Long Trip Report March 11-18, pt 1
nstn...@nospam.fox.nstn.ca
year for the past several years for meetings, last year was the first
time my wife had been there. Even as we were sitting down on the
plane home last year, Brenda was asking if we could come again next
year....well, we finally made it back.
Because we are from Atlantic Canada, there is a full day of travel, no
matter how you cut it. We flew Air Canada to Toronto, then American
Airlines (complete with a terminal change in Toronto -- don't let them
check your luggage right through...since you have to carry it through
customs yourself anyway, it is better to be able to get your hands on
it quickly in Toronto rather than wait an hour and a half for it to
appear at the "in transit" carousel in the other terminal) via Dallas
Fort Worth and on to Las Vegas.
Once we had rescued our luggage, it was time to rent a car...let me
say again for all you folks...QUICKSILVER. The Alamo program that
lets you pre-register a credit card, pre-reserve a car, and simply
walk up to a kiosk and then out of the airport is so much better than
standing in yet another line. We got a new red cavalier for the week
for about $250.
We arrived around midnight on Saturday/Sunday March 12. With the
rules about Saturday check-ins, we ended up going out to Boulder City
to the Best Western ($59, plus tax, plus phone calls) for the night.
On Sunday morning, we met friends who took us out to the Hacienda down
towards the Hoover Dam (it used to be some other name, perhaps Last
Spike or something, as I recall). Rebuilt after a fire, it is modern
and much larger than the old hotel was, and while the brunch buffet
was quite average, at $5.99 it was clean, the serving staff kept the
plates clear, and the omelettes were fine. By the time we finished,
they were putting out the roasts at the carving station, which also
looked quite good (but not good enough for a fourth plate!). Coffee,
tea and soft-drinks were self-serve and unrestricted.
This year, we were booked into Bally's at a $59 per night rate (none
of the $19.00 rooms were available) that I had booked through Las
Vegas Reservation Service. I had requested an early check-in, which
was honoured by a very helpful clerk named Joung from Korea, and while
we couldn't get a Bellagio fountains view, the 21st floor, a
reasonable distance from the elevators (I don't like being near the
elevator lobby) and huge room was fine. Room 2180 faces south,
overlooks the back of the hotel, the pool, and the airport. The only
bad thing about Bally's that I've found so far is the lack of parking.
When valet parking is full (as it was), you have to park outside, walk
around to the side of the hotel, and then through two-thirds of the
casino before getting to check-in. I'm going to try the Paris parking
garage later, since at least it is inside and the back side/out side
of any hotel is not really where I want to spend any time in the
middle of the night. Maxim's, right across Flamingo from Bally's
parking lot was advertising $39 room rates, and you're no farther from
the strip than the back wing of Bally's. Maybe next time!
[Let me say at this point that I have stayed at Harrah's for the past
several years and have gotten spoiled by their parking garage, which
provides the easiest access to the hotel of any casino I've seen yet,
and by the mid-strip location and accommodating staff regarding rooms
with a view. Unfortunately, I am not a high enough roller to qualify
for any kind of room-rate, and Harrah's wouldn't come down from a $90
rate even after I invoked the name of a casino host named Brett
Matoony (?) that had helped me the previous year -- I guess Brett has
moved on to greener pastures.]
After a change of clothes, it was time to explore. Paris was new, and
I just needed to see if my Bally's card really did work there...so $20
of jacks or better video poker and 20 minutes of my time left me even
(not a bad omen), and we were off to book some tickets and see some
sights. We walked down to the Monte Carlo, got Lance Burton tickets
for Tuesday, and poked around the casino there...I had wanted to play
video poker and have some dark ale in the brew-pub, but it wasn't to
be -- video poker is no longer served at the bar. Fie on them.
I had wanted to see the paintings at Bellagio, so we took the tram and
headed over to that most exclusive enclave. Like many others, we also
saw the security gourds (sic.) but they weren't stopping any of the
nine or ten strollers or snugglies that we saw, fully loaded with
infants. What we didn't see were eight-to-twelve year olds. Hmmm.
