My Trip to Las Vegas

As many of you know (and for those that do not) this was my first trip anywhere; before this I had never been on an airplane, so as you can imagine, this was a new experience for me. Since I was unsure of how things would go, I invited my sister to go along with me as she has been to Las Vegas several times before, which I figured would be helpful.

On Monday, November 5, we drove from Nekoosa to Green Bay to check in for the 12:45 pm flight on Allegiant Airlines. We arrived at the Green Bay Airport about 10 am and there were about 3 people in line for check in front of us. The check in process went very smoothly. We did not pay the extra fee to have seats assigned when booking the tickets so we were assigned seats at check in and we ended up with 35 A and 35 C. Allegiant’s planes have two seats on one side of the aisle and three seats on the other side. They do not have a row B so we were next to each other on the two-seat side. Row 35 was the second to last row on the plane. Take off was a bit bumpy, which made me a bit queasy. I discovered that if I left my eyes closed that seemed to help, so by mid-flight I was feeling better. Landing in Las Vegas was not a thrill for me. However with my eyes closed, I did not feel as bad as I did on take off. Our flight landed about 10 minutes early and to our delight both our bags were on the carousel.

As we left the terminal we found the location for Executive Shuttle Service and bought round trip tokens for shuttle service. The cost was $6.00 each way and you received two tokens. We loaded our bags onto the shuttle, which sat about 12 people. I was the last one to board the shuttle and the only seat left was up front next to the driver, which he let me sit in. I warned him that I do get motion sickness and he kept asking me on the ride to all the hotels if I was ok, which I thought was very nice. We made about 4 stops prior to being dropped off at our hotel, which was the Circus Circus. The drop off was just outside of hotel check in which made things quite easy. We checked into the hotel and were given a map of the hotel and directions on how to get to our room. The room was in the Sky Towers and on the 22nd floor. By the time we reached our room and unpacked it was about 5pm. The room was a two-queen bed room. The room itself was nice. It had two queen beds of course and a dresser stand with three drawers and an area for the TV. It also had a desk with two chairs. The only downfall was that the dresser stand was not centrally located on the wall, so to watch TV from the one bed was a bit awkward. We headed down to the casino area and found the Garden Grill for supper.

We both ordered salads for supper the only bad part to this was that all the salads were made up ahead of time so there was no way to alter them, such as no tomatoes and such. The portion was quiet big and I could not eat all of it. The prices were reasonable based on the information that I had about what food would cost in Las Vegas. After supper we walked about the casino a bit to familiarize ourselves with the layout. We walked next door to Slot’s of Fun and walked around it as well. We then headed back to the room to get some sleep.

Tuesday, November 6th: We woke up and decided that we would walk down the strip a bit to see what places we could find for breakfast. We stopped at a Denny’s that was located a bit down the strip. The Denny’s only had one little section of the restaurant opened for seating so there was a waiting list. We waited about 20 min or so to get a table. A few of the parties ended up leaving prior to being seated otherwise I think our wait would have been longer. The service itself was fine and fast so that made things a bit better. While at breakfast I contacted the Las Vegas Convention Bureau to see if we were able to get the comp tickets to the Blue Man Group at the Venetian and was informed that they did have them and that they were being held at the box office at the Venetian. We headed down the strip in that direction.

Our first stop was the Wynn hotel; I loved this hotel. I thought the outside was completely gorgeous and the inside was just as fabulous. We both thought the design of the casino was great and we loved the chairs within the casino. We then headed over to the Venetian. This was a nice casino and hotel as well. We went to the box office to get our tickets for the show that night and had a bit of a mix up there as the convention center had misspelled my name, but they were eventually able to find them. We decided since we were right there we would go through the Guggenheim Hermitage. The cost was $15.00 per person. This was very interesting. The display was divided into four sections: Portraiture, Landscapes, Still Life and Genre. It was nice to see some of the painting by artists that I had heard of before including Van Gogh, Cezanne and Picasso. We did receive a small pamphlet that had some information on some of the paintings that we would be seeing. You could purchase an audio guide for I believe it was $5.00 but we decided not to do this.

