The One with All the Walking

After an amazing (and huge) breakfast in the hotel Cafe, with some great service; the service in America is very different from England, we decided to "have a wander" around the hotels on the strip and check out all the different themes. Lets just say - we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. 
In the grand scheme of things, Vegas Strip takes up only a small area of Las Vegas but boy is it huge. To get an idea of the hugeness - we started walking at around 10.30am...we looked in all the hotels and didn't make it to the Stratosphere hotel until around 8pm! I was tired! Before reaching that though, we did have a lot of fun checking out the hotels. 
We headed right out of our hotel and walked down towards Mandalay bay, compared to our hotel, all these others were so much more gimmicky, great to look in and around but still glad that we picked The Monte Carlo. 

New York New York was beautiful and very New York - well what I imagine that New York would look like from all the T.V shows that I have watched. As the photo shows, they even have the American-Irish section complete with an Irish bar out front. I liked the New York New York, inside it looked like a proper sports bar with all the screens off all the sports going on as well as the "normal" casino machines. Walking around the hotel is it quite cool how all the food places and coffee places (mainly Starbucks!) were set out like the streets of New York, cobbled and apartment blocks above the deli, just like walking around New York. 

The Luxor

Mandalay Bay

Excalibur
After New York we walked down and checked out Excalibur, Mandalay Bay and the Luxor. They were different from New York as they were themed on a time in history rather than an actual place. 

Once these hotels had been checked out we had become suitably lost in everyone, we were quite hungry so we decided what was needed was some chicken wings, curly fries and beer and the best place for these things...

Hooters of course. 

These were on the back of the sugar sachets and I thought they were brilliant
After Hooters it was time to get lost in the MGM Grand hotel - which I did find out is the only place now that holds the MGM Brand. True Story! The MGM was pretty amazing mainly for...

The C.S.I Experience!

Unfortunately no pictures allowed but I can safely say it was so much fun. We were given a crime scene to assess, ours was a car that had been driven through the wall of a house and had a dead person at the wheel. With all mine and Gary's experience at watching C.S.I we had a go. After assessing the crime scene we headed over to the Lab to analyse the evidence then to the Doc for the autopsy, before reporting to Grissom on our findings and solve the case. Now I can't give you all the details otherwise anyone who goes and does the experience will already know who dun it! 

Once we had cracked the case and got glowing praise from the God who is Grissom, our exploration of the hotels continued. 

The rest of the hotels were also pretty cool, my favourite was The Venetian - mainly because it has a canal flowing through the entire hotel. We also found that every hotel has the same shops - mainly unaffordable ones, so there was no shopping in Vegas unless I wanted to end up broke. 

This is not me and Gary but they are getting serenaded!

Eventually, after much walking and getting lost in all the casinos and hotels (there are no exit signs, no clocks, and no windows) we made it to the Stratosphere. 


For all those people who are going to head to Vegas soon, I will give you a little bit of advice. Get a taxi to the Stratosphere, or at the very least do not walk ALL day and then walk up to the Stratosphere. Just a bit of friendly advice. 

Now having said that, it was worth it. From the Stratosphere you can see a lot more of Las Vegas than the strip, the view shows how little space is taken up by the Strip in comparison to the rest of the City. We went all the way up to the observation deck and then to finish our day we had a glass of wine in the 107 level bar. Definitely worth the walk and definitely needed a taxi back. 

On the way back down the Strip, two more things needed to be checked out; the Siren show at Treasure Island and of course the Fountain Show at the Bellagio. We caught 2 of those shows, both very different from each other and amazing to watch the choreography (if that is the best way to describe). I didn't have a video so photos will have to do. 

After the fountains it was time to head back to our hotel because we were at the Bellagio which of course means that it was going to be a 20 minute walk back that was not anticipating the flyer people on the street who thrust what can only be described as Catalogues of girls in my face but not before slapping them on their own hands just in case I hadn't seen them! 


And so this is the end of the second day, mostly walking, lots of photos and lots of getting lost in every Casino because they never want you to leave!!