Anyways, $12.00 each got us into the gallery, with a talking wand that
you can use for a guided tour and explanation of the paintings. I
have a fine arts background, and wasn't sure how I'd feel about Steve
Wynn bragging about his collection; while some of his commentary (he's
the voice on the talking wand) is a bit contrived (eg. Joan Mirot's
Talking Insects), the linking of period pieces of music wasn't bad
(Bernstein's Candide Overture with the Jackson Pollack Frieze was kind
of cutesy and not nearly abstract enough), and was often quite
evocative. If there had been fewer people (there were about 80 in a
fairly small 2 room gallery), it would have been nice to get close
enough to see brush-strokes, and a barrier system makes it clear that
this is not your average art gallery. The highlights of the
collection are the van Gogh Girl in Wheatfield, which is one of his
last completed works, and the Degas Ballerina taking a bow. An early
Reubens (Salome receiving the head of John the Baptist) is an odd
piece with regard to the mood of the room, but for those that want
some gratuitous sex and violence, I guess it suits.
We headed back to Bally's to rescue the car and head off to our show
for the night. Bachman Turner Overdrive (BTO) was playing at the
Orleans; Brenda and I are children of the fifties (me) and sixties
(her), and BTO created some of the anthems of our youth, so we were
delighted to see these middle aged rockers. Once we had the tickets,
we had an hour before the show, so we sat down at a $5 blackjack table
for a half hour. I'm fussy about where I sit -- it's third base, next
to the dealer, basic strategy, parlay up to $20, and will leave if
there are really stupid people at the table (ie. people that won't ask
advice if they don't know what to do...the dealers WILL help you,
generally with a smile on their face). Nate the dealer was fine,
didn't mind my giving tips to Brenda about doubling and splitting, and
after forty minutes, I had doubled my $50, and Brenda had doubled her
$40. Time for the show.
It was great...all their best songs (guitar rock IS fun), lots of
audience participation (clapping, shouting, singing) and even for a
small audience (probably about 250 or 300 people -- said Randy
Bachman, "isn't this intimate") we enjoyed it immensely. Songs like
You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet and Taking Care of Business really are
classics.
A late pastrami sandwich in the Orleans coffee shop (with some tempura
shrimp as an appetizer -- great sauces for dipping -- and the free
drink from the show ended the night, except for the huge walk back to
the hotel from the parking lot. We didn't get mugged.
Day 2
Shopping was one of our priorities this trip...and so we hit the Belz
outlet mall at the very very south end of the strip (past Vacation
Village). We don't have retail outlet malls where we live, so it is a
treat to delude ourselves with the idea that we're making good deals
on all kinds of stuff, mostly clothes and accessories. The only thing
that I'd improve is to put a decent coffee shop at Belz, and for
women's retail stores to do a better job of putting "guy chairs,"
preferably with a couple of current newsmagazines, SI, and the daily
paper along with a TV, someplace near the changing rooms. I spent a
fair bit of the day standing/leaning against shelving while Brenda was
doing the on-and-off with different outfits. Brenda was glum, ‘cause
there isn't much there for petites (for those of you that don't know,
it's less than 5'4" in height, where normal length stuff fits
strangely in all the wrong places). The other problem with petites,
of course, is that Brenda kept disappearing behind clothes racks...
I had a hankering for spring rolls at the Cheesecake Factory, so in
the middle of the afternoon, we headed off to Caesar's to do some more
shopping at the forum shops and have a late lunch or early supper
(depending on which time zone our bodies were working on). We started
with the spinach dip, I had the Vietnamese shrimp summer rolls and
Brenda had blackened chicken pasta; we split a piece of chocolate
mouse cheesecake for dessert. The waiter was great; a strong New York
accent (Queens, he said when I asked him), and we were seated far
enough away from the door that the sound of the destruction of
Atlantis (every hour on the hour) didn't disturb our meal. Brenda
ordered a Mai-Tai– it was just a little bit strong (even the cherry in
the garnish was infused with rum). Unless you really want to get a
quick buzz, this isn't a good dinner drink!
More shopping after we ate...the Forum Shops ARE fun, and there's
enough variety that you don't feel intimidated by all the unaffordable
high fashion. After we had shopped the length of the Forum Shops and
back, we stopped in to play a bit of slots. I was playing nickels,
and ended up with $5.50 on an original $1, so I was being very happy
until I noticed Brenda at a quarter Wheel of Fortune with a mega-smile
going – she hit the spin 9 or 10 times on an original $5 input, and
eventually cashed out with 300 quarters.
