Las Vegas - Day Three

DOWNTOWN DAY

Still not sleeping like logs, almost certainly down to the air conditioning being pumped into the room, it was another early start, but today there was more of a plan than just wandering the Strip.

But first, breakfast, and today we returned to NYNY's America. Struggling to decide what to have, and not really fancying waffles, America's other main breakfast staple, we opted for more pancakes with more eggs and more bacon.

Feeling well fed, we hit the Strip once again to check out a few more casinos. First up was that classic of the Las Vegas Strip - The Flamingo.

Walking down the Strip, staying on the east side until the large pale hotel came in to view, the Flamingo is the oldest casino on the Strip that's still operating - not bad considering it first opened in 1947!

Despite the numerous owners and the many millions of dollars spent over the last 60 years on renovating the hotel and casino, it still felt a little dated. Maybe that was just because it was surrounded by the glitz and glamour of the much more modern, high-rise hotels.

But we weren't there to stay, or even gamble. We were there for the nature reserve! Through the casino and out into the reserve, there is a variety of wildlife – turtles, fish, various birds but what we were looking for were just around the corner – real live Chilean flamingos! I’d never seen one before so to see them in such a seemingly unnatural setting was quite surreal! We wandered around the gardens and reserve and the hustle and bustle of the Strip felt a million miles away. Apart from the dozens of tourists, of course.

Next stop on the Strip was the Venetian, with a replica St Mark’s Square tower and Rialto Bridge. The hotel and shopping mall was Italian themed, but more Renaissance than Ancient Rome. And there are canals flowing through the hotel, on which you can glide along on a gondola, serenaded by a Gondolier. There’s even a miniature St Mark’s Square. Of course we had to grab some gelato!

For our wedding, Emily and Charlene, two of our bridesmaids, gifted us tickets to an exhibition. Unsure whether we’d like it, their concerns were entirely removed when they heard our exit music from the ceremony, being the theme music to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. We were going to the Marvel Avengers S.T.A.T.I.O.N.! A self-guided tour of an exhibition of facts, props and characters from the MCU! It’s within the Treasure Island casino, and was an amazing experience for movie fans and MCU geeks like us!

We were pretty far down the Strip at this point, with not many more major hotels before you head north up to downtown, so we had a little scout round the Wynn Encore hotels, which for my money were the fanciest of all the hotels we’d seen – there were no themes like the gardens of Bellagio or Rome of Caesar’s. it just smelled of money. There was a wedding (or at least a wedding photoshoot) going on as we walked through, and I couldn’t even think how much it be to have a wedding here, knowing exactly how much our own had cost less than a week before. They also had a couple of McLaren F1 cars on display. We didn’t realise why at first, until we understood that Las Vegas was going to be the newest race on the circuit, which would also explain the major roadworks up and down the Strip that were underway.

Feeling hot and a little tired, but excited for our evening in downtown and Fremont Street, we got the bus back down the Strip to our hotel. For $6 you can have unlimited travel for two hours, but for $8 you can have it for 24 hours. Needless to say, we got the $8 tickets.

After some chill time in the room, we got on the bus and started the 5-mile journey to Fremont Street. We had done some research and we knew exactly where we were going to have dinner – Heart Attack Grill! It’s a burger place, but leave any sense of respectability at the door. If you’re over 350 pounds (that’s 25-stone!) you eat for free. Outside the restaurant is a cattle weighing scales so you know if you qualify, but if you think you qualify and want to eat for free, the staff will pull you up on to a raised stage in front of the whole restaurant and show everyone how heavy you are. And if you’re willing to do that you probably don’t take yourself too seriously. Two guys were weighed while we ate – one fell about 20 pounds short but the other was well over the limit and the whole restaurant cheered! On entry you get dressed in a surgical gown and shown to your seat by a waitress in a nurse's uniform. If you're not there for burgers there's not much for you. They go up to 8 burgers high and a lot of bacon! The beer is served in cans and the wine in intravenous bags. It is by far the most fun meal we had on this entire trip! But beware - if you don't eat your meal you get publicly spanked. And not subtlely in the corner. In the middle of the restaurant, you'll be draped over a frame to hold on and then spanked with a large paddle! It sounded horrific but the guys who got it walked away nonplussed, but that could have been bravado.

The burgers that came out looked so good, but knowing what awaited failure I limited myself to a double burger, no bacon. Rosie had a single. I wolfed mine down, determined to avoid the public humiliation. If you get to eat free by being grossly overweight, you're limited to single burgers and you have to order a drink with every burger. Other than that, it's all you can eat! We left feeling, for the first time, that we were in America - between the excellent service and the incredible fatty food, we'd finally arrived.

There's not really a "next stop" on Fremont Street, in fact, the whole area is called the Fremont Street Experience - the ceiling is the world's longest screen, made up of millions of LED lights and the whole will be the background to music videos all evening. There are casinos and bars on either side and then there are no end of street performers, performing a whole range of acts from singers to acrobatics. There were even a couple of full-on sound stages for some mini concerts going on.

One experience I wanted to do was the Fremont zip line, of which there are two options:

1. Slotzilla, which has you lying face down and will send you the full length of the street, or

2. Zipzilla, which has you seated and is only half the street.

Determined to do one of them, but not quite brave enough, we opted for Zipzilla and absolutely loved it, racing along the street 50 feet in the air was thrilling!

Fremont Street is the original Las Vegas Strip, before hotels acquired land south of the city. FUN FACT: the Strip isn't actually part of the city of Las Vegas. We caught the bus home, somewhat surprised at the number of homeless people we saw on the way back, and saddened that there should be so much money so close to such poverty.