We arrived at Caesars early in the morning, so just stowed our bags at the bell desk, took a brief tour of the Caesars casino, and then headed out to walk the strip. I immediately saw Barbary Coast and was like, that's the coolest hotel here. This is when Brian was like, oh you'll love downtown... Because Barbary Coast is distinctly retro and old looking and was what I was envisioning Vegas to be. Don't get be wrong, the rest of the hotels on the strip were AMAZING, but Barbary was just so old and vintage that it made it that cool. We walked through the Bellagio to cross over the street and check out Bally's and then Paris. Paris is awesome, I totally want to stay there next time I go to Vegas, and oh yes, there will be a next time. Then, we walked through Aladdin, Excaliber, and took the tram to Mandalay Bay to have lunch at the Burger Bar, a restaurant we saw on Rachael Ray's Tasty Travels. Gotta Love Rachael Ray. But, much to our dismay, it seemed that it didn't exist any more. So, we headed back on the tram to Luxor and checked out that hotel and ate lunch there instead, at Nathan's Hot Dogs (ya know, the famous Coney Island/NY dogs). Yum. I had never had a Nathan's dog, and it was quite pleasing, I got mine with chili on top. It was sort of like a Olneyville NY System Hot Weiner (all you Rhode Islanders out there know what I'm talking about), but not AS good. Yet, better than any dog I've had in Colorado so far. So, anyways, the chili is like real chili, not like the fine meat sauce you get in Olneyville. Oh well... It was still yummy.
Me in front of Paris:
After our lavish lunch, ;) we walked back to Caesars and grabbed our bags and checked into our room. The room was pretty nice, in one of the older towers, so not the fanciest, but it would do. Took a nice long nap (I think I slept nearly 4 hours!!) and then got up and got ready for a night on the town. We walked down to Treasure Island to catch the Pirate Show before dinner but it was cancelled due to high winds, so we continued over to the Venetian, watched the Gondolas struggle to dock in front of the hotel because of the winds, and then when that excitement wore off, we headed inside and had dinner at the Grand Lux Cafe (Jen will be so proud!). After dinner, we walked down to the New Frontier Casino in hopes of going to Gilley's bar, a bar with a mechanical bull. But, there was a cover charge and a line and the $2 margaritas were calling us at the video poker bar, so we headed over there. After playing video poker for a while (this turned out to be my favorite form of gambling), Brian headed to the blackjack tables and I to the slots. We gambled there for a bit, got some free drinks (I love Vegas) and then left there to head back to Caesars. The walk back was quite painful, as being the dumbass I am, I wore heals that night and my feet were sooooo hurting. But so were Brian's, so I didn't feel as bad walking about .00003 miles an hour down the strip. We finally arrived at Caesars and walked in through the Forum Shops so I could ditch the shoes and barefoot it the rest of the way to the room. We stopped at a bar in Caesars, Cleopatra's Barge, for some awesomely Vegas performance and a drink, and then went to sleep.
Barbary Coast, my fave: ;)
Sunday morning, we slept in and then headed for an afternoon by the pool. The pool at Caesars is really nice and it's even nicer that there are bars next to it and waitresses coming round to your lounge chairs to server you drinks. It was hotter than heck out, and thankfully, was partly cloudy. When the sun came out from behind the clouds, it would get insanely hot and a jump in the pool became necessary. We also were able to catch the end of the World Cup final on the TV at the bar by the pool which was cool and very exciting. After several hours by the pool, some dark clouds started rolling in and it began to rain... So, we headed back to the room to get ready for another night out in Vegas.
Sunday night, we decided to eat in the hotel, so we had a very authentic Japanese dinner at a, you guessed it, Japanese restaurant in the hotel. Then we headed out and decided to go downtown to start out the night. We grabbed a cab and went downtown, starting at one end of Freemont Street. After going into several casinos down there (they are so awesomely old and glittery and retro), it was finally dark and we got to see the huge shows they put on the big TV that spans the whole Freemont Street 'ceiling'. It's hard to describe, so if you don't know what the heck I'm talking about, look at: http://www.vegasexperience.com/. The Casinos in downtown Vegas are much less extravagent, yet have such a charm to them, I couldn't resist. One casino down there even has a microbrewery, so while you're gambling, you can drink free yummy (and potent, I found out first hand) microbrews. I did some more video poker gambling down there... I was addicted because I'm not much of a gambler, and because $5 on a video poker machine would last me hours (and get me lots of free budweisers). Following our downtown experience, we went back to Caesars and had a drink at the Shadow Bar, and then off to bed.
Monday morning, we slept in, got packed up, and checked out of the hotel. With our flight not leaving Vegas until nearly midnight, we stowed our bags and began another marathon walk down the strip to grab some lunch at a New Orleans restaurant in the shops at Aladdin. The entire reason we went there was because they had a lunch special of 25 cent martinis. Can you believe that?? And, the restaurant was pretty fancy and even better was that the food was REALLY good! We got a three course dinner, including beignets, turtle soup, and drank 4 25 cent martinis and had a great time there! After making fun of the lady at the table next to us when she got up and felt all sloshed, we got up from our table and I was feeling exactly the same way! I had a lemon drop martini, a couple chocolate martinis (SOO good), and another lemon drop-like martini with Blue Curacao in it. After lunch, we walked around a bit more, checked out the moving statues in Caesars, drank a refreshing frozen Hurricane, and then stopped in Barbary Coast to watch (and bet on) the Home Run Derby. I decided the very first day in Vegas that I loved the Sports books in all of the hotels. I think Caesar's Sports Book was my fave, but Barbary Coast was less intimidating, so we hung out in there for a while. After watching the majority of the Derby, we headed for dinner at... Burger Bar! Brian saw in a magazine that it DID still exist and was at Mandalay Bay, but in the shopping/mall area of it, not in the actual casino. We arrived there and dined on Kobe beef burgers with bleu cheese and yummy sweet potato fries. It was all very tasty and being that it was accompanied by microbrews, was all the more delicious. Following dinner, we walked back to Caesars, stopping at the Bellagio for a couple of their amazing fountain shows, then grabbing our bags and heading to the airport for our midnight departure.
The entire weekend was so much fun and it was awesome to finally get to Vegas!
Looking down the strip in one direction:
And the other:
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