Day 3 - Las Vegas - Tuesday 24th June

Day 3 in Las Vegas

Tuesday 24th June

Plan for the day is to go round some of the hotels we fancy and we have booked the night tour with Big Bus company which starts at 7pm

 

 

We have a starbucks just beside our set of lifts so that is perfect for Colin back on his coffee and hot water run, only fair as I did every morning on the cruise!!

 

Thumbs up, Las Vegas sticker task complete and we thought this would be a bigger USA flag too

 

The lonely Budweiser put on ice for Colin at the end of the day!  It is only early in the morning!!  Even though when Colin goes down to get the coffee and hot water in the mornings there are people drinking, smoking and gambling whether they are from the night before or early starters who knows in Las Vegas.  There was a woman on our tour yesterday that said it was 3am when she realised the time and thought she would be better staying up to catch the bus at 6am.  The shops start opening at 10am but other services just never close!!

 

We head down to the shopping arcade of the hotel as it is where the tower entrance is too and find they have an Arc de Triomphe and Eiffel Tower base replica inside

 

So it is crunch time we are heading up the tower to do the Big Shot ride which is on floor 112 starting from 909ft.  The Big Shot is a pneumatically powered ride, featuring a rapid ascent from an elevation of 921 ft to 1,081 ft. The ride accelerates to 45 miles per hour and generates 4Gs during the rapid ascent!! 

 

 

We are at level 108 checking out the view before we head up to the Big Shot.  We get free access to the tower with staying at the Stratosphere so we only need to pay $15 each for the ride!!

 

Holy moly so for the past two days Amy has said she doesn’t want to do it but at the last minute she says she will do it!!  She is tall enough as you need to be 48 inches to ride the Big Shot, wow brave girl!!

 

Here we are, we have arrived to go on the Big Shot, nerves are really setting in for all of us now even the adrenaline junkie Colin is nervous!!!  So the sign before we get up says that all loose items, bags and sunglasses must be removed before going on the ride now in Orlando they have similar signs but then it would carry on to say that they have lockers provided but this sign doesn’t say anything about lockers.  We get up and there are a few people standing watching people on the ride so I spy lockers so I turn to Colin and say ‘oh they have lockers’ and a woman says ‘yes we are lookers’ here we go again so I say ‘sorry I said that they have lockers for our bags not lookers’ her reply ‘awh you have the cutest accent’ now if we weren’t just away to go on the tallest ride in the world I may have found this amusing but I didn’t

 

Ok we have done it, oh boy we are all shaky our legs, arms and hands are shaking!!!  I am surprised the photo is a bit blurry with my hands shaking!!  Amy and I didn’t like that ride at all and Colin is still undecided whether he liked it or not as it was scary!  When you are launched up it felt like you were away to launch into space as it felt like it wasn’t going to stop, eeeek and then it drops you down just as fast but Amy and I were still hanging in mid air when we were hurtling back down and the top bars that held us in pushed us back down!!!   Sooooo scary and then we get hurtled back up again, at this point Amy is shouting ‘I don’t like it’ and my reply ‘I don’t either darling but it will be over soon we will go down in a second’ and oh boy thankfully we did!!!!  I have never been so glad when you only get a short ride on something, normally after a rollercoaster you like you say awh that was too short or can we go again, we all came off saying ‘NEVER AGAIN’ but the best thing is we can say that we have been on the highest ride in the world!!!!!!

 

Could have been worse we could be on this ride which shoots you over the edge of the building and then tilts you back and keeps doing the same thing at different angles, oh really no thanks.  So Colin and Amy are sitting inside the tower but I wanted a few shots outside down the strip during day light but to be honest I just want to get down and get on solid ground!!  Amy says now this would be a perfect time for a turn in the oxygen bar!!  It is a new craze that you go and have high flow oxygen through normal oxygen tubing for 5 minutes and when you are done all your aches and pains have gone!!  Really funny Amy!!  So we are starting to come to and less shaky so I say to Colin did you hear the lady say I had the cutest accent??  Colin now thinks that they are telling me that they have no clue what I am saying and by saying I have a cute accent is their way of saying I don’t understand you!!!  Thanks Colin, love you too xxx

 

Top of the tower

 

The airport

We are now heading to Circus Circus to hop on the Hop on Hop off bus and go along to some of the hotels we fancy having a nosey at!

