May 28
I'll spare you the details of the flight to Vegas -- it was four hours long and cramped, as coach usually is. Jules was a trooper for agreeing to sit in the middle seat and agreeing to be crushed on one side by whatever bulk my seat could not contain. In any case, we got off the plan into McCarran International Airport, a beautiful and spacious complex which totally puts Metro to shame. Not surprisingly, since the purpose of Vegas and that airport is to draw people in, to be wonderful and inviting, while Metro exists only because it has to.
We made our way through the terminal towards the National Car Rental desk. There's a program through the University which allowed me free membership to their "Emerald Club," which allows you to bypass their service desk, hop on the shuttle, and then pick any of the cars in the Emerald Aisle! Julie and I were stunned -- the guy on the shuttle just said "Take any one you want." And so we did, a green Chevy Lumina. This information would become important later on.
The great thing about McCarran is that it's mere blocks off the south end of the Strip (that grand drive where most of the major resorts are located) and it took maybe ten minutes for us to end up in front of the Luxor, where we'd be staying. It certainly wasn't hard to find since it's the only GIANT PYRAMID in town. I have to admit to have been overwhelmed -- I certainly knew of what was here, from research and the stories of my folks -- but there we were pulling into the valet parking area near a replica of Cleopatra's Needle, under a giant Sphinx -- and this thing is dwarfed by the giant black-glass pyramid. When you see these kinds of creations by mere mortals (and remember that this is dedicated purely to the leisure of man) it's hard to believe that there's anything we as a race cannot do.
And the inside? As you walk in through the front entrance, you are greeted by giant statues of Egyptian kings or gods, sculptures and heiroglyphics carved into the side of blue fountains. The interior of the Luxor is mostly hollow -- the rooms run along the four sides of the pyramid all the way to the top -- and the main floor at the bottom is filled with the casino, with attractions and shops on the second level. The Egyptian theme dominates without being total kitsch.
We eventually were able to sign in (a wait in line that strangely enough would be the longest one we'd suffer through while here) and then made our way up to our room via one of the four sets of "inclinators" -- which are elevators that run at about a 35-degree angle along the corner edges of the pyramid. The sensation is strange, since the inclinator car look s the same as a normal elevator from the inside save that you are moving both up and towards the side. We were on the tenth floor, and we entered our suite -- I'd arranged for us to have a suite with a hot tub looking out the angled pyramid window.
The room was fabulous. Our windows looked out east towards the front of the casino and the Strip, looking at the Tropicana and MGM Grand. The decor was tastefully Egyptian. Did I mention the hot tub? We checked out the opulence for a while, then realized that we were starving, so we headed down to the attractions level for some grub.
Julie was intrigued by La Salsa, a Mexican restaurant that I believe is a high-end chain (Like Damon's Steakhouse, or Macaroni Grill) -- but that didn't bother us. It was about 3:30 in the afternoon, so there were few other patrons and service was quick and wonderful. The salsa and guacamole were top-notch.
Stuffed, we used some free vouchers the Luxor gave us (on account of it being our honeymoon and all) to walk through the Tut's Tomb Museum. They took great pains to make an authentic recreation of Tut's Tomb when it was entered by Howard Carter back in 1922. The audio was hokey but the walkthrough was interesting -- and lo and behold the exit of the tour ended up in the gift shop! Well, we looked through that gift shop as well as a couple of others on the attraction level, then decided to get the car out of the valet parking and take a drive up the Strip.
The Strip is spectacular, and this was when it was still light out. However, the lanes pare down and change into turn only's without notice, and that compounded with the heavy amount of traffic and lights make it at the very least an hour round trip. That's not horrible, though, considering there's a lot to see around you -- these huge and wonderful buildings and signs everywhere.
We got back to the Luxor before it was dark, so we'd need to save the sights of the Strip and night for later that week. We didn't mind too much, as jetlag was creeping up on us, so we went back to our room and chilled for a while. When we got there, we had voicemail that there was a "gift" coming from Room Service. It took a while, but it eventually showed up -- a bottle of champagne and four very-large triple-chocolate-covered strawberries. By "very large" I mean "the size of racquetballs". There was a note on the cart -- it turns out that this was not a gift from the Luxor, but a gift from my mom and dad ("Welcome to Las Vegas!" read the note). There was nothing left to do then other than fire up the hot tub and enjoy our gift.
