Las Vegas guide and MSE thread 2013

luci

Those prices look about right for the Harley-Davidson Cafe. Hubby usually has the BBQ Chicken Dinner and I have the BBQ Brisket sandwich. We usually end up with souvenir glasses as they don't serve the cocktails in normal glasses.

We usually go there on our last night after checking in for the flight online as it is close to the Carriage House.

Triker

lesley74 wrote: »

We usually go to the Walmart at Charleston Blvd, I like to go to Michael's (craft store) there too. Got lots of little bits for baking last week there There's also a TJ Maxx around the corner on Decatur there too.

Do you mean Wholefoods at Town Square rather than City Center?

Yes, don't know where my head was.:o:D

Georgiegirl256

secretmachines wrote: »

you betcha, started making lists already

is there much to do in Boulder City? fancy visiting and having a look around... is it possible/easy to get to without hiring a car?

Going off there official website, there looks a lot of stuff to do, it looks to be a really nice place. I've never been but would like to go, it's only 20 miles outside of Vegas, so I guess it should be easy enough to get to, although I'm not sure how.

I've seen trips there for specific things such as the zipline etc, but I'm sure there must be other ways if you were wanting to have a general look about and not just go to visit just the one attraction.

Georgiegirl256

Your trip seems to have gone really fast Lesley! Thanks for the updates, have enjoyed reading them.

vegasvisitor

I am never ready to come home from Vegas, but our trip did seem quite long while there. I always keep thinking how long it seems since we arrived, went somewhere on one of the first days etc, and it feels like weeks!!

I'm not suffering from jetlag as I've only slept a few hours and already woken up twice through the night. I forgot it was like this on the way back too. Wish I'd bought some of that stuff from wal-mart that someone mentioned a while back!!!

ferf1223

glad the weather is sorting itself out but sorry about the terrible night gambling, stoneman...may the gambling gods be with you.

lesley - thanks for the running trip report - really enjoyed reading it...it also seems to me like it went by very fast but I know how sometimes during the trip it does seem like quite a long time when you think back to early days - especially mid-trip when you think 'we still have XX days left!' then suddenly, it's home time and it feels a bit like where did it go?

StuieUK34

Harleys caf! = AWESOME!!!! good size portions and yeah, BBQ food rocks! (avoid the specials menu, as I hear its small!)

I've been to that place twice, and both times were good, used R.com vouchers on both (although in May r.com stopped doing vouchers, Harleys still honoured the voucher, and gave it me back to use again! haha)

If u like BBQ and have a car, try 'Memphis Champion BBQ'...... its nice food, proper smoked bbq, but as I was feeling greedy on the night we went, I wasn't impressed! (seemed small and they run out of stuff as it was memorial day we went on...)

21yrold

I've been thinking about buying vouchers for places to eat but I've not wanted to feel tied down to a certain place etc, The same with booking excursions ie GC and now maybe Area 51 trip as well, Is it best to book them before or while you're there? Do they do deals etc on leaflets or is it the price an that's final?

littlemissbossy

Here’s my trip report as promised, it won’t be as good as the ones I’ve read on here because a) I didn’t make any notes as we went along and b) we’re a bit boring!

We are, me and hubby John, we flew from Manchester with Virgin direct to Vegas. We stayed the Bellagio for 7 nights.

Day 1 Thursday 5th Sept
Arrived at airport, parked car, checked in and headed for security… there was a massive queue.

Eventually it was our turn we put our hand luggage in the plastic boxes, walked through the scanner and waited for our bags, and waited and waited… great no bags coming through at all looks like the machines broken.

Eventually someone shouted “whose is this bag?” so one by one we all have a look at the bag (which is still completely in the scanning machine so it can barely be seen), we think it’s ours, great! So we own up and the security guy asks “what’s in the bag?” it’s my bag so I say “pillow, book, iPod and purse”, he disappears, comes back and asks me again, “what’s in the bag” so I tell him again, pillow, book, iPod and purse. This question gets asked a further three times before they finally pull the tray out the machine and tell us to stand over there and DON’T TOUCH THE BAG. Me and John just look at each other slightly panic stricken knowing we are both thinking JUST LOOK IN THE BAG!! Anyway they finally look in the bag and guess what out comes pillow and book, then iPod and purse, they take it all back to the scanner, then come back and tell us they’re sorry for the delay and we can go now. Wow that was not a good start to our hols.

We had free passes to the V Room so we headed there, had some breakfast and tried to calm down. The V Room was ok for free but at £22 each it’s not something I would pay for.

We had a very smooth and uneventful flight, bags came off quickly at the other end ‘cause we were in premium economy, massive queue at immigration, got asked a couple of questions we haven’t been asked before, “how much money are you bringing in” and “do you have any medication” got on the Virgin Holidays transport and taken to the hotel.

Checked in, lovely lake view room on the 22nd floor. Went for a drink and shared a hotdog, collected tickets for two of our shows, couldn’t keep our eyes open any longer and headed to bed.

Day 2 Friday 6th Sept
As we were up really early we went to our welcome meeting, we didn’t really learn much as we’ve been before but we got a $25 Planet Hollywood voucher. Then we went for breakfast at Cafe Bellagio via the Conservatory, still got its summer display up and it’s lovely as usual.

After brekkie we had a wander round City Centre and headed back to our room about 3. I’d read on Trip Advisor about The Mix lounge at Mandalay Bay but I wanted it to be a surprise for John so I just told him we needed to be dressed up ish and at Mandalay Bay at 6.30. So we get in the lift which takes us to the 64th floor and the lift is on the outside of the building and its glass (sorry to anyone who knows all this), there’s an outside terrace where you can have a drink with a fantastic view of the strip. Because we were there early enough we could watch the sun set and the strip light up, to anyone who’s not been I would really recommend this. John had a beer and got me a cocktail and as someone who doesn’t drink it went straight to my head as we hadn’t eaten since breakfast, I got very giggly, John then had 3 glasses of red wine… he got giggly too, then we had bite to eat and left before it became “bottle service”.

We then ballet danced (as Johns dad used to say) back to our hotel, we’d had a great night.

I've done this at work during my lunch break, I'll do some more later.

Froggitt

littlemissbossy wrote: »

massive queue at immigration, got asked a couple of questions we haven’t been asked before, “how much money are you bringing in” and “do you have any medication”

That reminds me.......new question we had this summer "Do you have any family in the US"......presumably saying yes increases the risk of overstay, and therefore a more intensive questioning.