 

 

Good girl we are walking to Circus Circus and Amy can point to show you where we have just been

on the Big Shot!!!  All the way up there, eeeek!!!

 

We have made it to Circus Circus but boy it was hot walking that distance in this heat so we dive into Circus Circus for some air conditioning!!  Even Jemima is HOT!!  The forecast was for 106degrees F today

 

Gosh we have spied a spinning carousel with slot machines now that must make you disorientated coming off of there after a while!!

 

Fountains at Caesar Palace

 

Here we are we are getting off at Bally’s to go to Paris hotel and check it out!

 

Amy found a restaurant’s cool zone and we certainly need it today!!

 

We walk inside Paris hotel and there is a walkway above but you need to pay to go up there and pay to go up the tower but would we as we have been up the real thing so we wander through the hotel but it is majority slot machines nothing much to see!!

 

Oh now I would have the champagne but I am not bothered about the slots!!  We have seen enough now so we head on again!

 

Another pit stop at a fan blowing misted air!!

 

Guess where we are going for lunch the other Hard Rock Café in Las Vegas!!

 

 

And for pudding which is just a little bit along M&M’s world oh yummy!!!!

 

We had some Girl’s Rule mix and now Boy’s Rule mix

 

Wow look at all the different colours and flavours to choose from!!

 

We even got free samples of the new flavour Birthday Cake, Coconut and Mega M&M’s, delicious apart from the Coconut one, yuck!!

 

 Now look at this for a Statue of Liberty made of Jelly Belly’s in New York New York entrance!!!

 

We went into Hershey’s next a new shop on the strip!

 

Hershey’s Statue of Liberty!!

 

We didn’t buy any but here are the different designs of Hershey’s you could buy

 

 

We asked our waitress at Hard Rock Café where Build-a-Bear workshop was when we there and she told us at Fashion Mall so that was our next stop so we jumped back on the Hop on Hop off bus and headed to MGM Grand,crossed the road to Fashion Mall under The Cloud as it is called you can see why from the photo!

We headed into the Fashion Mall and check the directory of shops and no Build-a-Bear so where has it gone??  So I spy a man who is playing on his iPhone bingo I will ask him and see if he can search for us so I plead ignorant as he is in work gear and ask if he works in the mall, obviously he doesn’t but it is worth a try!!  No funnily enough he doesn’t but he says he works for a telephone company surely he must get his internet access for free then??  So I say my daughter collects Build-a-Bears and the shop is supposed to be in this mall but we can’t find it, so he says there is a store near where I live in Henderson but that is a $40 cab ride away, eh no so he looks up his phone and finds that stores number and calls them.  They tell him that the shop in Fashion Mall closed down in January, oh dear.  What a lovely, helpful guy thank you kind sir your help was greatly appreciated.  So whilst I am trying to sort out the Build-a-Bear saga Colin and Amy find a Pandora shop on the directory so that is where we head to next!!  We buy the American Flag charm for Amy’s bracelet, how exciting when we put all the charms on the bracelet!!

 

We are now done in the shopping mall so we head back across the road to get to the bus stop at Wynn resort but we have just missed a bus so we go into the hotel for some air conditioning and boy is it plush, but it is the plushest hotel in Las Vegas and this is only the side entrance!!  We only need to go one stop which in normal circumstances wouldn’t be a long walk but this is Vegas and the temperature is high so we jump on after waiting 30 minutes for the bus and then join our night tour at Circus Circus!

Here we are on the back of the bus for the night tour!  Now this photo shows Colin’s attempt at a beard, he has been growing it since the end of Alaska!  Ideal opportunity to see what his whiskers will look like with no work to go to!!!!  We will see how long it lasts!!!

 

The Palazzo

 

Good view of Fashion Mall

 

Here is Wynn and Encore the two plush hotels owned by Steve Wynn who is a zillionaire!!

 

The Venetian that has canals at the front of the hotel you can take a gondola ride around!

 

The waterfall area that at 8pm becomes one of the attractions on the strip as a light and water show. The show starts out of the volcano as if it is erupting, we missed the show but it is supposed to be very good!