Much later that night, while Jules slept, I went down to the casino to try my luck for a bit. I played a little Wheel of Fortune Slots, lost fifty bucks, and then hit for a hundred, and decided to call it a night. I do regret not joining the Player's Club, though, as it would probably help get some comps or discounts the next time through.
May 29
I woke up feeling a little weird from the time change, but full of enthusiasm and ready to explore Vegas. I showered in our suite's very stylish bathroom -- the shower walls were made of some kind of red granite (not sure if it was faux or not) and the soap was full of spicy, aromatic crystals. When we were ready, Jules and I headed down to the lower level where the newly redesigned Pharaoh's Pheast, aka the Luxor Buffet.
They'd designed the buffet room to look like something out of Tomb Raider -- an underground complex full of fake wall carvings, wooden support beams, and the like. The meal wasn't as cheap as our Frommer's guide suggested it would be, but it wasn't ridiculous and there was a good variety of good, filling food.
Afterwords, we took the connected hallway from the Luxor over to the Excalibur to poke around as well as get tickets to the Tournament of Kings that evening. The Excalibur is widely known as the resort for people the bring children to, and I was fearful that it would just be a mess of brats running around, but I think that it being a Tuesday morning in May might have helped to defray some of that. The Excalibur is kitch, not in a horrible way, but still, you can't help but roll your eyes at a lot of fantasy/medieval nonsense going on.
That done, we hiked out for our car in the structure behind the Luxor (a good walk, but not impossible) and made our way around Vegas towards the Hilton.
* * * * *
The Las Vegas Hilton is on the north end of the Strip, and once up this way the sea of humanity thins a bit. The Hilton is there mostly because it's right next door to the Convention Center, and so there's not a lot of tourist traffic. Luckily the Hilton decided to try to do something about that by implementing the Star Trek Experience (STE). Since Julie and I are suckers for that kind of thing, it was the first place we headed. We parked and made our way through the hotel with ease, then entered the STE.
The first thing you see as you enter are giant mock-ups of the various ships of the television shows hanging over the top of a shopping area and eatery. While you can head straight down into there, we headed upwards for the museum and "thrill ride" spectacular. I was a bit worried for a moment that I'd be put into this little car that I wouldn't fit into, but everything worked out. The museum was interesting, with a lot of actual props and such, but there wasn't anything hands-on, and so we walked through pretty quickly.
The ride however was hilarious. There was a cool transporter effect that had supposedly "beamed" us through time and space onto the Enterprise, where actors in Starfleet uniforms took us through some set pieces from the show. Being on the bridge of the Enterprise was very cool, but again, you couldn't go sit in the command chair or anything. The story supposedly involves some renegade Klingons traveling through time to kill one of Captain Picard's ancestors (supposedly you or someone else in the exhibit with you), and we were whisked onto a shuttle where the "thrill ride" portion began. I have to admit that this part was really cool, with first-rate sound and video effects. The ending of it all is one of those "wah-WAH!" things, so I won't spoil it.
Anyways, you are conveniently spit out of this ride at -- the GIFT SHOP! (a running theme in Vegas) and so Jules and I browsed around, picking up some souvenirs, and then eating in Quark's Bar and Restaurant (as this entire area was made up to look like that set from Deep Space Nine. All the meals had funny Star Trek names; I think Julie had The Wrap of Khan, while I had Worf's Caesar Salad or some such. While we were eating, a few Klingons came walking through to entertain/insult people, but when we got out, they'd left and only a Ferengi remained. I did snap a picture of said alien with Jules, though. While it wasn't everything I thought it would be, it was enough of what I hoped.
Our next move was to check out some of the properties on the Strip, and thus we left the Hilton and parked in the Venetian structure to check that place out. All I could say was HOLY CRAP. Talk about opulence -- the interior has reproductions of Sistine Chapel, artwork of all types... the stores and restaurants (Fancy ones at that -- Lutece has a selection there, I believe), the most realistic indoor sky over recreations of Venetian streets and of course the canals and gondolas, complete with singing gondola conductors. The canals were actually clean here, to boot. It was almost overwhelming.
