Feeling much better. Went to Vegas this past weekend. Woo hoo! It started out a bit shaky - not quite the flawless trip, but we made it there and back, so all is good.
Flight to Vegas was delayed 3 hours on Thursday. Instead of arriving there at 5:30p, we didn't take off from SFO until 6:30p! Yes, I was very annoyed. Our hotel had arranged for a limo to pick us up (totally unexpected when we initially booked our trip, but greatly appreciated). Checked into a beautiful suite at the Bellagio - but we were so hungry (it was almost 9pm by then), we basically glanced around the room, dumped off our bags and headed to the cafe for a late dinner. After that, I spent the night sitting in front a slot machine. Hee hee...
The next day, we went to the Miracle Mile of shops at Planet Hollywood. Did some shopping, then went back to our hotel to gamble some more. We had a nice dinner at Olives before heading over to the Luxor to watch Criss Angel's Believe.
Let me tell ya - the show sucked. I don't like Criss Angel to begin with, but I wanted to see this show because it's by Cirque du Soleil. The visuals and music of the show are amazing - and I probably will end up buying the soundtrack - but damn, the rest of it (mainly Criss himself) SUCKED!!!
Five minute montage video of clips from the Mindfreak show made it seem like Criss Angel can do anything. Amazing stuff. But that's all. What did he do live on stage? Disappeared and reappeared elsewhere about 5 times. Each time, we could totally see that it was a body double on stage. How could we tell? Bad wigs, and the fact that when it was obvious that there was a switch, the fake Criss would have his back to the audience the entire time. It was stupid. Oh, and of all people, he actually did the pulling doves out of his sleeves trick. Really? This is Criss Angel - Mindfreak???
Every time he "levitated" the dancers would surround him when he 'landed' - obviously to unhook him from wires. STUPID. And he was dumb enough to comment about how people didn't believe he could do all the tricks from his show?
We were lucky that we didn't have to pay for this show. We had freaking awesome seats, but if we had to pay for them, I'd have asked for a refund. I've never heard such tepid applause from the audience of a Cirque show before. The show wasn't fluid at all. No one was even sure that the show was over until the dancers came out to take their bows. I'm still in wonder as to how Cirque could associate their name with this loser.
Anyway...
On Saturday we went to check out Encore and The Palazzo. Beautiful!!! Encore is an extension hotel of the Wynn, with it's own pool, shopping areas, restaurants/bars and casino. The Palazzo is part of the Venetian. It's mainly a large extension of the shopping mall with restaurants and bars. We didn't see the rooms, but both towers are all suites.
Back to our hotel for the rest of the night. Splurged on a fantastic dinner at FIX. More gambling till the AM hours.
Unfortunately, by Sunday, it was time to go. Plane was delayed about 45 minutes, but that was because there were a million planes in line ahead of us.
It's been a long 4 days, but well worth it. Relaxed, ate some really good meals, felt pampered... short vacation, but every little bit helps. Unfortunately, as we all know, it's so easy to get out of a sleeping pattern. I'm used to my head hitting the pillow around 3am... what a disaster trying to sleep last night - and then to wake up at 6:30am this morning... hope I'm tired enough to just conk out tonight.
