June 6, 2015

Highway to Vegas

Chiara Di NORTH AMERICA, TRAVEL Fremont Street, Grand Canyon, Hoover Dam, Lake Mead, Las Vegas, Road Trip, Travel, Wanderlust 0 Comments

One of our two drives of the trip was from LA to Vegas. We picked up a white Mustang convertible from Alamo LAX and set off for the Las Vegas strip. It was fairly easy to navigate our way to the right freeways with our GPS and we had picked up most of the road rules when we were in LA with our friends the previous week. The drive was fairly straight forward too.

We stopped in Yermo for lunch at Peggy Sue’s 50’s Diner which was approximately half way – two hours into the trip. The burgers were great and the serving size was massive! There was a bit of a novelty about the diner and it even had a gift shop.

Another two and a bit hours drive and we were on the Las Vegas strip. We checked in at Caesars Palace Octavius Tower and then finally took the Mustang for a drive with the roof off (the freeways to Vegas were too windy) down the strip back to the car hire – so much fun!

The next morning we were up early for our Grand Canyon helicopter tour with Sundance Helicopters. We chose the early morning session as a friend had said the afternoons get windy and what better way to start the day! We were picked up by a limousine and escorted to the Sundance headquarters where we checked in, paid another $50 each for our tour and waited around half an hour to head off.

Our flight was with two other Australian couples and unlucky for us, we didn’t get a chance to ride up front. The flight either side of the Grand Canyon was 45 minutes and fairly smooth. It was my first time in a helicopter and it really lived up to expectation. We crossed over Lake Mead, Hoover Dam and the town of Boulder. We also went past the Strip on the way back to the landing.

The actual time spent at the Grand Canyon was only 30 minutes, which now seems so surreal. You spend 10 minutes taking photos of this natural beauty and 20 minutes having a picnic breakfast. In hindsight we should have spent more time enjoying this natural wonder and our surroundings, which really were spectacular, as I didn’t even feel like I had been there after – it was so quick.

Most of the days in Vegas were spent exploring all the other hotels. I was really happy we chose to stay at Caesars as it was themed really well and had an elegance to it. The Garden of the Gods is an oasis of 5-6 pools including a topless pool. It was all themed so well and felt like you were somewhere in Europe, not desert America.

Some of my other favourites were The Venetian, Paris Hotel and Bellagio. All the themed hotels were such a novelty but a bit overrated. The rollercoaster at New York New York was fun.

We also visited the Las Vegas North Premium Outlets where we picked up some bargains in Guess, Armani Exchange and Nike. Unlucky for us, it started to rain mid afternoon and there was barely any cover – even the taxi line had no cover so check the weather before you go.

One of our best dining experiences was at Bacchanel Buffet at Caesars Palace. This buffet had everything! There were nine stations of a variety of cuisines including American, Italian, Asian, Mexican, salads, dessert and more and over 500 different products to try. Needless to say, we could barely move once we had admitted defeat to the food on offer. We literally didn’t eat the next day until 4pm! We also dined at Rao’s Italian, Serendipity 3 and The Cheesecake Factory at Caesars Palace, which were all satisfying.

We went to two shows in Vegas – Absinthe and Le Reve. Absinthe was a mix of cabaret/comedy/circus with humourous racial and political jokes. Hilarious but you need a sense of humour for this one. Le Reve on the other hand was a Cirque Du Soleil inspired circus performance involving water. It included a mimed love story, diving and acrobatics. It was really quite spectacular how high some of the dives were from. Would highly recommend it as it’s not a show that’s likely to tour.

We didn’t really explore the Las Vegas nightlife unfortunately. I think I would have definitely enjoyed my stay more if we did. We did experience the freak show that was Fremont Street in downtown Las Vegas though! The area is more frequented by locals and is a lot cheaper than the Vegas strip. The mall area is still lined with casinos, music and entertainment, and a whole lot of crazies hustling for a dollar.

We did see a couple of celebrities up close too! We saw Gordon Ramsey walk through our hotel casino (presumably headed to his restaurant inside) and on our last day Mariah Carey had the launch of her season at Caesars.

All in all, Vegas was just Vegas – I didn’t fall in love with it. And my favourite part of it would definitely have to be our tour to the Grand Canyon (even though I hardly remember it).