Unfortunately the gondola ride was so popular we would have to have waited about three hours for the ride, and it would have been 40 bucks for Julie and I to get our only gondola alone, so we had to pass. We made our way out front where the facade of the hotel and front bridges/canals was also recreated in Venetian style. It was incredible as well as crazy, in that you could walk about twenty feet past the edge of their property to find a party store.
After taking a pretty good selection of pictures, we then walked across the street to wait for the big Pirate Battle to take place outside of the Treasure Island resort. While we did this we checked out the Siegfreid and Roy Memorial -- basically a giant brass statue of S&R and a white tiger head -- as all three of the subjects gave their Serious Magician Look. (You can't miss this, as it's on all their billboards all over town.)
The Pirate Battle was actually a bit underwhelming -- no giant explosions or anything. We looked around inside the casino a bit, then headed back for the Luxor. I made a quick call home to thank my folks for the gift, and then we went over to Excalibur for the Tournament of Kings.
The ToK is totally cheesy but fun none the less. Your meal (Cornish Game Hen, veggies, potato, etc.) is served without utensils, so you must tear it apart with your bear hands, just like in ye olde days of yore. The show (which I won't totally spoil) involves a show of horsemanship, acrobats, etc. interspersed with some plot concerning Merlin, the king, the evil Dragon Lord, and so such. Good wins out in the end. It was fun in a kooky, eye-rolling way, and some of the special effects were cool. The King of Russia rocks your mother, of course.
We were beat after this and packed it in, as the Grand Canyon awaited in the morning.
May 30
We had to get up at some obscene hour of the morning for our helicopter ride into the Grand Canyon, but when the van came to pick us up outside of the Luxor, the driver told us that mechanical problems had forced us to reschedule for Thursday at 10am. With this, we decided to check out more of the properties on the Strip, and thus we made the hike out to the car.
Now there's plenty of free parking in Vegas, which is weird -- I would have thought that would be a real racket for them to charge for parking. However, most hotels have a parking structure either connected to them or nearby. In the case of the Luxor, it was "nearby". You have to remember that the Luxor is a giant pyramid (with sides 562 feet long) -- our room faced the front of the pyramid, and the parking structure was across the street behind it. So we made the long trek out to the car just in time for me to realize I'd left the car keys in the room. ARGH. We marched all the way back and then to the car again -- That depleted a lot of my walking energy right there. Not a good way to start things out.
That behind us, we drove out onto the Strip and made our way into the Paris parking structure, which was connected to that hotel but still a bit of a hike. While Paris is certainly a nice and awe-inspiring place, I have to admit that compared to the Venetian, it seems to be a cheap knockoff. It has the same style of walking-the-streets-indoors-under-a-painted-on-sky-on-the-ceiling, along with the park benches and mimes and all of that. The Eiffel Tower is impressive, for certain. We did not go up into it, though.
Right next door to Paris is the Aladdin, and so we took a look. Much of this hotel is based toward high-end shopping, but that area is called the Desert Passage, with carvings and buildings made to look like a bazaar of the desert East. Again, it had the indoor-painted-ceiling ala the Venetian, and again, compared to the V it's a poor imitation, but what was cool was that the Aladdin has an indoor "thunderstorm" that was a neat experience. We ate at an Italian place called "Fat Anthony's" while waiting for the next storm -- nothing special here.
The next move may have been a bit of my fault. We went on a Bataan Death March from the Aladdin across the street through the Bellagio, Caesar's Palace, and the Mirage, taking in sights at each. Bellagio I thought to be just a bit *too* posh to be fun. Caesar's Palace was a combination of everything you'd want to do in Vegas -- lots of shopping, restaurants, a kind of throwback to the tacky glitz of the 70's with their casino, another indoor painted ceiling (that actually changed from day to night -- weird). We made it to the Mirage, home of Siegfried and Roy and their white tigers. Unfortunately, the tiger we saw was only about 25% white.
We made our way back to the Dolphin Habitat and Secret Garden. The Garden was closed on this day, but we saw the dolphins nice and close -- pretty neat. After this, we were left with the unenviable task of marching back to the Paris parking structure to get the car -- yikes! My feet were just about dead after that hike. We made it though, and we picked up some water and Slurpees on the way back to the Luxor. I took a long soak in the tub.