We headed back to Bally's to change and go out for the evening to see
the dueling pianos at New York New York, so we took the Bally's - MGM
monorail. There is more routine in getting people in and out of the
tram than shuffling Baccarat, but after they had announced, opened,
directed, seated, closed and announced some more, we enjoyed the 3
minute ride.
My gosh, the MGM is huge. I KNOW it is the largest hotel in the
world, the largest casino and largest floor area of any resort, but
you don't appreciate that until you are walking through from the
monorail to Las Vegas Blvd. There seems to be about half-a-mile of
casino, and it was all busy.
Once we were through the MGM, we headed across the bridge to New York
New York, and eventually found the duo pianos. So had about 200
others, with a line way out the door. We listened for a while, but
with no place to sit, we weren't able to get really involved in the
fun. For those who WERE inside, however, they were having a blast.
The pianists were a girl and a guy, who could play well together, but
were at their best when they were playing different styles – the guy
tended towards rock, while the girl was a little bit country. There
was a lot of audience interaction, and I was wishing I were inside.
We may try and make it earlier another night, ‘cause it's still on my
list of want to do. We dropped $25 on another set of Wheel of Fortune
machines, and then headed back to Bally's via the monorail.
We were hungry, and it was 12:30 am. This was not good, and we were
not well placed for cheap late-night food. We ended up in the Bally's
24 hour restaurant where we split a Caesar salad, Brenda had corned
beef and eggs, and I had a burger. We were seated near a door in a
huge draft (air, not beer), the fries were lukewarm, as was the corned
beef hash. For $35 this was not good value for money. We went to bed
mad at ourselves.
Day 3
Call us old farts if you must, but we went to the Liberace Museum and
enjoyed it. It is located about a mile past the airport on Tropicana,
and is reasonably priced at $6. There are two buildings, one of which
houses his pianos and cars, with many of his citations and awards, and
the other building which holds his costumes, jewels and a gift shop.
If you've never seen Liberace on TV or on awards shows or some of the
old shows he was on, then it would mean nothing to you, but for those
of us that remember, he was a vital part of American show-biz (even if
I AM from Canada) and the life of Las Vegas, so it was a good stop for
us. Among other things that was on the wall was a plenary indulgence
from the Pope, granted early in Lee's career – given the circumstances
of his death (he died of AIDS), I hope it worked. He was a metaphor
for Las Vegas...one of his quips was, "Do you like the outfit?
[applause] You should, since you paid for it!"
We had hoped to see the Hoover Dam, but when we got to Boulder City,
the traffic was backed up all the way from the dam (about 11 miles),
so we resolved to go early the next morning and headed back to The
Meadows. Some book-shopping and a drive up Las Vegas Blvd. landed us
at the Mirage, where we saw the dolphin habitat and Secret Garden ($10
each), which I had never seen before (it is always closed Wednesdays,
which is when I had tried in the past). The dolphin habitat is the
best part, and there was a week-old baby dolphin that was wonderfully
cute. The rest of the animals were alright...you have to admire
Siegfried and Roy for the work they have done at conserving and
breeding species, and Steve Wynn was there talking on the wand (see
above, Bellagio gallery) some more. One thing that really impressed
me was the quality of the young people escorting guests through the
Secret Garden and Dolphin Habitat. They seemed to really be enjoying
their work, and had fun working with each other. Robert (from Guam)
was quite chatty and engaging while we were waiting to start our tour,
and it was enjoyable even with the wait.
We had dinner at the Mirage Buffet ($14.50 each), and it was a
reasonably priced buffet which included crab legs, shrimp, carving
stand (beef, ham, turkey), a fajita corner and pasta booth. The salad
area included smoked salmon and a good variety of cold pasta and other
mixed salads; the desserts were quite average. After we ate, we
dropped another $140 at blackjack, and I hope Mr Wynn or the MGM group
or whoever owns the mirage these days will put it to good use.
We went over to Treasure Island to try and catch the 5:30 Pirate
Battle, but there were no outside seats at the Battle Bar by 5:00 so
we went to the Venetian for a walk-through instead. Nifty place. The
Venetian theme is well managed, and the frescoes and ceiling painting
are very classy. There is a strip of shops with a Caesar's style
ceiling giving an outside ambiance. I managed to get turned around
several times in the place, but we eventually found our way out onto
the main bridge back to the strip sidewalk.
