Because we loved the traveling in the last couple of weeks so much we decided that we also wanted to go to New York, Paris and Venice. Just kidding, on Tuesday we went to Las Vegas to see all the crazy things around here. I’m so impressed about this town and I like it really much. A lot of people think that Vegas is no city for families with small kids. Sure, you can’t go into the casinos and gamble (no problem for us, saves us quite some money) and also the nightlife in general is not really in the cards. But apart from the things you can’t do there are still enough things that you can do here and that you can have a lot of fun here. It does bug me a little bit that we don’t get to see any show (such as David Copperfield or Cirque de Soleil), but then we’ll just have to do this next time we’re here, then without kids ;). We picked the Holiday Inn Club Vacation as our hotel for the three nights we’re spending here. We have a fully furnished one bedroom apartment with a huge kitchen and also 4 pools close by – just perfect when you’re traveling with two little kids. The hotel is not directly on the strip, but only a few minutes by foot away, just behind the High Roller wheel. And despite what some might say, it is no problem to get to the strip by foot. Just walk along the road, through the casinos and bob’s your uncle. You only have to make sure that you don’t stop in the casinos, as kids are not allowed to be in there. We did not have any problems crossing through (and we walked through a lot of casinos).
On our first day we went to see the famous white tigers and lions from Siegfried and Roy. They also happened to have a few dolphins (we have no idea why, probably because everyone loves dolphins). It was perfect for Nate, as you could get really close to the animals, closer than some zoos. There weren’t many people there so it was possible to get good seats for the dolphin training sessions. We all really liked it there, it’s a neat little spot. After that we went to the Fashion Mall food court to grab some burritos.
Then we went to Venice, aka the Shoppes at the Grand Canal. It’s like Venice, with the St. Mark’s square and the Gondolas, only smaller, underground and without pigeons.
After that we took the Monorail to the Bellagio, on the way we saw the Eiffel Tower at the Paris.
The Bellagio is famous for its water fountain show that takes place every 30 min (evening night it’s even every 15 min). Let’s just say I expected more and I was a little bit disappointed. After 3 minutes the whole thing was over. The show in Dubai in front of the Burj Khalifa was was so much more exciting. After that we went to the M&M’s world. 4 floors full of M&M’s stuff to buy.
Across he street you can find the New York New York Hotel with the Statue of Liberty and a rollercoaster that drives through the hotel.
After all that we went back north again. But we didn’t wanna go back to our apartments just yet. We wanted to see the eruption of the vulcano at the Mirage Hotel. You can see this show every day at 8.00pm and 9.00pm. we already got there at 7.30pm, which was good, cause the sidewalk got pretty crowded with tourists. You have a better view from across the street, so that’s where we went. When it started we were amazed. There was water, steam and fire coming out of the rock. Nate squeaked and screamed the whole time out of excitement. All he said was “Oh wow! Fire!”
He had so much fun and the same goes for us. After it was over went back to our apartment, exhausted but happy about this day.
The next day, we wanted to start things slow. In the morning we went to the Cosmopolitan Hotel to have some brunch at the Wicked Spoon restaurant. If you ever go to Vegas, go there! You can have brunch between 8.00am-5:00pm. It was amazing! They offered so much, that we had no idea where to start. Pretty full we went back to the apartment with the Monorail and enjoyed the refreshing pool. In the evening we spontaneously decided to check out the high roller. (It’s the biggest Ferris wheel in the world). After all it is right across the street and only one block away. So we went there around 8:00pm and saw the huge line in front of us. No way we wanted to stay in line for that long. So we decided to quickly buy the tickets online. Not only could we skip the line, we also saved $10 since we purchased the tickets online. And when we went upstairs to get in one of the cabins, there was no one there. So we got a cabin all to ourselves. (Normally up to 40 people fit in there, most cabins had between 10-20 persons) This was awesome! We enjoyed the 30 minutes trip so much, looking down on all the casinos and hotels. It was indeed the crowning moment for our 2 days here in Las Vegas.