 

We had just missed the water show at Belaggio which happens every 20 minutes at night and every 30 minutes during the day.  We missed them during the day as they were cleaning the pipes, we were obviously just not meant to see them!

 

The sun is setting and the lights are coming on every building it is pretty cool driving through!

 

Coke bottle and M&M’s store, cool lit up!

 

 

 

Where we had lunch today

 

We drove along to the sign Welcome to Las Vegas and the tour guide came off the bus to take photos, really good but he must know the rule of the third shot funny as he then asks us to …………

 

raise our hands!!!!

 

Loads of chauffer driven limousines around, this one looks cool though and it is a bunch of young adults that have hired it out.  It is funny as one girl’s strap broke as she was getting out of the limo and the next thing is the driver has a safety pin and fixing her top but I supposed they try and accommodate everyone and everything!!!  I am sure the limo drivers have seen it all and more probably!!!

 

And right opposite the big Las Vegas sign is all the private aircraft at the airport

 

Great view over Excalibur hotel

 

New York New York

 

The place is certainly coming alive now!!

 

Large TV screens are constantly showing adverts on various things!

 

 

More massive TV screens, the red wine has just been poured into the glass on the screen and the blue bottle was some alcohol advert!!

 

The Bellagio hotel with the water in front for the water fountain shows

 

Beautiful with the sun setting on all the buildings

 

Caesar’s Palace

 

Riviera where Liberace started off many years ago!

 

 

We are heading Downtown now and we go past all the wedding chapels again but we actually see a Drive Thru wedding in a pink Cadillac if you can see the pink through the trees!!

 

How’dy partner all lit up now!

 

I love the red shoe!!

 

This lovely sports car purred past us when we were admiring the lights!!

 

Here we are it is 8pm, sun has set and the temperature is 98 degrees F!!

 

One of the biggest attractions at night in Las Vegas is the Fremont Street show which is a canopy of 12.5 million lights and 550,000 watts of amazing sound!!!  These are the bars and hotels around Fremont Street light show and you can see a section of the canopy above all the entrances to the shops, bars and hotels.  The free shows are from 6pm-12 midnight on the hour!  We are dropped off at the Golden Nugget and we are left to our own devices for just over an hour with taking in the free show at 9pm!

 

We are now on Fremont Street and this is the massive canopy where the light show will be showing soon!  There are stages with different acts on – Elvis, young girl band and a boy band!!  Our guide has recommended a few places to eat so we head into one place and get promptly ushered straight back out again as we have Amy and no-one under the age of 21 is allowed in the venue.  Ok so we carry on walking to go somewhere else and there are scantily clad dancing on top of the bars just off the pavement area, looking in the casinos there are scantily clad girls there too!  The street is really busy and I’m just not sure where to point Amy’s eyes, it is busy though and the canopy has some fish swimming by on it so that helps.  This place is certainly more geared up for adults and would make for a good night out with Margaritas selling for 99cents, maybe being slightly tipsy helps going along this street!!!  We end up at a McDonald’s for Amy and then head back along Fremont Street waiting for the light show to begin!  Colin got a can of beer to drink as we walked along the street but a fellow tourist tells Colin only plastic glasses and containers allowed on the street or else a $250 fine, costly can of beer!!  There are plastic cup tables dotted around the street so plastic cup it is then!!  It is 9pm and the show ……………………

 

 

Begins with Bon Jovi music blasting and showing the band in concert all the way along the street!!

 

 

Amazing but wasn’t what we were expecting really.  It was good all the same and glad we saw it.  The show lasted about 5 minutes and then it was time to head back on the bus at Golden Nugget to head back to Circus Circus

 

 

That certainly has been a Fremont Experience in more ways than one!!

 



 

Here we are going past our hotel all lit up

 

Hard to believe we were up the top of the tower today on the red spire being catapulted up into the air!!!!  We are crazy buffoons sometimes!!!

Well by the time we walk back to the hotel the girls have space in our tummies for an ice cream and Colin has a piece of pizza as we had a voucher for some money off a ¼ of pizza and beer.  I think that is a fair bedtime snack, ice cream for the girls and beer and pizza for Colin!!!  Tummies full, it is now late and off to bed as we are heading onto our next destination tomorrow LA!!!  And the scary thing is we have only 5 more places to visit before our final destination, eeeeeek!!!