That evening we did a little bit of shopping in the Giza Gallery, which is a selection of shops in the Luxor -- most featuring Egyptian-themed items. After picking up a few gifts, we made our way over to the Mandalay Bay resport, which is connected by a enclosed hallway to the Luxor. We had reservations for Red Square, a Russian restaurant, and it took us a little while to find it, but eventually there we were, drinking martinis. (Julie's was sufficiently candy-flavored enough for it to be tolerable. I think hers was lemonade flavored. Mine was like a green-apple Jolly Rancher.) We also had something called "Siberian Nachos" -- some kind of fried wheat tortilla with caviar and smoked salmon. Julie discovered she was not the biggest fan of caviar.
The meal ended up being very good -- I had duck -- and the ambiance of the restaurant was very cool, the premise being pre-fall Soviet Union, with a lot of hammer-and-sickles and propaganda posters on the wall. We saw the bartop, which had a permanent strip of ice to keep your drinks cold, and Red Square in Vegas has the worlds largest/most diverse collection of vodka -- but we didn't remember to get into the walk-in freezer or to wear the fur coat or Red Army officer's jacket.
After dinner we checked out Mandalay Bay a bit more -- actually stopping at some Bali Trading Company store full of gifts/curio, where I bought a wooden cat idol for Jules, and then we caught the tram back to Luxor to check out the pyramid from out front at night.
May 31
Oy, we woke up even earlier than yesterday to meet up with the Papillon (the helicopter tour company) van, but the flight was on, baby! The Helicopter ride was fun -- a little tough on me since I hadn't eaten anything yet, but the views were spectacular -- we flew over Hoover Dam, Lake Mead, gypsum flats, and finally over the west end of the Canyon itself. It only took about forty minutes in the straight-shot from the chopper -- which was the best part, since if Julie and I wanted to drive to Grand Canyon National Park, it would have been about seven hours in one direction.
Papillon has an agreement with the Indian tribe who owns the land on the west end, so we set down on a flat area maybe a hundred feet up from the Colorado river and took a look around. The ground was made up of sun-blasted shards of rock that had fallen from the sides of the canyon wall above, and the merciless sun pushed us to a hundred degrees easily. The view in every direction was incredible -- pure and pristine nature only broken up by the helicopter and the covered picnic area (where we were given a champagne lunch as part of the tour).
It was a short stay, but one I don't think Jules or I will forget any time soon.
When we got back to the Luxor, we napped for a little bit, then got up to hit the buffet one more time. The rest of the day would be a low-impact recovery day, as we soaked in the hot tub for a while. I made reservations for dinner, and when the time came we went down to the casino to kill some time -- and Jules began her winning streak on the slots. (It's probably unfair to call her the Rain Man of slots, but she had much better luck in the end than I did.) We then went to Isis, the premier dining establishment in the Luxor.
This ended up being the most expensive dinner I'd even bought, but I'll be damned if it wasn't the best steak I'd ever had -- huge and tender as anything, cooked just right. Julie was very happy with the surf and turf -- the lobster tail was as big as most regular lobster dinners. It blew away anything else we'd ever had.
We got out of dinner to head down to see the Blue Man Group in the Luxor theatre, and... well, there aren't a lot of good ways to describe the show without doing it injustice -- lets' just say the the combination of music and performance art was strange, weird, and screwy -- but ultimately and fully fun and worth every penny. At one point during the show the entire audience is covered with crepe paper (something that the old lady sitting behind me couldn't stand, but alas...) and while I think that the show is perfect for folks of our age group, anyone should be able to dig it.
After the show, we hopped in the car and made our way down the Vegas Strip, all lit up at night.
June 1
The last day. We packed up and checked out, heading over the Dragon Noodle at the Monte Carlo for some excellent Chinese food, then driving to Red Rock Canyon, west of Vegas. The scenery was wonderful and again, the sun was beating down ferociously. Julie was in her element, though, and we spent a good amount of time checking out the rocks and the beauty around us.
We came back to the Strip to look around and gamble a bit more, then went out front of the Luxor to get a good shot of the property from the front. It was so hot this day that even when the sun went down behind the Luxor just breathing in seemed to be drawing in heated air. We said our goodbyes, dropped off the car, and flew back home...
Where it was 52 degrees outside and raining.
fin