We then walked across the street into the Mirage. I have to say that I like most of the casino/hotels that we went into. We decided not to go to the Secret Garden in the Mirage, however we did walk around the casino itself and outside to see the beautiful waterfalls set up they have in front. Next stop was Treasure Island, which I liked as well, but not as much as the first three. The display outside the Treasure Island with the pirate ship was cool to see. We were then off to the Fashion Show Mall. The mall itself was cool and many of the stores I was not familiar with. We ate a late lunch at the food court there and there was enough variety that it made both of us happy. We headed back to Slots of Fun to gamble a bit but we both lost. We headed back to the room to take a break from walking the whole day and get ready for the show that night. We decided that we would just get some munchies before the show and find something to eat when the show was done. We headed down to the bus stop in front of the Circus Circus to take the bus down to the Venetian for the show. We headed down about 6 pm and bought a 24-hour pass for the Deuce Bus System. This was $5.00 and of course was good from the time of purchase until 24 hours later; it allowed you to get on and off the bus as much as you wanted within that 24-hour period. We reached the Venetian and the show with about 10 min to spare. The seats were in a nice row however they were a bit too far to the left of the stage. As the show was about to start one of the usher came over and advised that since no one else was in the row with us we could move down the row as long as we did not take the two seats closest to the aisle and this gave us a better view of the whole stage. The show itself was awesome. The music at times was a bit loud for the area that it was being held in but otherwise it was great. I would recommend the Blue Man Group to any age group that likes comedy. After the show we headed across the street to the Mirage to watch the Volcano Eruption out front. This water show was spectacular. After this was done we ran down to the Treasure Island to see if we could catch part of the Siren Show, but it had already started and there was a ton of people gathered around so we could not really see much, but we were able to hear what was going on and see the fireworks that were shot off. After this we caught the Deuce Bus back to the hotel and got a quick bite to eat at the Subway in Slots of Fun before heading to bed.

Wednesday, November 7th: We woke up a bit later than before and decided that we did not want to go to the Denny’s again. We decided that we would try the bagel shop in the hotel. It was not bad but I was not overly thrilled with the bagel. My sister ordered a scone, but instead of being triangular it looked more like a muffin. She said it tasted fine but was not what she was expecting with having scones before. We then caught the Deuce Bus down to the other end of the Strip and worked our way backwards. We got off the bus at the Luxor & Excalibur stop and rode the tram to the Mandalay Bay hotel. Mandalay Bay was gorgeous. We decided due to the time crunch that we would not do the shark reef offered at the hotel. We rode the tram over to the Luxor hotel and I have to say I love the pyramid set up of this hotel and the sphinx over the entranceway. I was not overly impressed by the inside of this hotel, though. We walked the skywalk from Luxor to Excalibur. The Excalibur is a very nice hotel and casino. We had lunch at the Sherwood Forest Restaurant and we both were thrilled with our meals. The prices were comparable with what we had been seeing in all the hotels and the choices were impressive. We both liked the fact that you could order things as you wanted, so for her, she could get her salad without the things she did not care for and I was able to order my cheeseburger plain without an issue. We then went across the street to the MGM Grand. At the time that we got there they were bring out to lion clubs to the enclosure so we were able to see them. We next stopped at the Showcase Mall to go into the M&M Factory and the Coca-Cola Factory; both of these shops were impressive and interesting to me. Our next stop was Caesar’s Palace and I was impressed with this hotel as well. We watched the Sinking of Atlantis in the Forum Shop area but however got lost trying to get back out of here. The signs giving directions were of no help nor were the maps that were set up. I would not go back into that hotel unless I had someone with me who knew it like the back of their hand. After getting out of Caesar’s Palace we headed back to the Circus Circus to take a small break and relax a bit. We went downtown after our rest and saw the acrobats on Fremont Street perform and then watched one of the laser light shows, the first one was of the alien invasion which I thought was great. We headed over to the Golden Gate and had a bite to eat and the prices here were awesome. The set up of these casinos downtown was wonderful, as they were not so cramped together and the atmosphere was very relaxed. After the Golden Gate, we headed to the Golden Nugget and saw the biggest gold nugget ever found on display. Next we headed to Binion’s Horseshoe and the Four Queens. We then watched the next light show as they have them everyone hour on the hour and they are different each time. This one was of things that fly and I was not overly impressed with this one. Once this one was completed we decided to head back to our hotel, as we had to be up at 3:30 am to check our flight home on Thursday.

Thursday, November 8th: We got up at 3:30 am and got ready to head out. I had set up a shuttle pickup the day before for 4:30 am. The shuttle arrived to pick up another couple and us on time however it had a few more stops to make and the driver was getting calls from the base with additions. The driver finally told the base that it would not be able to make any more stops if it wanted to get this load of passengers to the airport by 5:00 am. We reached the airport about 5:05 am, so that was not too bad. We made it easily through check in and security and had enough time to check a small bite to eat before sitting to wait for boarding to begin. The flight home we were in seats 36E and 36F so we were still next to each other just on the side of the plane that had three seats this time. I shut my eye the moment the plane started to move and take off was not so bad this time. I kept my eyes shut for the whole flight back to GRB and the landing was still a bit stressful for me. We landed in GRB on time around 12:05 pm and were able to retrieve both of our bags and head out to be picked up for the ride home by 12:30 pm.

All in all, I would have to say it was a great first experience traveling. I would say that I prefer the downtown atmosphere in Las Vegas over the Strip area for the hotels/casino. I think there would be a lot more that I would love to see if/when I ever get back. The best hotel seen in my opinion was the Wynn, I loved everything about it and the free attraction that I liked best was the Sinking of Atlantis at Caesar’s Palace.