EXPLORING DAY
Feeling jetlagged and wondering why we hadn’t slept well, we were up with the larks and awake by 7am on day two.
Feeling relatively bright we decided to make a start on the day and head south to the Fabulous Las Vegas sign – a must-see for any Vegas tourist. We’d seen photos of the queues of people waiting for selfies and photo opportunities with the sign and were glad we headed out early. As we approached we could see that there was already a line of around a dozen people so, thankful for the early start, we joined the queue. Chatting to some other people in line we made our way to the front. By the time we’d had our pictures taken and were ready to leave the line had trebled in size and there was a coach entering the dedicated car park! Thank you, jetlag!
The sign doesn’t look very far on the map from NYNY, but then on the map everything looks fairly close together, but it was a 3-mile round trip from our hotel to the sign and back. Ready for a hearty American breakfast, we crossed the road to that staple of American diners – Denny’s.
The width of the Las Vegas Strip varies from 6 lanes wide to 10 at some junctions, so just crossing the road isn’t an option. Instead, there are foot bridges, attached to which are escalators. Actual escalators. When I saw these I couldn’t believe just how far the city had gone to save people the effort of walking a little bit. How wrong I was! As we headed over to Denny’s (and the ABC store the night before), I insisted on using the stairs. With the mass of people and the heat, we’d abandoned this attitude within an hour and from then on it was escalators up and escalators down! We even got annoyed when there were escalators out of order!
I wanted to make sure I had two specific meals on this holiday – pancakes for breakfast and steak for dinner. Denny’s was my first opportunity. We looked over the menu and found the stereotypical assortment of pancakes and waffles all served with everything from bacon to fruit to chocolate. We ordered the pancakes with eggs and bacon. You don’t order syrup – it’s already on the table like any other “normal” condiment. I guess we have to re-orient our view of “normal” on this trip. The food arrived and there was a lot of it – a massive hash brown thing, a pile of scrambled eggs and some bacon that looked like it had been cooked to within an inch of existence. Plus pancakes – two pancakes, almost the size of a dinnerplate.
Needless to say there was plenty and we’d apparently forgotten our decision to order one meal and share it while we got accustomed to American portions, but we pushed on and that was us well fed for most of the day!
Now, how to tackle the Strip? Do we walk down one side to about half way, cross over and work our way back. Then pick up where we left off the following day? Or go as far as we can on one side and do the other the following day? Today we went for option 1.
Just because you can see something looming tall in the middle-distance, doesn’t mean it’s very walkable. We can usually cover a mile and a half in about 25 minutes, but time and distance is different on the Strip – people everywhere you turn, the slow ascending line up the escalators and then down the other side. Some walkways take you through the casino, or a little shopping mall, and then there’s the heat. It starts at 25C and heads north from there. A mile on the Strip takes the best part of 30-40 minutes.
Heading north up the Strip we headed in to the Cosmopolitan, which didn’t seem to have much of a theme other than being a hotel, casino and shopping mall.
Next stop were the main events – the Bellagio and Caesar’s Palace. The famous fountain show is an evening event so we’d have to come back and check that out, but inside the hotel is stunningly decorated and has an amazing garden inside, just past the lobby. Sculptures built and adorned with plants and flowers of all sorts to bring them to life. There was also a small dining area (one table) as part of the display, which looked incredible until you realise that while you sit having brunch or dinner, you’re playing a bit-part in the photos of hundreds of people walking around the exhibit. Our budget was not going to allow that to be a problem for us.
Caesar’s Palace was as I expected – mock marble sculptures of Roman myth and legend are dotted around the hotel entrance, although almost all seemed to be undergoing some sort of maintenance and, once you get through the casino floor, Roman streets are lined with high-end shops and restaurants. Although, we would come back later in the week for food and drinks at happy hour. Bigger, shinier and more “extra” than any other hotel/casinos we’d been in so far (with the possible exception of the Bellagio).
Having had the biggest meal we’d had in a long time for breakfast, we weren’t overly hungry, but knew we couldn’t make it through to dinner time without something. The answer – afternoon cake and tea! Towards the end of the shopping mall in Caesar’s there’s a Cheesecake Factory which serves some of the largest slices of cheesecake (and the widest selection) I’ve seen in my life! The point was to have a snack to see us through the afternoon, so we knew we weren’t going to have a whole slice each (and were trying to save a little money) so opted to share a slice and a nice pot of tea. It seems that the go-to hot drink for Americans is coffee and if you ask for tea you’re likely to get an ice tea. So to enjoy some home comforts on holiday we resorted to asking for “hot tea”. Half the time we had it black as they didn’t always bring milk and it was hard enough to get their attention as it was.
After another stroll through Caesar’s and back past the Bellagio lake, we walked back to our hotel to relax before heading out in the search for dinner.
We learned very quickly that the key to staying in Vegas on a budget was to make a note of where and when the happy hours are. Beers can be $14-$18 a can (which equates to a about £12-£14 for a little over a pint) and the food isn’t much better value, especially when you need to factor in that the price is +tax +tip.
NYNY has a Coyote Ugly bar with a happy hour up to around 7pm. It’s free to enter during the day but there’s a $20 charge after 9pm, which you can get around by getting in early and getting a hand stamp. So we headed in for happy hour, into the empty bar. As ever, wherever we go, the party follows. Having paid $20+ for our drinks (happy hour, apparently) we grabbed a table and it wasn’t long before another couple came in, then another and then a group followed. Clearly they were just waiting to see where was good and our presence was reason enough to try it. We had our drinks and, with our work done, headed off for some food.
There are plenty of restaurants in NYNY, but we went to the aptly called "America", with an enormous map of the United States spanning the ceiling.
Time to satisfy American food craving no. 2 – steak. Next to our hotel is the Salt Bae steak restaurant, Nusr Et. That wasn’t for us, not when a steak on that menu is $1,200 and covered in golf leaf (can you even eat gold leaf?!). Even shopping around steak restaurants can get really pricey really quickly so, with still four days of this leg of the holiday to go, we opted for the $22 ribeye at the America restaurant in NYNY, that was available from 5pm to 5am (anytime is steak time in Vegas). And you know what? Cheaper steak did not mean a bad steak. In fact we’d be eating here again later in the week and Rosie would have it again.
A little tired from walking up and down the Strip and a little stuffed from a good meal, we didn’t fancy heading back out so pulled up a seat at the bar at The Bar on Times Square. There are duelling pianos inside the bar but you have to pay to go in – we didn’t see how much and didn’t bother because it’s free to sit at the bar and have a drink and see and hear the pianos from there. So we sat and we had a drink and watched the show, before calling it a night and heading back to the room.
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