Back to Bally's to get changed for the show. Since Lance Burton is at
the Monte Carlo, we took the bridge across to the Bellagio, walked
through the hotel, took the tram to Monte Carlo (total, including
walking time and including one of the Bellagio fountain shows ["One
Singular Sensation" from A Chorus Line], was less than half an hour)
and made our way to the theatre. I've seen Lance Burton a couple of
times before (as well as Siggy and Roy), and he is still the most
engaging of the magicians on the strip. The routine with the birds at
the beginning of the show is amazing, and there are the usual stock of
grand illusions. One of his best lines, after making several ducks
appear – "They're harder to train than tigers!" We both enjoyed the
show immensely (except for a rather monotonous slide show of every kid
that has been on stage with him since last October...once was fine,
twice was torture)...and their graphics person needs to learn to spell
Minnesota. On the way back, we saw another fountain show from the
Bellagio Bridge [Lionel Ritchie, "All Night Long"], and so ended day
3.
David in Nova Scotia
(remove "nospam" in address)
Ted Newkirk
>at the Mirage, where we saw the dolphin habitat and Secret Garden ($10
>each), which I had never seen before (it is always closed Wednesdays,
>which is when I had tried in the past). The dolphin habitat is the
>best part, and there was a week-old baby dolphin that was wonderfully
>cute. The rest of the animals were alright...you have to admire
>Siegfried and Roy for the work they have done at conserving and
>breeding species, and Steve Wynn was there talking on the wand (see
>above, Bellagio gallery) some more. One thing that really impressed
>me was the quality of the young people escorting guests through the
>Secret Garden and Dolphin Habitat. They seemed to really be enjoying
>their work, and had fun working with each other. Robert (from Guam)
For those interested, I have a few photos of the Secret Garden posted with my
review at http://www.las-vegas-news-reviews.com/99-12-01.htm
It was well worth seeing!
Ted Newkirk
Las Vegas: http://www.accessvegas.com
Free Vegas Newsletter: http://www.las-vegas-news-reviews.com
Albuquerque: http://www.accessabq.com
Giesbrecht
nstn...@nospam.fox.nstn.ca wrote in article
<38d43f5e...@news.psi.ca>...
> Hacienda down
> >
> We headed back to Bally's to rescue the car and head off to our show
> for the night. Bachman Turner Overdrive (BTO) was playing at the
> Orleans; Brenda and I are children of the fifties (me) and sixties
> (her), and BTO created some of the anthems of our youth, so we were
> delighted to see these middle aged rockers.
How old are the two of you? Around 75 or so(not that there's anything wrong
with that)?
Visaman
Giesbrecht
nstn...@nospam.fox.nstn.ca wrote in article
<38d43f5e...@news.psi.ca>...
> >
>>
> >
> The pianists were a girl and a guy, who could play well together, but
> were at their best when they were playing different styles – the guy
> tended towards rock, while the girl was a little bit country.
Donny and Marie Osmond?
Visaman
trotter
Giesbrecht wrote on the 12th:
| What are we going to do with all those oldsters that seem to have overtaken
| Vegas?
|
| You can't seem to walk a few feet without tripping over some old bent over
| fart who fell but can't get up.
|
| Not to mention the smell of death emanating from their rotting bodies as
| they line up for the early bird buffet after blowing their OAS cheque on
| keno.
Now Giesbrecht seems to have changed his attitude toward seniors.
Way to go Visaman! Here is a later comment:
John A. D. Cervanyk
>
> On Sunday morning, we met friends who took us out to the Hacienda down
> towards the Hoover Dam (it used to be some other name, perhaps Last
> Spike or something, as I recall). Rebuilt after a fire, it is modern
> and much larger than the old hotel was, and while the brunch buffet
> was quite average, at $5.99 it was clean, the serving staff kept the
> plates clear, and the omelettes were fine. By the time we finished,
> they were putting out the roasts at the carving station, which also
> looked quite good (but not good enough for a fourth plate!). Coffee,
> tea and soft-drinks were self-serve and unrestricted.
>
I believe it was called The Gold Strike Inn. In '97 our tour of
Hoover Dam stopped here for lunch at the buffet.
--
Take care,
John A. D. Cervanyk --- ja...@dnvr.uswest.net
"When in doubt I whip it out. I got me a rock and roll band. It's a free
for all" --- Ted Nugent