/dinner (in the same meal) at the Round Table. It was a buffet. The food wasn’t bad. I really enjoyed my time there.

The buffet was so filling that we didn't eat dinner.  We went back to the hotel to rest a little, then got dressed for the theater.  We went to see EFX at the MGM Grand.  Mom and I walked fast through the hotel to avoid as much smoke as we could.  We had to cross the casino.  There's no way to get anywhere in a Las Vegas hotel without going through the casino. 

The theater was huge and it was black.  The usher showed us to our table, which was in the center and right next to the stage!  Mom said we weren't going to see the show, we'd be in it!

The show starred David Cassidy and it was cool.  Lots of dancing, singing, a Merlin scene, a scene from H.G.Wells' "Time Machine" and even a circus act.  These were trapeze artists with a catch. :)  In the center, there was a platform and two men caught the flyer on their arms!  There were 6 men and no women.  Then they took the platform down and the flyer flew 45 feet from one trapeze to the other.

Something else that about the trapezes - there was a metal contraption on them that the catchers locked their feet into instead of straps hanging on the ropes above the bar.  It's hard to explain but it was a neat device.   The catcher position formed an L with his knees bent.

David Cassidy got someone from the audience to be his long lost love, Laura, whom he was searching for throughout the show.  The woman he got kept insisting her name wasn't Laura.  She wore this dress that David called a mumu and the woman kept holding it close to her so people couldn't see through it.  She was great and it was so much fun!  David adlibbed with her and we enjoyed it.  At one point, he was talking to people sitting at a table near us, then he was reaching down and shook hands with the tables in our row!  He shook my hand and then he shook mom's hand.  I noticed he was wearing a glove.  Mom said he was trying to protect himself from germs because hands spread germs faster than anything else and, being an entertainer, he had to stay healthy.  I thought the show was great and so did mom.

Wednesday morning, we checked out of the hotel and left our bags with the concierge.  Then we walked back through the Excalibur to the Luxor.   This hotel has an Egyptian theme and is shaped like a pyramid.  They say it is the largest pyramid on earth.  We saw a full scale cutaway of King Tutankhamen's chambers as they were discovered in 1932.  That was cool.  Then we ate lunch and dinner at a Sushi restaurant in the hotel and got our luggage and went to the airport.   We got home to Orlando around 1:30 a.m. our time.

Luxor Name Monolith	Luxor Hotel	Wall Heiroglyphs	One of many statues
King Tut	Tut's Tomb	Vegas at night	Vegas airport